As for the Appies--let's have some frank discussion
of history here. Yes, the Appaloosa as was bred by the Nez Perce was a
darn good horse. The US Army certainly recognized that fact when they
declared that the Nez Perce horses were an instrument of war and thus could be
destroyed or dispersed according to US military protocol for such things.
After the Nez Perce were captured, virtually ALL male horses were gelded.
ALL mares were dispersed. Consequently, the Appaloosa as was bred by the
Nez Perce was prevented from breeding on as a breed. It was 60 years
before people got together to try to gather up the remnants of the Nez Perce
horses and start any sort of comprehensive breeding program. Do the
math--what was left were a few horses with a few characteristics of the Nez
Perce horses, but which had undergone a MINIMUM of three generations of
outcrossing (and more likely 5 or 6 generations or more), so that the
HIGHEST amount of Nez Perce Appy in any of them was about 1/8, or 12.5%,
and in most cases was far less. And no amount of breeding those horses to
each other can raise that percentage. So while the Nez Perce story is very
touching, and while they were pretty savvy horse breeders in their own right, to
say that the modern Appaloosa is the same "breed" that the Indians bred is not
accurate. To give credit where credit is due, some of the early founders
of the Appaloosa breed as we know it today at least tried to duplicate the TYPE
of horses that the Nez Perce bred--tough, wiry, agile, etc.--and to do so, they
brought in--you guessed it--Arabs. Claude Thompson was one of the more
notable Appaloosa breeders of the time, and one of the horses that he used very
heavily was a stallion named Ferras, who was by the imported Crabbet stallion
*Ferdin and out of the imported Crabbet mare *Rasima. Several other Arabs
were used, both stallions and mares, and most were of similar early American
breeding. And these horses, along with yet more grade horses and an
occasional horse of TB or Morgan ancestry crossed with what horses could be
found that still showed Appaloosa traits, basically founded the modern Appaloosa
breed. Eventually the Appaloosa book was closed to outcrosses of grade
horses, but even to this day, outcrosses to specific other breeds are
allowed--specifically the Arab, the TB, and the QH--and can't remember, but I
think maybe still the Morgan. (Someone with more current information than
mine may be able to tell us about that.) Enter the show scene, and the
desire to make the Appaloosa into a stock breed for the show ring--and a great
many modern Appaloosas are now virtually QH's with spots. Same thing on
the race track--many there are either high percentage TB or high percentage QH
with spots. Are these horses that one would normally choose for endurance
prospects? Well, some of the racing Appies maybe, but the showring QH type
Appies, probably not. On the other hand, a few people have continued to
breed either more traditional Appies (from the early Claude Thompson sorts of
horses that were Foundation/Arab crosses, in essence) or Ara-Apps, with more
recent crosses to Arabs. Are some of these pretty terrific for
endurance? You betcha!