Rocky Mounatin Horses are all descended from a stallion called Old Tobe (on
various mares of course!) from the MOuntain Pleasure horse breed. They are
most often silver dapple (in english they are Chocolate palomino) in
coloring and some of the MOST trainable horses I have ever been around. I
was a farrier student at KY HOrseshoeing SChool a feww years ago and an
older man ( A Mr. Hall who owns Miss Kitts something or other who was a
National RMH champ mare) came by with a young stallion that he needed to
have shod correctly. Well, the way this place works is people drop off
horses to be shod and come by at the end of the day to pick them up. And we
get a lot of horses that people REALLy don't wnat to deal with. ASo you can
imagine the different types of noise we get int here. This particualr day
there were several mares in heat in there among others. AT any rate, this 2
year old stallion was pulled off the trailer, tacked up and RIDDEN up and
down so we could see how he went to help him out. He had just been green
broke according to this man- by HIM. I couldn't beleive it. The stallion was
a DOLL in every sense of the word ALL day long. NOt one peep from him, or
buck or turned ear- I mean NOTHING. Easy to shoe... I was SO impressed I
asked the guy for literature on the horses an d went and visited his farm
after Ig ot out of school. He showed me all his horses (this was an
impromptu visit BTW) and his wonderful mare (she had conformation to die
for!) and made all of the stallions, one by one, lay down on command for me.
They would stay down until he said get up. These horses are reknowned for
their tough feet and the easy gaits they have. They are shown naturally (at
least they were as of se eral years ago) and I was really hoping to sometime
cross a RMH with an Arab for a super endurance horse. Old Tobe was a horse
that had been a trail guide animal for most of his life through the Rocky
mOuntains and was known for his gentleness and willingness to take on
children, women and everything else without a fuss.
There is a Mountain HOrse Pleasure breed (I may have this one mixed up some)
that is a larger horse (RMHs can be any size I think) and may not have as
many silver dapple genes running around. But they have similar
characteristics from what I saw this year at the HOrse Festival here in VA.
I saw several of these babies in the ring for the first time,a nd they never
seemed to mind the other horses or act up.
As of a few years ago there were only about 2000 RMHs in existence- the only
flaws I saw in these particular horses: Some were exceptional, but those
that werent't had calf knees or tiedin tendons and a shorter hip than should
have been. They also had pretty heads- not dished, but rather like Haflinger
pony heads... nice but not heavy.
MOst had wonderful shoulders and good straight legs, and I didn't see any
sickle hocks in the ads I was looking at or in this man's horses.
Anyway, I hope this helps , and I would be happy to try and find this guy's
name for you- he was very nice. He is in Lexington KY.
At 01:02 PM 1/3/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Are you guys getting sick of me yet?
>
>Anyways, I have just met someone through other channels that raises a
>significant number of Rocky Mountain Horses. I have never heard of the
>breed.
>
>Could someone tell me what they originate from and what they are used
>for? It is interesting that this breeding farm is located on the east
>coast and not the Rocky Mountains.
>
>Tish Stoots
>Bozeman, MT
>
>
Gwen Dluehosh
Desert Storm Arabians
1156 Hightop Rd, #89
Blacksburg, VA 24060
540/953-1792