Colonial Spanish

The spread was fast. Cortes established a breeding herd in Mexico in 1525, horses reached Florida and South America through the 1530s, and by 1553 an estimated ten thousand ran free in Mexico alone.

Between 1750 and 1850 they were everywhere. By 1950 the pure Spanish horse was nearly gone in North America, crossed into or replaced by Thoroughbreds, other riding breeds and drafts. What survived did so in three places: traditional ranches, Native American tribes, and isolated free-ranging herds nobody had reached.

Conservation programs were built from those remnants, and the surviving strains each carry their own name and history. This catalog lists several separately, including the Banker, the Marsh Tacky and the Florida Cracker horse, alongside the Baca-Chica, Choctaw, Santa Cruz, Sulphur and Wilbur-Cruce lines.

The type is compact: 13.2 to 15 hands, with 14 about average, and 700 to 900 pounds. The marks of the family are a broad forehead over a narrow face, a sloping croup, and small, upright hooves.

Color is wide open, from solid colors to paints, grullos and Appaloosa-type patterns. Many strains are gaited, and the stride is unusually long for the size.

The Livestock Conservancy calls the disposition even and gentle and rates the group as suitable for novices. These are horses that form a strong bond with one owner.

Strain and upbringing matter, though: some lines have been ranch and family horses for generations, others run feral until gathered. Ask how the individual was raised.

Endurance is the headline use: the stamina that let them cross a continent is still in them. The rest of the list is pleasure riding, hunting, driving and ranch work.

Four states have put a Colonial Spanish strain in law as a state horse: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Oklahoma.

The Conservancy describes a tough, strong breed with small, upright hooves, and it recognizes the regional adaptations of the individual strains as important. Ask what ground and climate the strain you are buying comes from.

The group is listed as critical on The Livestock Conservancy's Conservation Priority List, and it holds that status even though numbers have grown, because the population is split into small strains that each need their own breeders.

The strains are the unit of conservation. Losing one loses bloodlines three centuries deep, which is why this catalog lists them separately and why the strain name on the papers matters.

That matters when you buy. Ask which strain an animal belongs to and who registers it, because "Colonial Spanish" on its own does not tell you much.

The strains keep their own registries and associations. Get the registration number and confirm it with the registrar before you bid.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.