Florida Cracker

Horses reached Florida with Ponce de Leon's expedition in 1521, and the Cracker descends from what the Spanish left behind. The name comes from the sound of the drovers' whips. The horses were bred for the job those drovers did: gathering scattered cattle in bad footing, over long days, on whatever grazing the woods offered.

They nearly went out with a change in the cattle business. When screwworm eradication in the mid nineteen hundreds ended the constant gathering and inspection of herds, ranchers moved to larger Brahman-cross cattle that needed a larger horse, and the Quarter Horse took the work. A handful of Florida families kept their lines going, and every registered Cracker traces to them.

The rescue was deliberate. The Ayers family donated a herd of pure Cracker stock to the state in 1984, the Florida Cracker Horse Association formed in 1989, and the registry opened in 1991 with foundation horses from long-standing Cracker lines; by 2000 it held 130 foundation horses and 285 descendants. In 2008 the Florida legislature designated the Cracker the state's Heritage Horse.

A small horse: the Florida Cracker Horse Association gives 13.2 to 15.2 hands and 700 to 1,000 pounds. Bay, black and gray are the common colors, with grullo, dun and chestnut also appearing and the occasional roan or pinto.

The gaits are the point. Beyond the standard walk, trot, canter and gallop, many Crackers have a running walk and an amble, locally called the coon rack. The profile is straight or slightly concave, the back strong, the croup sloping: a Spanish-style horse, because that is what it is.

Spirited and willing is how the University of Florida's extension service describes them, along with intelligent and quick: small saddle horses with a strong herding instinct and great agility over rough ground.

Florida's agriculture department notes that they can be trained for every riding discipline.

Cattle work was the job for four hundred years, and some Crackers still do it: working cow horse, team roping and team penning all suit them.

The bigger modern market is the trail. Their stamina and natural gaits made them trail and endurance horses.

Florida's conditions helped shape them. The University of Florida's extension service calls them hardy horses that adapted well to the harsh Florida environment, and the state agriculture department records that during the Civil War, Florida's Spanish horses traveled through rough conditions where other horses failed.

Oklahoma State University's breed reference says the gaits come without special shoeing, often even barefoot.

The Livestock Conservancy counts the breed critically endangered: fewer than 2,000 horses globally and under 200 US registrations a year. The Equus Survival Trust estimates 100 to 300 active breeding mares.

The association now counts over 1,000 registered horses, up from 130 foundation horses and 285 descendants in 2000, which is progress and still a very small book. Every registered Cracker traces to the handful of family and state herds that survived the Quarter Horse years.

The trade is size and gait. A fourteen-hand horse is not a mount for a heavy rider, and a naturally gaited horse is the wrong starting point if you are training for a trotting discipline.

Registration runs through the Florida Cracker Horse Association in Tallahassee, and with a book this small the papers matter: they are what separates a Cracker from a small grade horse of similar look. Ask which foundation line the horse traces to.

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