Rocky Mountain

Kentucky sat where Spanish horses coming up from the South met English horses coming from the East, and that combination produced every gaited breed developed in the United States, the American Saddlebred and the Tennessee Walking Horse among them. The Spanish side probably supplied the gait. The horses that became the breed were shaped on the limestone plateau and in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, where an animal had to be sure-footed, rugged, versatile, easy to keep and calm about it.

In the 1890s a stallion was brought into eastern Kentucky from out west. Oral history describes him as chocolate with a flaxen mane and tail, carrying a smooth four-beat lateral gait. Local people called him the Rocky Mountain horse. He was bred to mares within a small area, and the strain that came out of it kept the name.

The patriarch of the modern breed was Old Tobe, owned by Sam Tuttle of Spout Springs. Tuttle kept his program going through the Depression and the Second World War, and used Old Tobe on trail rides at Natural Bridge State Park until the stallion was 34; he died at 37. The Rocky Mountain Horse Association was founded in 1986 by Rea Swan with 26 horses in the book. By 2015 it had registered over 25,000 in 47 states and 11 countries.

The Conservancy gives 14.2 to 15.2 hands and 850 to 1,000 pounds; the association's range runs to 16 hands. Any solid color registers, and spotted horses do not.

The signature look, chocolate with a flaxen mane and tail, is the silver dapple gene acting on a black coat. It is a color, not a requirement.

The single-foot is the selling point: a natural four-beat gait that covers rough ground at around 7 miles an hour and smooth ground at up to 16. Gaited means natural gaits beyond the walk, trot and canter, all easier on a rider than a trot.

Docile, rates the Conservancy: a good family horse whose easy ride suits riders who need one. The breed is valued by older and disabled riders for exactly that reason.

Novice is the experience rating. They were bred to be used by farm families in the mountains, and it shows.

Trail riding first, then endurance, dressage, jumping, barrel racing and cattle work. The International Rocky Mountain Horse Show runs each September at the Kentucky Horse Park.

They winter well. Mountain hardiness is a breed trait, which is part of why they became the all-purpose farm horse of eastern Kentucky.

Grass and hay, mostly. The Rocky Mountain Horse Association says most are easy keepers: many owners seldom feed grain when there is good pasture, and feed local hay through the winter or where pasture is short. Watch the weight and adjust.

Some go without shoes, depending on the ground and how they are ridden, and with routine veterinary care it is not unusual for a Rocky to live into its thirties.

Training still matters. The association is plain that Rockies are not born broken: they have to learn to control the flight reflex, and it recommends an experienced trainer if you are not experienced yourself.

UC Davis's Veterinary Genetics Laboratory also lists the breed among those appropriate for PSSM1 testing, an inherited muscle disease managed through diet and exercise.

The Livestock Conservancy lists the Rocky Mountain Horse as Threatened, a category that reflects the active breeding population rather than the cumulative count of 25,000 registrations.

The closely related Mountain Pleasure Horse is a separate breed with its own association, and the two histories are tangled in the same Kentucky counties.

Registration is not automatic. The association DNA-verifies parentage and inspects a horse for type and gait after 23 months, so a young foal is not yet a fully registered Rocky Mountain Horse. Ask where the horse is in that process.

Ask about eyes. The breed carries the highest risk of any for multiple congenital ocular anomalies, an inherited condition research links to the same silver dapple gene behind the chocolate coat. An eye exam is a reasonable pre-purchase request.

And ride the gait. Chocolate and flaxen is a color; the single-foot is the breed. The inspection is meant to guarantee it, but the horse under you is the evidence.

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