Pony preservation

By Hannah Wever
Review Staff Writer

Published: August 7, 2008

The Choctaw Indian horse has all but disappeared from the American west, but the endangered breed is gaining in numbers right here in Orange County.
Rapidan residents Jamie and Mary McConnell are helping preserve descendants of horses first introduced to America by Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century.
According to Mary McConnell, these horses are an integral part of American Indian culture and history, and throughout American history, suffered the same struggles and trials as the Indians who carefully bred and used them.
“After the Spanish came to America with their horses, the horse got established as part of the Indian tribes through trading,” McConnell said. “The southeastern tribes became known as really good horsemen.”
Those tribes, the Choctaw, Huasteca and Cherokee in particular, carefully and selectively bred their horses to become outstandingly strong, gentle and healthy.
But in the mid 19th century, the U.S. Government began resettling Indian tribes in western territories. The Choctaws of Mississippi, and other tribes from the southeast, were forced to relocate to Oklahoma. On the trip west, a forced march that became known as the Trail of Tears, thousands of Choctaw died, and so did their horses. Later government-led initiatives intentionally claimed the lives of many more Choctaw horses, when mass-extermination of the breed was carried out during tick eradication programs, and Bureau of Land Management policies.
“There used to be thousands of these horses,” McConnell said. But as a means to control Indian tribes, she explained, the government systematically killed the horses which the Indians prized and depended upon.
Currently, the number of pure bred Choctaw horses is believed to be less than 500.
The McConnells first learned of the breed through their participation with the American Breeds Livestock Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization working to conserve historic breeds and genetic diversity in livestock. At a conservancy meeting, the Orange County couple met Oklahoman Bryan Rickman, who has devoted his life to preserving the Indian horses. Rickman explained that Oklahoma grazing lands, leased by ranchers from massive paper-milling companies were being reclaimed; the rare horses would soon lose that land where they had been breeding and grazing.
Rickman had moved the horses from the paper company-owned land to his own farm. The horses, accustomed to living on 150 square miles, were now cramped into just under 200 acres, McConnell said. Under the stress of moving and adjusting to a smaller territory, the bands of Indian horses were suffering.
The McConnells brought a small herd back to their 1,500-acre Orange County farm to establish their own conservation breeding program.
“The history does matter to us,” McConnell said-her own grandmother was a Choctaw Indian. “But what really matters is that they’re such great animals.”
Through careful breeding, Indian horsemen for hundreds of years developed a horse with amazing endurance to carry hunting parties on long trips. Breeders chose selectively to develop a horse with strong, hard feet that could withstand rough, rocky terrain. Indian horsemen bred for generations to achieve an animal that could sustain itself on wide open prairies and hills.
And while the breed was refined to accentuate physical characteristics, Indian horsemen were careful to develop a breed with a calm, gentle, and human-friendly disposition.
“They’ve clearly selected for a natural affiliation with people,” Jamie McConnell said. Indian horses roamed free, near the tribe but without fences, for 500 years, he added.
The McConnells are just beginning work with the first Indian horses they brought to Virginia last summer. Through gentle training, they hope to use the horses in field trials, where setters and pointers are tested on their birding skills. Dog handlers ride out while a dog works the course, under the watch of judges.
McConnell said these Indian horses are a natural for the role of a handler’s mount during a field trial. Their calm, gentle demeanor and innate unflappability are prized traits as dogs scare fowl up from the bushes. (Try that on a Thoroughbred or an Arabian, McConnell teases).
There are younger Indian horses on the McConnell’s farm, too, not yet in training for a career in field trials.
“We took a group (of horses) recently because of the stress on them of losing the lease out west,” McConnell said. And in September, a group of foals will arrive.
Among the newer arrivals, it is immediately evident that the animals have suffered. They’re far from emaciated, but these newcomers’ coats don’t have the bloom of the McConnell’s first group of horses. The newer Indian horses’ brightly colored hides are stretched over their hips and ribs.
“They’re still skinny because they were so stressed from coming off the mountain,” McConnell explained.
Once the new herd has recovered from the stress of the trip to Virginia, when the horses are sleek and fat and happy, the McConnells plan to begin breeding.
“There were so few left,” McConnell said. “But the population is coming back.”