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The Cayuse Indian Pony and the Chickasaw Indian pony are two
strains which stem from the earliest imports to the Americas of Iberian and
Barb horses. The Cayuse Indian Pony was bred specifically to produce a
hardy, strong pony with great speed. It has inherited the Iberian's noble
manner and probably also has genetic links to the Missouri Fox Trotter.
It was the wild
horses that became the symbol of what the West stood for, with all its
cattle drives, shootouts, and US Cavalry in all its glory - the wild horse,
with its freedom, stamina, and endurance. The Cayuse Indian Pony is one of
the little-known horses that existed in that time period. The ponies raised
and ridden by the American Indians were often referred to as "cayuse"
ponies. This originated in the 1800s. The Cayuse Indian Pony's conformation
and background set it apart from the common mustang and other such wild
horses.
The small, stocky Cayuse Indian Pony sports high withers and a long cannon
bone. It's distinctly slope pastern gives it a rather broken walking gait;
however, younger children find this extremely pleasant and easy to ride. The
Cayuse Indian pony has been immortalized in many sketches by Frederic
Remington, an artist famous for his representation of the Old West. He
described this pony breed as "generally roan in color, with always a
tendency this way, no matter how slight." He said that his subjects were
heavily muscled, and though only standing around 14 hands high, were very
powerful.
The history of this breed is faded and very hard to trace. It has been
widely accepted that the pony descended from the French-Norman horses that
were imported into Canada in the 1600s. Most of those horses were
Percherons, which the local Canadians used to improve their breeds. The
French Canadians brought their horses in American territory years later; it
has been said that they bartered their horses in St. Louis with the Pawnee
Indians, who proceeded to take the horses farther west. The Indians then
crossed the French horses with the Spanish Barb, a lighter breed. This in
turn tended to produce a horse that was fast and could endure a lot.
Around the 1800s the Cayuse Indian Pony became a breed of
its own. The Cayuse Indians, known throughout the Northwest for their
incredible horsemanship, further developed this breed through selective
breeding. They were able to produce some very colorful horses, due to the
tendency of the French horse to pass on spots and a profusion of white
markings. The Appaloosa, Paint, and Pinto horses have all been greatly
influenced by the blood of the Cayuse Indian Pony.
Sadly, today only a handful of these horses even exist;
they are seldom seen outside California. Jeff Edwards, the co-founder of the
Wild Horse Research Center in Porterville, California, has been trying to
rebuild the breed and protect it from extinction. Despite his efforts,
however, over 100 Cayuse Indian ponies were lost a couple of years ago, when
their pasture land was sprayed with a toxic herbicide. The Research Center
is optimistic about the breed's recovery, though. They recently donated a
Cayuse Indian Pony to the Kentucky Horse Park (in Lexington), hoping that
more people would discover the saga of this unique, vitally important horse.
In addition, they work carefully with a small bunch at the farm and wait
anxiously for the crop of spring foals each year.
The Cayuse Indian Pony has been accepted as one of the
registrars of the "Horse of the Americas" breeds. Jeff Edwards determined
the purity of each and every horse based on their physical characteristics
and charts that were extensively researched by the Wild Horse Research
Center. The Center has established a registry for wild horses and ponies
that possess Barb blood, thereby rendering the Cayuse Indian pony one of the
accepted breeds.
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