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Temperament is part of the breed standard. Their calm, sensible nature, doubtless derived from the Draft Horse component used in creating the breed, makes them naturally personable, easy to handle and a joy to be around. These horses love their people and we love everything about them. That is why we are breeding are Gypsy Vanner Horses.
Although we have always owned and enjoyed horses we had not breed many of them. Instead we turned our breeding efforts to llamas for the past 27 years. (They can be viewed at sharpllamas.com) We are excited to bring our experience and passion as breeders to this amazing breed of horse.
Superior Stables is a family affair. All of our children grew up on the ranch. Our daughter Kate is especially passionate about our animals. She helped to select our horses. She grooms, trains and shows them and is learning to drive them. She took most of the photos for our web site which she designed, helped to build and serves as web master for.
We discovered Gypsy Vanners while on a trip east to visit friends from the llama industry in Georgia . From beautiful Bell Reid Farm we went to Florida where we visited Dennis and Lynn Thompson at Gypsy Gold. We were completely smitten.
As we began to select our breeding stock we discovered that there was debate, sometimes heated, about what to call these horses. According to friends in both the US and UK, the “van” portion of the Gypsy Vanners’ name is based on the original purpose for which they were bred and indicates their quality as breeding stock. The nomadic originators of the breed needed a small draft horse to pull the family home, the vardo or van. Only the most reliable and best quality of the Gypsy family’s Cob horses was chosen for this task. The quality of their horse and vardo represented their wealth as well. It is widely known that “a Gypsy’s gold does not shine in the sun it neighs in the dark”.
We decided to keep our own program’s direction close to what we observed as the direction being taken by the breeders we visited in the UK . Some day we hope to be an additional source of breeding stock for them. Intending to be neither elitist nor exclusionary, we are proud breeders of Gypsy Vanner Horses. We think that championing the right name is far less important to the breed than having a clear vision of what it is.
Our mission is: To breed and sell only the best Gypsy Vanner Horses.
To keep our horses healthy and happy.
To train them and show them so they can represent their breed to the best of their ability.
To educate anyone who will listen about the Gypsy Vanner Horse
We call our company Superior Stables and add “not a boast… a promise”.
To begin our herd we purchased an embryo from Gypsy Gold. Doug selected a Rose baby sired by B.B. King. That cross had not been done before and was not repeated in 2006. We did not know how well he had done until Kralisi was born.
At the same time we saw a photo of V.V. Violetta. One look at her baby photo, taken by Mark J. Barret, next to her dam Tessa and we knew she was what we were looking for. We appreciated her compact shape and her amazing presence.
Apple was the next horse we purchased. She is a very good horse. She has a very pretty, athletic build and is the friendliest horse. Apple loves her people and complains when we go in the house without her.
Our unicorn mare Bobbi was followed by the amazing Romana. Then The Irish Black Faced Mare, Irish, joined the herd. Like potato chips we could not have just one.
Several stallions eventually caught our eye. Knowing that in a breeding program your stallion is “half your herd”, we decided we had better go to the UK ourselves to find right one for us. We are proud to have acquired both The Hustler and The Heavy Horse of Wales, AKA Teddy, as our foundation stallions. The Blue Eyed Mare, “Be”, just had to come home with us too.
We had 4 beautiful foals in 2007 and we are going to England again in 2008. I am sure our herd will grow and we will have more great horses to offer you.
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