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North American Colonial Spanish Horse
D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD – Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine – Virginia Tech
Introduction
Colonial Spanish Horses are of great historic importance in the New World, and are one of only a very few genetically unique horse breeds worldwide. They have both local and global importance for genetic conservation. They are sensible, capable mounts that have for too long been relegated a very peripheral role in North American horse breeding and horse using. The combination of great beauty, athletic ability, and historic importance makes this breed a very significant part of our heritage.
Colonial Spanish Horses are rarely referred to by this name. The usual term that is used in North America is Spanish Mustang. The term “mustang ” carries with it the unfortunate connotation of any feral horse, so that this term serves poorly in several regards. Many Colonial Spanish Horses have never had a feral background, but are instead the result of centuries of careful breeding. Also, only a very small minority of feral horses (mustangs) in North America qualify as being Spanish in type and breeding.
The important part of the background of the Colonial Spanis Hores is that they are indeed Spanish. These are descendants of the horses that were brought to the New World by the Conquistadors, and include some feral, some rancher, some mission, and some native American strains. Colonial Spanish type is very rare among modern feral mustangs, and the modern Bureau of Land Management (BLM) mustangs should not be confused with Colonial Spanish Horses, as the two are very distinct with only a few exceptions to this rule.
They descend from horses introduced from southern Spain, and possibly North Africa, during the period of the conquest of the New World. In the New World this colonial resource has become differentiated into a number of breeds, and the North American representatives are only one of many such breeds throughout the Americans. These horses are a direct remnant of the horses of the Golden Age of Spain, which type is now mostly or wholly extinct in Spain. The Colonial Spanish Horses are therefore a treasure chest of genetic wealth from a time long gone. In addition, they are capable and durable mounts for a wide variety of equine pursuits in North America, and their abilities have been vastly undervalued for most of the 1900s.
These are beautiful and capable horses from a genetic pool that affected horse breeding throughout the world five centuries ago, yet today they have become quite rare and undervalued.
Conformation, Type, and Colors in North America
The Colonial Spanish Horse is generally a small horse, although size is increasing with improved nutrition and some selection among breeders. The usual height is around 14 hands (56 inches, 140cm), and most vary from 13 to 14.2 hands. Some exceptional horses are up t 15 hands high or slightly more. Weight varies with height, but most are around 700 to 800 pounds.
Distinctive conformational features include heads which generally have straight to concave (rarely slightly convex) foreheads and a nose which is straight or slightly convex. Some convexity is the classic Spanish type head, in contrast to the straighter nasal profile of most other breed types. The heads are somewhat between long, finely made heads to shorter, deeper heads. Both are typical of North American Colonial Spanish Horses.
From a front view the cranial portions of the head are wide, but the facial portions are narrow and fine. The muzzle is usually very fine, and from the side the upper lip is usually longer than the lower, although the teeth meet evenly. Nostrils are usually small and crescent shaped when the horses are resting and at ease, but do flare with alertness or exertion.
The horses typically have narrow but deep chests, with the front legs leaving the body fairly close together. It is difficult to describe this aspect of conformation without making it sound defective, when in actuality it is a strong, serviceable conformation. Deep but narrow conformation provides for lung capacity but also for cooling ability which is an important component of endurance.
When viewed from the front, the front legs join the chest in an “A” shape rather than straight across as in most other modern breeds that have wider chests. The chest is deep from the side view, and usually accounts for about half of the height of the horse from the ground to the withers. The shoulder is long and well angulated.
The withers are usually sharp instead of low and meaty. The croup is sloped, and the tail is characteristically set low on the body. The rear quarters vary from fairly a massive and heavily muscled to a more slenderly built and less excessively muscled conformation.
From the side there is usually a break in the curve of the hind quarter somewhere in the area of the base of the tail, rather than the full even curve of the Quarter Horse from top of croup to gaskin. From the rear view they are usually “rafter hipped” meaning that there is no distinct crease at the backbone, but rather the muscling of the it tapers up so the backbone is the highest point.
The muscling is characteristically long and tapering, even in the heavily muscled individuals, rather than the short and bunchy muscling characteristic of bulldog Quarter Horses and draft breeds. Leg conformation is generally sound and serviceable, with ample angles in the joints and strong, harmonious relationships between the lengths of the varying parts of the limbs. Hooves are small and upright rather than flat. The chestnuts (especially rear ones) and ergots are small or missing altogether.
These horses usually have a very long stride, and many of them have gaits other than the usual trot of most breeds. These other gaits can include a running walk, single foot, amble, pace, and the paso gaits of other more southerly Spanish strains (Peruvian Paso and Paso Fino). These gaits refer to the pattern of the footfall, and not to any sideward tendency of the path of the foot. It is important to not confuse the pattern of footfalls with this lateral motion. While both are typical of some of the Paso breeds, only the pattern of footfalls is the actual gait.
It is widely held in some circles that North American Colonial Spanish Horses consistently have only five lumbar vertebrae. Research on Barbas, Criollos, Thoroughbreds, and Arabians in Argentina suggests that the Colonial Spanish Horses are more likely to have five than are most other breeds, but that a substantial number of pure Colonial Spanish Horses also have six lumbar vertebrae. In addition, horses of other breeds do indeed occasionally have five lumbar vertebrae. Regardless of the number of vertebrae, they do usually have short, strong backs.
Another subtle distinction of Colonial Spanish Horses is a tendency for the cannon bones to be more round in cross section, as opposed to the usual shape of most horses where the posterior surface is flat. Subtle characteristic differences are also present in the first vertebra (atlas) whose wings are more lobed in Spanish horses as opposed to semi-circular in most other breeds. This difference apparently does not led to any difference in function of this important area of the horse’s anatomy.
Color Variation
Colors of the Colonial Spanish Horse vary widely, and it is through the Spanish influence that many other North American horse breeds gain some of their distinctive colors. Colonial Spanish Horses come in a range of solid colors including black, bay, brown, chestnut, sorrel, grullo, zebra dun, red dun, buckskin, palomino, and cream. Other solid colors such as the champagne colors, and even silver dapple, occur rarely. It is consistent among most populations of these horses that black and colors derived from it are relatively common. This contrasts with the relative rarity of these colors in horses of Arabian or Thoroughbred breeding.
In many horses these base colors are combined with white hairs or patches to result in gray, roan, paint (tobiano, overo, and sabino types), pure white, and the leopard complex of blankets, roans, and dark spots usually associated with the Appaloosa breed. The frame overo pattern is especially interesting, since it is almost entirely limited to North American Colonial Spanish Horses or their descendants. From that origin the color pattern has spread to other regions and breeds, but all evidence points to its being a Spanish pattern originally. Different breeders select for several of these colors and patterns, but all can be shown to have been present in the Spanish horses at the time of the conquest and they are all part of the heritage of this horse.
Various people have occasionally focused attention on color to the detriment of the whole breed package involved in the Colonial Spanish Horse. Some colors are controversial, either in a positive or a negative direction.
Linebacked duns (zebra, red, and grullo) are frequently associated with Colonial Spanish Horses, largely because these colors do indeed betray a Spanish connection in Western North American horses. These colors are very widespread, though, in pony and some draft breeds throughout Europe and Asia, and so are by themselves not an accurate predictor of Spanish breeding in horses. They are attractive colors, and common in Colonial Spanish Horses, but are a very inaccurate indicator of relative purity of breeding.
Some people insist that solid colored (those lacking white marks) zebra duns and grullos are a throwback to Sorraia type breeding. These are sometimes attributed special significance as the Sorraia is considered by some to be a primitive foundation for all Iberian horses. The status and role of the Sorraia is controversial, however, and individual zebra dun and grullo horses do indeed segregate from herds of very mixed colors. The resulting solid colored duns and grullos are no more nor less Spanish in breeding than are their siblings of other colors.
The leopard complex of patterns, usually associated with the Appaloosa breed, and these patterns are not controversial as a part of the array of colors of North American Colonial Spanish Horses. They are, however, very controversial in South American populations where they are generally considered to betray outside breeding. Very few detailed descriptions of early imported horses are available, although some few that are available are certainly consistent with leapord complex patterns.
Several foundation horses in many of the North American registries sported these patterns, and were considered to be of typical Colonial Spanish conformation by those that began this conservation work.
The presence of these in North American populations while absent in South American populations is not necessarily a reflection of relative purity, as the two continents received slightly different foundation stock during the early importations.
Tobiano spotting has long been controversial in both North and South America. Roberto Dowdall presents anecdotal evidence that this pattern existed in Argentina, if rarely, before Tobias arrived in Buenos Aires on is tobianos with Northern European breeding. In addition, the artists Remington and Russell both portray a few (very few) tobianos in among other more typical colors and patterns for Colonial Spanish Horses. Absolute proof of the authenticity of this pattern will always be lacking, although it is accepted by several North and South American registries, and shunned by others.
Type and Conformation Related to Other Cousin Breeds Worldwide
Various registries have had an important role in conserving Colonial Spanish Horses. They have focused their breeding on specific type of horses, which is the type described above. This type varies somewhat from the rangier, more lightly built individuals to others that are more compactly and more heavily made, but the range is fairly narrow between these two types and the entire range is very distinct from other common breeds in North America.
The original Spanish type was probably more variable, including some horses with higher set tails, broader chests, and rounder conformation generally. Conformation details do indeed vary among the several horse breeds throughout the Americas that descend from the Colonial Spanish Horses.The range of variability in the type of breeds of Spanish descent calls into question what is truly Spanish type in Colonial Spanish Horses. Certainly it is wise for the registries to limit the range of allowable types in order to produce consistent, predictable horses. It is equally important to recognize that some horses that are considered outside the newly found purely bred Spanish Colonial Horse herds may be more variable than the present horses in the registries. The registries then usually accept only some and not all of the horses from these herds, although the horses may indeed all be of purely Spanish breeding.
The reasons for the registries not accepting some of what might in act be Spanish types are based in the history of the conservation of Colonial Spanish Horses in North America. These horses were originally saved as a small minority of horses in the midst of a large population of horses based on Spanish breeding but then deliberately crossed with draft, Thoroughbred, Morgan, and other types derived from northern European breeding. The range of Spanish types that are likely to be refused registry cannot really be told externally from other types, such as horses with Quarter Horse or Thoroughbred ancestry. Even though some horses with such an appearance may be purely Spanish, they do pose a much greater risk of introducing outside genetic influence than do those horses of the more uniquely Spanish types that cannot be confused with these other breed influences.
By concentrating on the most unique of the Spanish types the registries have also assured that this rare genetic resource has been conserved with minimal contamination. The registries are to be commended on their foresight for saving the most unique of the Spanish phenotypes, even if in the process some pure horses were left out. In addition this strategy has provided for keeping the Colonial Spanish Horses distinctive and recognizable from other breeds – which offers horse owners a real choice rather than just another brand name for something similar to other breeds available.
Blood Types and DNA Types
Recent advances in blood typing and DNA typing have held out promise for a non-subjective approach to deciding if candidate populations (or individual horses) are Spanish in origin or not. Dr. Gus Cothran of the University of Kentucky has been instrumental in pursuing these techniques, and works closely with others in the conservation and identification of these horses.
These techniques have some limitations in that no breed or herd is uniform for the presence of what are generally considered to be “Iberian” markers (or blood types). These techniques do offer great help in verifying the initial results of historic and phenotypic analysis, but are by themselves insufficient to arrive at a final conclusion. Almost invariably when the history and phenotype point to ta consistently Iberian population, the blood typing and DNA evidence likewise point in this direction.
Recently some conserationists have mistakenly concluded that Iberian blood type variants can be the basis for deciding which horses of a population are more (or less) Spanish in origin. Due to the inheritance pattern of these markers it is easily possible for an absolutely pure Colonial Spanish Horse to have missed inheriting any of the Iberian markers.
It is likewise possible for a crossbred horse to have inherited several. A carefully selected Quarter Horse, for example, could easily have a preponderance of Iberian markers. A conservation program based heavily on blood types without considering other factors could then very easily exclude the very horses whose conservation is important, and could include some that should have been excluded.
Therefore, conformational type is a more important factor than blood type, and will always remain so. It is impossible to determine the relative percentage of Spanish breeding in a horse through blood typing.
Blood typing and DNA typing are both critically valuable and important adjuncts to conservation programs, but must be used wisely for the sort of information they provide. They are not a panacea for the difficult and subjective challenges that face conservationists interested in Colonial Spanish Horses. Neither of these techniques is powerful enough to direct conservation programs without attention to overall conformation and breed type as well as historical data.
This is the July 2003 updated version of this article written by Dr. Phillip Sponenberg. To read more about the foundation strains see the article, “Foundation Strains of the Present Breed.”