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We are lifetime members of the Missouri Fox Trotting Horse Breeders Association and breed foxtrotters with exceptional conformations, gentle and willing dispositions, a comfortable foxtrotting gait, and whenever possible, we top that off with the beautiful color pattern of the dun gene. For a detailed introduction to our breeding philosophy, click here. Although we appreciate the dun gene, we first attend to the breed standards of Missouri Foxtrotters and only after those qualities are in place do we add the dun coloring. We were one of the first breeders to actively breed for and promote the dun gene. We located two distinct lines of dun and work with others interested in the dun gene to cross these two important lines. We hope to eventually see homozygous duns in our breed. 2008 will be the first year for this possibility both on our farm and in WI. Although we breed for the dun gene, we do not forget the horse under the coloring. We have sold and/or gelded prospects in the past because we did not feel those horses best represented the breed. We only include the best of the best in our breeding program. These horses must demonstrate a gentle and willing attitude, conformations must be devoid of serious flaws, a correct foxtrotting gait must be demonstrated, and we expect an overall projection of quality from every horse on our farm. With such a small pool of dun horses in this breed, this is a difficult task but one, we believe, has been met by the horses we have now. As early as 2005, dun Missouri Fox Trotting horses were showing up in Model classes and soon a few will make debutes in Versatility events. Careful and selective breeding by those interested in the gene is yielding quality dun foxtrotters with outstanding abilities. We have a homozygous black Missouri Fox Trotting stallion prospect that is a result of our breeding program. HZ black horses are somewhat rare in the Foxtrotting breed and Desi brings new choices for mare owners wanting to guarantee a foal that is not red based. He has the gait and the personality we want to see in a stallion prospect and, so far, his conformation is showing real promise. If he continues to mature as we expect, he will make important contributions to the foxtrotting breed in the coming years. He does not carry the dun gene, but he can be bred to dun mares in the future and he can also be bred to other homozygous black mares to increase the number of HZ black horses in the breed. We have had several colts born on our farm, but this is the first we considered keeping for our stallion. We will update his pictures when he sheds out this Spring - he has changed quite a bit since we took pictures last year. We also have a red dun Missouri Foxtrotting stallion prospect that is also a result of our breeding program. Since he is a half brother to our black prospect, we probably will not keep them both because we won't be able to cross breed any fillies back to the other. But at this time we are still evalating them both. |