Kentucky is usually considered a place to go for buying horses, but a Prince George breeder has just gone the opposite way, selling a high-priced horse to the state renowned for its blue grass and equestrian roots.
"It's a feather in our cap," said Howard Jackson, a veteran of the local agriculture industry and proprietor of the BC Appaloosa Centre located on Buckhorn Road at the southern foot of Tabor Mountain.
This past weekend, a truck rolled through town destined for Lancaster, Kentucky where a breeder there spent more than $6,000 for I'm Bud, a four-year-old stallion from the breeding program operated by
Howard and his wife Marylin.
"It was a first for us in another sense," said Jackson, a fifth-generation horseman. "This was the first horse we've ever sold 100 per cent by computer. The horse was located via our website, and all communication was via email."
The Jacksons have more than 100 appaloosas on their 800-acre spread. He said their target market is "girls under 14 and women over 45," because the appaloosa breed is primarily for trail riding, leisure
riding and livestock herding.
"We have selectively bred our horses to be quiet. We select mares and stallions that exhibit that temperament and the colour patterns we favour," he said.
Almost all these horses are a primary colour (black, white, brown) over their body with a patch of white over the rear quarters dotted with the trademark appaloosa spots (linked to the 'leopard complex' genetic colouration mutation).
Appaloosa characteristics are part of the artistic record dating as far back as the ancient Greeks, but the established characteristics of today's registered animals have their main roots in the breeding program operated by the Nez Perce First Nation of the U.S.
Pacific northwest in the 18th century.
Jackson said a purebred designation "is a book yet to be opened" and he plans to be at the front of the line when it happens. The criteria for any breed being deemed purebred has been met on his farm and others, he said, but the official application has not been made. If more sales happen like this one from Prince George into the heart of horsing around, he might have no choice but to write the first lines of that book himself.
