Lisa
Loma, Colorado

New Babies are arriving.  See them on the foals page.

Updated 12-31-07

See the "About Us" page for a 2008 schedule of our Mounted Shooting events in Colorado
and our Ranch website address at:  http://freewebs.com/skyridge/

Sashay's very first shoot, 2005.  Picture by Maggie Moore and included in her book, Walking With Friends.

Lisa and Sashay competing in LaJara, Colorado, 2007, 2 years later.
We showed the boys that girls can shoot the rifle just as well as they can.

Lisa & Sashay winning the 2007 MSA Ladies State Championship
and the Ladies Overall State Championship and 6th place Overall

Lisa & Sashay winning the 2007 Gun Smoke In Gunnison, Colorado shoot.
See that little white ballon sitting there all alone.  That little devil cost us
the Overall Ladies Win for the shoot.  Its called, Rider Error.

Lisa and Sashay had an awesome 2007.  We hit the road June 1st along with SAS's Gunsmokin 45's,
AKA Smokin, who is Sashay's 2007 filly born in April.  At this first shoot of the year for Sashay, she and
Lisa won the Colorado State CMSA Ladies Level II Championship and the Colorado State CMSA Ladies
Overall Championship, winning cash, prizes, two belt buckles and a brand new Ruger .45 caliber pistol.  This
win moved Lisa and Sashay to Ladies Level 3 competition.

In late July 2007 Lisa and Sashay competed in Gunnison, Colorado where they won the Ladies Level 3
competition and Ladies Reserve Overall Championship.  (yep, missed a ballon @#%&)

In August it was back to Pueblo, Colorado to compete in the Colorado State MSA Championships where
Lisa and Sashay, for the second time this year, won two more state championships.  They won the Colorado State
MSA Ladies Level III Championship and the Colorado State MSA Ladies Overall Championship.

In between all of these shoots, Lisa, Sashay and Smokin traveled to Vernal, Utah and Castle Rock, Colorado
to present mounted shooting demonstrations and compete in speed events such as poles, barrels, key hole races,
flag races and other gymkhana events.  They also traveled to the Utah Sate Fair in Salt Lake City, Utah
where they presented a mounted shooting demonstration for the fair.  After the Colorado shooting season was done,
they stayed local and competed in more gymkhana events where they were winning some and placing in
the top 4 spots every time out along with our other mounted shooting friends who were competing on their
mounted shooting horses and beating all of the horses who are gymkhana horses.  Needless to say,
there was a lot of teasing and laughing going on between everybody.

This is the cover of the book written by Maggie Moore on Tennessee Walking Horses.
It is absolutely awesome.  Maggie went to 48 states to take these pictures of people
using and riding their Tennessee Walking Horses in their every day chores such as
ranching, pack trips and my mare Sashay and I competing in a Cowboy Mounted Shoot.

To purchase this book go to Maggie's web site of www.walkingwithfriends.com
There is a direct link to her site on my links page.

Visit the stallion page to see our new stallion, SAS's A Stud Named Pearl

We are now located at
1448 14 Road, Loma, Colorado, 81524.
This address is 20 miles from our former location
and even easier to find and drive to.  We offer boarding, a
150' x 300' riding arena, cattle to work your
horses on and mounted shooting events.

We are breeding, raising and selling Tennessee Walking Horses,
Paint and Quarter Horses for pleasure, trail, performance and
the awesome sport of Cowboy Mounted Shooting.

 We hope to see you at Golden Hills Ranch, home of
SAS Tennessee Walking Horses and
Skyridge Paint and Quarter Horses

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS OF

saswalkers@acsol.net

or

skyridge@acsol.net
 

For more site pages, see the bottom of this page

TENNESSEE WALKERS

Smooth riding, seeming endless and without jarring, through fields and forests is why the Tennessee Walking Horse is an ideal riding partner.  TWH’s have a Flat Walk, Running Walk and a canter and these gaits are purely natural for these horses. The TWH come in many varieties, with different body shapes, colors and  heights.   They each have different gaits and different speeds of their gaits.  This is the thing that makes this breed unforgettable for everybody upon first view.

What is a Tennessee Walking Horse?

Gaited horses already existed in the beginning of the 19th century as the first settlers coming into Tennessee started to breed horses for riding and working on the field.  They initially concentrated on breeding horses with a smooth and fast gait.

The discovery of the first and most important stallion to create the American Tennessee Walker was the black stallion Allan.  He was born in 1886 in Lexington, Kentucky and his sire was the trotting horse Allandorf.  His dam was a Morgan Horse mare called Maggie Marshall, out of Bradford's Telegraph.  Because of his strange gaits Allan was not successful in the trotter's breed, nor in the Morgan breed.  It was 1903 when breeders first realized the quality of this beautiful stallion: his natural way of walking with those quick, gliding steps. The stallion was able to do that walk over miles and miles and the ride was not tiresome. In 1935 when the registry first opened, the registry founders decided to take Allan, now Allan F-1, as the first foundation stallion.

The Tennessee Walker Today

Today there are over 40,000 horses and 5,000 breeding stallions registered with the TWHBEA in Lewisburg, Tennessee.  In 1993 alone, approximately 8000 foals were born. The two most important stallion bloodlines that you can find on most of the horses' papers are Midnight Sun (born 1940) and Merry-Go-Boy (1943).

Confirmation

The TWH should have good conformation like any other breed of horse.  The most important aspect of the TWH breed is its natural gait.  This gait is inborn in the horses and is exhibited by newly born foals.  In this breed you can find horses of any height and color you can think of.  They may be from 14 hands up to 17 hands, but most of them are between 15 and 16 hands.  Colors are possible from light grey, all kinds of chestnut or bay, to black and spotted.  For conformation, we should consider the aspects that make the horse able to do their special gait.  These are the most important points: the neck and shoulder and of course the hindquarters. The neck should come out of the center of the shoulders and should be arched. The well built neck, of the right length, is necessary for balance allowing the Walker to do its characteristic headnod.

A long, oblique shoulder with the ideal angle of 45 degrees is essential for a good walk.  A long shoulder in conjunction with a relatively short forearm is necessary for the length of the stride.  The forearm seems to pull the good walking TWH forward.  Strong and straight forelegs are a necessity for good mechanics.  The forelegs are often nearer to one another in the chest than in other horses because the ribs, directly under the forearm, are a little bit flat.  The pastern is moderately long and is in an angle of 45 degrees.  The back seems to look a little bit shorter than other breeds.  Because of the oblique croup, the horse looks a little bit as if it has longer legs than others.  The hindquarters must be well muscled so the horse can push and drive off the rear legs.  In addition, the hindquarters should be angled to let the backfeet step deeply under the horses body.

TWH's are unique in that their bone from point of hip to point of hock is longer than other breeds of horses making them appear sickle hocked when they stand with their point of hock under their point of butt.  Even TWH foals standing free out in their pasture appear to have been trained to pose stretched.  This is just the way they are built! Either they stand stretched, or they stand sickle hocked.  There is no other place for their hind legs to go.

The Breeding Object

  The distinguishing features of the horse's conformation should make it possible for the horse to do an easy and natural Walk that glides from a slow Dog Walk (equivalent to another breeds normal walk) over the faster Flat Walk and into the quick Running Walk.  The Flat Walk has very long steps and the overstride of the hindlegs is important.  The sequence in which the legs move in the Flat Walk stays the same while the horse is doing the Running Walk; it is a 4 beat step.  The quality of the overstride however depends on the horse.  The TWH has a speed about 12 to 16 km per hour for the Running Walk.

Most of the TWH’s can also trot or pace, but these gaits are not typically allowed to be ridden under saddle.  The third gait of the TWH is  the canter, a kind of slow, rocking chair gallop with a lot of movement up in the front part of the horse and less movement in the rear. This rocking chair canter is typically ridden as slow as possible.

Some Walkers are smoother gaited than others!  When a TWH does it's "walk" it's head is supposed to nod up and down.  If the head goes side to side, it's a rack or a stepping pace, or a pace. The Rack and/or stepping pace can be a smooth gait and many people like these gaits.

Many of the modern TWH show horses have been bred to pace and/or do a steping pace so when they are shown in pads there is high action in the front and squatty, crawling action from the rear.

 So when you are considering buying a TWH, the first question you may want to ask yourself is...                                 What do you want to do with this horse?   Trail ride, pleasure rides or horse shows.  Keep in mind what kind of  TWH you want to buy... THEN go to the people who "do" what you want to do with your horse.

If you want a trail horse, don't go to a show horse barn / person. Just because a horse can't make it as a show horse doesn't automatically mean it's not suitable to be a trail horse.