Crow Country Curly Horses | Hypoallergenic horses

Beautiful Hypoallergenic Curly Ranch Horses

rare horse of the American West
intelligent, calm temperaments
rugged hypoallergenic ranch horses
raised with Vaquero style Horsemanship
living on Lakota lands
returned to Crow Indian homeland
also visit Crow Curlys Germany

What we do:

Two Eyed Twister; Two Eyed Jack granddaughter, Twister, dam of excellent Curly Horses

Our Horses & Breeding Philosophy:

Our Curly Horse herds... Once running over 100 head, we narrowed our focus to training, using and occasionally breeding just a few medium & large size all-round using ranch horse type Curly Horses of exceptional quality. The type Curly Horses we breed are suitable for allergic people who want working ranch and riding horses. As of 2010, we have 2 of the best Curly daughters of the great *Seekers Warrior. They are out of a special mare that is a proven superb producer of ranch & general using horses with exquisite type, conformation, trainability, & long smooth movement - oh, and tremendous speed, and cow sense. The oldest daughter *Warrior Wind is a 1999 broodmare that we started under saddle, and her 2007 curly full sister, *Second Wind (now offered for sale, she unexpectedly remained pony size). Then we have a beautiful blonde red dun daughter of the late great *Bad Warrior himself.

We will be concentrating more on riding, training and working our mature Curly Horses, than breeding, while the horse market suffers. We hope to participate a lot in Western Curly Horse Association activities.

Our bloodlines... our breeding herds consist of old bloodlines of North American Curly Horses that originated centuries ago here in Crow Country. Our Curlies trace back to Sitting Bull's horses, which were stolen from the Crow by the Sioux (or given to the Sioux by the Crow in a rare act of cooperation) in 1801. Most of our mares & stallions are Hammrich bloodline, from the late Ernest Hammrich, whose horses traced to the original Native American bloodlines developed among old foundation stock & ranch horses used in the early 1900's, (These Native American bloodlines are also known as Berndt and Bad Warrior bloodlines).

This is the Winter Count that shows the year (winter 1801-2) that the Sioux stole Curly Horses from the Crow (depicted by the dark smaller horse) - Cranbrook Museum

Our breeding philosophy... "Breed the best to the best, and hope for the rest," is what a lot of old time livestock breeders used to say, and it best describes our philosophy as well. We try to never overrate or over-estimate our horses, and stay aware of any shortcomings or weakness they may have, and will freely discuss those with you.
Since the Curly Horse was developed through natural selection in the wild and not by mankind, it has strong primitive survival traits. We prize these traits and select to preserve them. We try to create matings that preserve, balance and improve traits. We breed horses with superior minds, and excellent, kind temperament. Two hundred years ago, riders were usually lighter & shorter than riders of today are, so we try to raise Curly Horses that are bigger than using horses of the past. We look for mares and stallions that show all the desirable Curly Horse traits, and still fit the size, muscling, movement, athleticism, desire to work, and correct conformation that are demanded in today's working horse industry. Along with size, our goal is to add speed & cow sense. We prefer not to breed Curly to Curly in most cases, to avoid producing extremes, which we believe generally tend to exhibit poorer conformation and an overall less desirable appearance. Our horses must prove their pedigrees, not the other way around.

My thoughts on Curly Horses: Over the years I (and I assume plenty of others as well) came to the conclusion that throughout world history, dominant gene curly horses will and do occasionally mutate among horses living along cold weather mountain ranges. I do not believe a curly coat is genetically associated with any particular breed(s) at all, but naturally, being dominant genes, certain bloodlines developed within those breeds that had those mutations. I do empathize and share the urge to preserve rare things, but I consider that an emotion, and I choose not to select according to my emotions, but to instead preserve certain core highly desireable traits among outstanding Curly individuals. Therefore, in my program, quality and desireable traits choose the breeding, and pedigree follows along to document that. I do not breed by pedigree unless the horses involved say yes. That said, I find the Warrior bloodline to produce the most outstanding individual horses. I also live in Montana ranch country, so it is a given what type horses I deem valuable and worthy of reproducing, as well as preserving their core traits.

Warrior Wind... May 30, 2010

Everything we own right now is female.
Our registered hypoallergenic *Curly ranch horses:

1
Warrior Wind ICHO-106D DNA'd, abc-465.5 15 hh 1999 sorrel mare not in foal at this time

2
Warrior Minne Xpresso^mx ICHO-107D 15 hh 2000 flaxen red dun mare be in foal for 2010

3
Warrior Second Wind ICHO eligible 14 hh 2007 sorrel filly, roan blaze for sale; high quality Quarter Pony type

4
Warrior Dun Azule^sc ICHO-eligible 15 hh 2010 dun filly last daughter of Seekers Warrior

mx:	A "minimally expressed" dominant curly gene horse will exhibit curly hair inside its ears, and there might be some twist in its mane, maybe some curl on its fetlocks, and lift to its eyelashes, or some mussiness to its coat in winter, a directional or cowlicked appearance, but it may not exhibit a typical curly coat to an easily recognizable degree. Genetically it is a heterozygous dominant gene curly horse, and therefore will produce a curly foal with a straight parent 50% of the time. It will also produce an extreme (homozygous dominant curly gene) 25% of the time when bred with another heterozygous curly parent. Many people do not understand what a minimally expressed curly horse is, and mistakenly label their SC horses as MX horses.
sc:	A "smooth coated" curly horse (besides being an oxymoron), is a horse produced by 1 or both curly parents, with no curly hair that will not produce a curly foal when bred to another straight-haired horse. Simply stated, it did not inherit a dominant curly gene. Some SC horses are "bunny-haired," and have a fine soft hair fiber, that may also be hypoallergenic. Any horse bred to produce ideal Curly Horses should retain the strong core traits of temperament, intelligence, desirable, fault free conformation, durability, and be free of any genetic weakness or inheritable disease. The use of high quality SC Curly Horses, especially those that are shown to be hypoallergenic, can contribute great Curly Horse genetics while simultaneously preventing the chance of producing extremes.
Eastern:	An additional clarification: In the above descriptions, I am referring to the prevalent numbers of Western bloodline Curly Horses, not to the few gaited (Eastern) Curly Horses which appear to have a different dominant curly gene (or modifiers) at work. Gaited bloodline Curly Horses do not exhibit the extreme (nearly naked manes & tails) in the homozygous dominant curly gene form, that the western bloodline homozygous Curly Horses do.

to contact us:

Donna Vickery & Daughters;
Sterrin & Valene Hackney

Crow Country Curly Horses
Bucking V Outfit
Montana Rope Halters
Shepherd, Montana USA

email me: weblackey@yahoo.com
email Sterrin: NeedforSteed@yahoo.com
email Valene: SpookedFilly@yahoo.com

We live outside of Billings, Montana
off I-90 near the Crow Indian Reservation;
Stop by and visit; the coffee is always on

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Crow Country!
"we're home!"
©1998 Sorrel

"Dear Donna, This is a great website! It is very informative. The information listed is very helpful in the process of horse purchases. I wish I had had this when I purchased my first two curlies. I now have three. While I'm very happy with my horses there are many things I would have changed had I had your information up front. I certainly will put this website in my list of favorites. Have a great day and stay safe. Sincerely, Johnette Yeager"

"Dear Donna, Came across your webpage today while searching for Native American Horsemanship info. Though I am not in the market for a curly horse, I found the information fascinating. I have a handful of Icelandic horses that sound like they have the same temperament. Native techniques and philosophy seem to work best for both me and the horses. The articles you provided will help me deal with some issues of respect and "personal space" that we are having. Thanks for taking the time to provide this! Best wishes and thanks again," Sue

"I found your web site today. It is rare that I spend an hour on any one web site, but couldn't quit. I must say I could probably spend all day just at your web site. It has some very valuable information, especially the natural horsemanship area. I bought, helped break and train a 4 yr old Welsh pony gelding. We started April 2005. He is very smart, but we don't just get on and ride yet. He needs some exercise in a small arena to get the edge off. But other than that he is doing very very well. I printed off all your information on horsemanship and will reread the info on manners, that is very helpful for me. I've ridden well broke horses since I was maybe 5 yr old. I'm now 55 and it is a whole new world breaking and training your own. I can't wait to learn more of your way of training. Thanks again for your web site." Linda in Kansas

"Hello! How fun to be browsing, and read about curly horses! My sister has a horse ranch in Minnesota, and was actually the one that got me started painting horses. It was so fun to see that you had several of my SW primitive series horse prints showcased on your site! Anyway, I’m the artist, just wanted to introduce myself. I have done much study on the ledger drawings as well, and did a series of tribute paintings to Leaping Antelope, and several other wonderful warriors who depicted events on notebook paper, and stock ledgers. I really enjoyed your site!" Cecilia Henle Cecilia Henle Fine Art

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The Big Sky Briefs, October 2005

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Many Ponies
22" x 18" by Cecilia Henle

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