THE LEOPARD CENTRE

 

The Leopard Centre

I am a small farm with  homozygous black leopard foundation appaloosa horses which I am very proud of.

I am not a volume breeder, and I dont breed lots of foals for annual foal sales,  I am just a hobby farmer, (I think I must cost my husband alot of money *smiles*) I am breeding my horses for what i personally like, and not for a market. If you read the rest of this page you will see I have very high standards in what I am breeding for, and although its early days yet, I am very pleased with my results thus far. I may have on occasion something to sell, but I do believe that by selling the foals that you are selling your best genetics - In theory each future generation of my appaloosas should be more genetically pure and hopefully, if I am correct with my crossing of bloodlines and breed type there should be an improvement in overall conformation without losing any of the other traits I have selected for. I have alot to learn still about the many and varied bloodlines within the appaloosa breed in usa, but am enjoying the experience.

As a New Zealander by birth, I was brought up in a rural dairy and sheep farming area in Northland in NZ, my first horse as a kid was a shetland pony, then a big stock horse, a part arabian and many others. I went to pony club for a few years and progressed to hunting following the foxhounds. (In NZ they use hares instead of foxes). I did a little showing, but enjoyed the open beaches and farmland riding the best.

My first appaloosa was purchased in 1985 - I had been living in Australia for a year and I bought an appaloosa colt there as a project horse to break in. When time came to come back to NZ I bought him back with me in the plane, quite an experience! After that I always had a few horses and appaloosas on our 180 cow dairy farm but never had the opportunity to breed my dream horses - black leopard foundation appaloosas. That was all to change.

My dream was realised beginning in 2004 when i married my american boyfriend, relocated to Missouri and began my search (over several years) for the best black leopard mares I could find.

I sourced these mares from many locations in USA from the top of Montana, to Ohio, West Virginia, and Illinois.

3 of these mares were bred by Frank Scripter in Michigan, who started the American Leopard Horse bloodlines - Ghost Wind Horses!

1 mare comes from 100% Scripter bloodlines but bred by Y Creek Appaloosas in Ohio

1 mare was bred by Don and Mary Ulrich in Wyoming - Ulrich Appaloosas!

My Stallion BBR My Regal King arrived from Minnesota to here in Missouri in late May 2006.

He is about 93% FPD.  ALL his foals from my foundation mares are 100% FPD. His color producing, and in particular his leopard producing abilities are a lot higher than the normal formula of statistics for color production. King has at least SEVEN strong leopard bloodlines including Bandido, Money Creeks Rockledge, Prince Plaudit, Bambi E, KK's Snowcat, Sundance, Dude Dandy Jnr; and many other lines including Mansfield Comanche, Joker B, Shavano (Patchy-Knobby), Starbuck Leopard x 3, Ha-Dar-Shado (Wapiti), Abdull, Chief Navajo (Painter), Snow Cloud-Iron Cloud (Nez Perce Reservation) and many more.....

King has improved conformation on all his foals over their dams - he puts a nice head with good balanced conformation, and a friendly disposition. I couldnt be more pleased with King.

BBR MY REGAL KING (King) has been color coat tested by University of California - Davis, he is HOMOZYGOUS FOR BLACK - his coat color is EEaa - which is :

EE = no red factor detected. Cannot have red foals regardless of the color of the mate. Basic color is black, bay or brown in the absence of other modifying genes.

aa = only recessive allele detected. Black pigment distributed uniformly. Basic color is black in the absence of other modifying genes.

CHECK OUT THE  : 2007 YEARLINGS BY KING - he has proven he is worth his weight in gold!

"King" does not stand to outside mares for the simple reason that I dont have facilities that I consider good enough to look after mares and foals that dont belong to me. No, I dont live in a junkyard and no i dont have barbed wire, but I would feel badly about having an outside mare or foal hurt or injured while here so I just dont do it.

I am attempting, with the judicial use of several leopard bloodlines already established by previous breeders, to breed black leopard foundation appaloosas. If they have the ability to gait then that is even better, but right now I am concentrating on the color, conformation and disposition - I want all my horses to be homozygous for the black gene, with the leopard or near-leopard spotted pattern, and I want really good conformation - I dont want halter horses, I want riding horses, that can go out and work hard in various disciplines and stay strong and live til they are old. Bloodlines I like are the Ghostwind horses - I would love a pasture full of horse that all look like the Money Creek Rockledge/Peppers Shamrock/Siri Shiek/Arab Toswirah Alkhar style of horse - great conformation, good balanced body, good legs, strong but elegant, nice heads without coarseness, and quiet dispositions which give them the ability to do any job asked of them. Frank Scripter used alot of Money Creeks bloodlines in his leopard breeding program and I am lucky enough to have several of Franks mares. I am also a fan of the Ulrich leopard bloodlines and I also have a couple of their breeding. Lastly I am also a  fan of the Bandido bloodline. The ancestry of this bloodline is not well documented as the ghostwind horses so I cant say where the bloodline originally came from and it seems that while  the horses that come from this bloodline are generally more modern in appearance - the black leopard genes are very strong, and the horses are of excellent type.  Cowboy Justice is one of the most famous horses to have got his black leopard coloring from this bloodline. My stallion has Bandido and Money Creek Rockledge in his pedigree and looks alot like a re-incarnation of Rockledge, even down to the four spots on the right rump in the handprint/bearpaw pattern - check it out under the page title "Got Spots?".

I want it all. I want great black leopard coat patterns that consistantly breed true from generation to generation. I want excellent conformation - if you mentally take away that stunning coat color and pretend its just a plain color i want to be able to say that its conformation is really excellent - I have seen too many people go color-blind and forfeited good conformation for color - I want both. I also want a horse with a quiet, sensible and intelligent disposition - my horses are not bred specifically to do one job, so I want a horse with the williness to learn anything I want it to do - and I want it adaptable enough to learn new things easily. I want a horse that will not just be a worker, but also a trusted companion. Yep, I do want it all.

Lastly, I want my horses to look like foundation appaloosas. The Phippen model appaloosa is a good example of the appaloosa i would like. When i say that i mean i dont want them to look like quarter horses, morgans, percherons, thoroughbreds or any other breed. Between 14.2hh to 15.2hh is my ideal height, they must have good withers so the saddle stays where its supposed to, nice head, small pricked ears that dont flop around, (and I dont like a horse with a bottom lip/chin that is 'floppy' either; a good length of rein, strong back, a rump that doesnt slope off too quick from the back, good sturdy legs with straight bone and strong joints without  coarseness, and without excess feathering. But I like fairly big hooves - my theory is bigger hooves stand on more ground, and pump more blood -so they are going to be safer when you ride them... and quarter horse breeders have already proven the little teacup hooves on a bulky quarter horses is a good recipe for navicular disease.  I dont want quarter horses close up in my horses pedigree, i want as much appaloosa as i can get...I definately dont want 'Impressive' quarter horse bloodlines, or 'poco bueno' - both carry defective genes - and I dont want 'Plaudette' bloodlines - which is the Bright Eyes Brother bloodline - it has a strong sabino/splash paint gene that just keeps cropping up in successive generations. In extension to this, I try to breed my appaloosas without any white face or leg markings - lightning markings are fine, they are appaloosa based, white socks and blazes are paint based. Dont put the gene in, if you can keep it out to begin with....so I dont have any BEB in my horses, nor intend too. There are other paint genes that keep cropping up in some other lines, you just have to do the research to find them.  I choose my horses carefully to begin with, I researched, researched and then did some more...and nothing is perfect, including me and my horses, but I think I have a good start to what I am wanting to breed.