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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Hu|»|»aknnn«K'k Staff W ril«*r
It's not necessary to be an art expert to recognize that the works of Michelangelo. Hn Vinci. Rubens and Monet are masterpieces. Neither is it necessary to be an authority on equine conformation to tell that the foals born this year at Mauri and Bill Payne's Rock Bottom Appaloosa Farm are what Mother Nature intended horses to look like.
The slope of the withers, the angle of the hock, the width of the chest: all this is beside the point to someone who knows few of the particulars that combine to produce good conformation.
But excellence, whether in horse flesh or art. stands out from the ordinary and excellence is what the Paynes have achieved irt the breeding program they began seven years ago.
With buyers coming up and down the East Coast, Mauri and Bill are well on the way towards their goal of producing nationally acclaimed Appaloosas. "We just sold a woman in Pennsylvania a mare who was dam of a twice world champion reining horse and she was just tickled to get her," Bill reported.
They haven't found success in cowboy country where the quarter horse has reluctantly given up a share of center stage to the Appaloosa. They’ve recreated the traits of the breed that once was the pride of the Indian nation right smack in the middle of the rolling hills where king thoroughbred reigns.
As a breed, the distinctively marked horse with the white blanket across the rump was developed by the Nez Perces Indians of Idaho. They parted with few of the beloved spotted ponies who shared their lives the way prized Arabians enjoyed favored family member status with desert Bedodins. Until the middle 1800’s, only a handful of trappers, traders and explorers had even seen these remarkable animals.
Destroyed By Greed
It was the white man’s greed for gold and land that broke up the Nez Perces' partnership with the Appaloosa. Although an executive order signed by President Grant in 1873 barred white men from the Indians' Wallowa Valley, gold discovered in nearby mountains spurred encroachment by settlers who stole both horses and cattle from the Nez Perces.
Two years after the Great Father promised the valley to the Nez Perces forever, he issued a new proclamation.
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