By Tracey Adams
When I was in my teens, I had the opportunity to spend some time with a lovely Welsh pony gelding of about 13.2 hands. I have always loved small things… there is just something that appeals to me.
In the '90s, I bred my Standardbred mare to a 10 hand Shetland pony, and the result was a perfect cross. I was so pleased when Willow grew to be an athletic and perfectly proportioned 13.2 hand little horse.
It was in 2006, that I decided to try again, and breed my two mares to a pony. But, I didn’t want a typical pony, I wanted a small horse! After some research of breeds, I was almost going to breed my mares to a Welsh, when I found the Caspian horses. I remembered them from the book I’d had since I was ten, "Horses" by Kate Reddick.
I sent an email to the CHSA, only to discover that there were no Caspian horses registered in Canada. That’s when I decided that this should be rectified. The largest breeder at the time was MCC in Texas. I flew there, and met Felix and Joyce Covington, and selected a stallion and three mares to be the Eastern Canadian foundation herd. I had the mares bred to unrelated stallions, and then had them shipped 3,000 km to their new home in the north.
The next summer, I had three beautiful new Caspian foals; the first to be born on Canadian soil. I was very fortunate that fall, to be able to sell one foal, and trade one foal and one mare for two bred mares in Michigan. I made a special bond with Serenity Stella Borealis, and she is still with me today.
The summer of 2008 brought three more foals. I traded one for two geldings in North Carolina. By the end of that year, I had built my herd to ten Caspian horses. Despite many attempts to breed my two riding mares, both had fertility issues, and to my great disappointment, neither produced a half Caspian foal.
The next year, my marriage ended, and I moved to a new location. I did not breed any horses that year. In 2011, I sold all except Stella and my two riding mares, and began the process to move to Mexico.
My three mares made the 4,500 km journey to Mexico in 2015. Soon after, I decided that it was time for Stella to help add to the world population of this rare breed. I made the trip to MCC farms one more time, to purchase an exquisite young stallion, MCC Caspers Cahal. He arrived to his Mexican home in January of 2017, and exactly eleven months later, the first Caspian horse foaled in Mexico, Carousel Cruz del Sur, was born. So, Stella in not only the first Caspian horse foaled in Canada, but she gave birth to the first Caspian horse foaled in Mexico.
Around the same time that Stella came in heat again, my aging standardbred/Arab mare, Brigitte, showed a strong heat for the first time in a decade. Ultrasounds the previous year had shown a tumor the size of a grapefruit in her reproductive system. I had been told that she could never carry a pregnancy as long as the tumor was there.
I wasn’t going to bother hand-breeding her to my stallion, as the difference in height made for a challenging situation. However, my veterinarian happened to be visiting that day, and he said that we should try. I went along with it, and Brigitte was successfully covered one time.
Brigitte had never carried a pregnancy past three months, so I decided to wait until then to have an ultrasound done. My vet’s jaw dropped and he looked up and said she had a healthy pregnancy! At five months, it was still going strong. At seven months, I was feeling her belly daily for the strong kicks and rolls of the foal.
In February of 2019, Stella had her second purebred Caspian foal, Xander. A few weeks later, Brigitte finally delivered a half Caspian foal, Carousel Xerxes. It was truly a miracle for a maiden mare with large reproductive tumors to produce her first foal at the age of 23. Finally, I am thrilled have the half-Caspian foal I had wanted since 2005, and he is perfect.
As for the Mexican Caspian horse population; Cahal was in high demand up north, so I traded him for a bred mare. I am hoping to import one or two more mares, and sell them with my colts. I am currently searching for potential buyers who will promote and propagate the breed here.
In the end, I will be happy to keep just Stella, Brigitte, and Xerxes. But, I hope to remain an ambassador to the breed, and facilitate any further activities related to the Caspian horses in Mexico and beyond.
Thank you so much Tracy! What an amazing life you and these beautiful Caspians have had.
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