Spanish Mustangs: The story of a rare breed doing big things

Dr. Betsy Greene, University of Arizona, and Stephanie Hays, founder of the Center for America's First Horse, share how they came together to showcase this rare breed to others.  The Spanish mustang, not to be confused with wild mustangs, is a rare breed with much to offer.  We also learn how American Paint Horses pitched in to portray these horses in Hidalgo!

Center for America's First Horse

Transcript

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Kris Hiney: welcome to extension horses, tack, box, talk series horse stories with a purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney, with Oklahoma State University. And today we're going to be talking about something a little different and talking about a unique breed of horse and somebody that's been heavily involved in that. But 1st we're going to invite back to the program Dr. Betsy Green, from the University of Arizona. Welcome back, Betsy.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Thank you. Great to be here.

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Kris Hiney: And 1st time guest to the program and founder for the center for America's 1st horse.

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Kris Hiney: Stephanie Hayes. So welcome, Stephanie.

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Stephanie Hayes: Well, thank you. Glad to be here.

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Kris Hiney: So we got to start with a little bit of a background. How Betsy and Stephanie, how you guys kind of got connected. So give us a little bit of backstory before we start jumping into talking about the center.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Sure. Yeah, we in Vermont. When I was at the University of Vermont, I was there about 16 years back, in 2,004. We several of us were working together to put on a 2 day educational event with trade show called everything equine.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: and so we had classrooms and a round pen type size inside, and then an arena as well. And somehow, somewhere along the lines, I guess perhaps, I read a newspaper article or something, and we had found out we had a movie star horse in our own little area, one of the horses that did some of the really cool scenes back from Hildalgo.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: and so.

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Kris Hiney: With Vito.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: That was a yeah. That was a while ago. And so I guess, between myself and Tom Audi, who helped, was on the trade show side of things. We contacted Stephanie and John Fusco, the director, and to see if we could get this movie Star horse to be a highlight at our little event, and I think I don't remember Stephanie. Did Oscar give any

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: signatures or autographs? I know John did, but that was plus a win-win, we thought, and then Stephanie was the one working with

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Oscar the Star, one of the stars of Hidalgo.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yes, actually, Oscar did give autographs. We would pick up his front foot and brush paint

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Stephanie Hayes: on the bottom of his foot, and with a helper. He would then step on a 8 by 10 photograph that we had printed of him.

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Stephanie Hayes: and that was that was his signature. And at the time he was a well-known movie star, and people were really excited not only to meet him, but

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Stephanie Hayes: to get his autograph and

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Stephanie Hayes: My daughter. Tori owned him at that point, and she was, I think, 12 years old.

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Stephanie Hayes: 1213. And she just loved talking to people about

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Stephanie Hayes: about Oscar and the movie, and then his portrayal of a Spanish mustang, which is how this

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Stephanie Hayes: kind of gets.

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Kris Hiney: So which parts so. And it's been a while since I watched hidog all. But it was a it was a great movie. So which parts were Oscar in the movie.

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Stephanie Hayes: Oscar played all of the scenes that were very athletic. He was the horse that

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Stephanie Hayes: Vigo and the Princess rode double and jumped over the ruins.

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Stephanie Hayes: He was the horse that was galloping alongside the Englishman's horse in the very opening scene. Anything that had long galloping scenes or jumping was Oscar.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. Well, I'm gonna have to go back and watch now.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: And the funny part was, he was just a regular old gelding at our site.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: That's funny. So and I might be getting a little off the track, but it's interesting. And so who cares? So I've always heard that Viggo really got attached to all of the horses that he worked with like hidalgo and lord of the rings, so did he like really like all of the horses, or were there certain ones that he was like really a fan of.

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Stephanie Hayes: There were 5 horses that played hidalgo, and he actually brought

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Stephanie Hayes: back to his farm the horse that he did all of the

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Stephanie Hayes: like the up close portrait, you know, kind of like touchy, feely scenes with,

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Stephanie Hayes: that was his favorite. And yeah, he ended up with Vigo.

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Kris Hiney: That's very cool. So I don't know if we're supposed to just keep talking about movie horses, but because that's kind of fun. But maybe we'll ask one more question, and then we'll get to talk about why, maybe he was in it. So how on earth did your horse end up being cast as a horse for a Hollywood movie.

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Stephanie Hayes: Well, he wasn't our horse when he was cast. What I know from John, who wrote the movie was that Oscar had belonged to a young girl, and he was on the American Paint Horse Show Circuit.

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Stephanie Hayes: and when they were looking for horses to play Hidalgo

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Stephanie Hayes: they all had to have similar markings and certain age and height and some training. So they purchased him from this this other family

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Stephanie Hayes: he spent 9 months on the movie set, and then John brought him to his farm in Vermont, and it was at that point, that my

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Stephanie Hayes: my daughters and I were involved at John's farm. I I managed his other horses there, and

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Stephanie Hayes: my daughter Tori and Oscar really bonded, and Oscar was in retirement, and John gifted Oscar to my daughter.

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Kris Hiney: Gotcha.

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Stephanie Hayes: So that's how that all happened. And we spent the next gosh! Probably

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Stephanie Hayes: 5 4 or 5 years. Bringing Oscar

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Stephanie Hayes: around with us to promote the Spanish mustang. So, although Oscar wasn't a Spanish mustang, he was a really good actor.

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Kris Hiney: I was.

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Kris Hiney: Ask if you said APHA, and I was like, wait.

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Stephanie Hayes: I'm getting real confused here.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah, yeah. So they couldn't use actual Spanish mustangs for the movie, because one, there's not enough of them that met the requirement for what the crew needed, and the movie horse trainer hadn't

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Stephanie Hayes: really had experience training Spanish mustangs and didn't know their train ability. So they went with what was safe.

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Stephanie Hayes: And that was the all the paint horses.

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Kris Hiney: Okay? All right. So now we're going to talk a little bit about the center for America's 1st horse. And so you're talking

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Kris Hiney: Spanish mustangs which I mean, are we talking about like the Kiger mustangs? Or is that a whole different category of mustangs? So maybe explain who we're talking about, because then we're also gonna talk about Spanish barb. So start.

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Kris Hiney: yeah, start me out.

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Kris Hiney: What the heck that is.

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Stephanie Hayes: Okay?

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Stephanie Hayes: So the Kigers don't fall in the category of the Spanish mustangs because they're known to have other breeds influenced in those herds. So the word Spanish mustang and Spanish barb. It is the same horse. It just kind of depends on what registry

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Stephanie Hayes: you are talking to, and some you know, very old breeders or 1st preservationists.

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Stephanie Hayes: chose to call them barbs, and some chose to call them mustangs.

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Kris Hiney: So so we're not talking about BLM, horses here.

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Stephanie Hayes: We are not talking about BLM, horses at all. Okay, all.

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Stephanie Hayes: And that that's really the 1st thing in my education. It's like a a little dilemma is.

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Kris Hiney: You hear the word mustang. You just think they're the wild horses out West are being rounded up and adopted

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Kris Hiney: right and.

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Stephanie Hayes: And the term America's 1st horse. The Spanish horses

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Stephanie Hayes: were the 1st horses in America. People think it's the Morgan, but the Morgan was the 1st breed

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Stephanie Hayes: in America. So

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Stephanie Hayes: There, you know, I'm always trying to clarify this for for people that

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Stephanie Hayes: The Spanish brought horses to North America, and even now that's controversial. But they think that

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Stephanie Hayes: there were native horses here, Prior. But that's a different topic.

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Kris Hiney: No, I've heard that recently. I was like.

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Stephanie Hayes: So so we'll, you know, stick with how I how I explain it. So America's 1st horse

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Stephanie Hayes: is it. It can cover many different strains of the Spanish mustangs or Spanish barbs.

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Stephanie Hayes: And there's probably, you know, like 10 different

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Stephanie Hayes: lines based on their geography. Maybe it's a family line, or an even native American bloodlines.

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Stephanie Hayes: So there's the umbrella breed which is the barb or the Spanish mustang, and then other strains that fall under that if that makes sense.

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Kris Hiney: Yes, so I have a kind of question, then, is a Spanish barb

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Kris Hiney: similar different from the category. A lot of people think it was like an Andalusian horse like

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Kris Hiney: to me they look similar. But are they different horses?

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Stephanie Hayes: They are distant cousins. They, the Andalusians and the Spanish barbs.

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Stephanie Hayes: Have the barb horse like North African barb, horse back background, like the their

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Stephanie Hayes: horses from the Barbary coast, which is in their in their past, in their DNA. So

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Stephanie Hayes: they are distant cousins. I think that

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Stephanie Hayes: our Spanish barbs are just smaller

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Stephanie Hayes: versions of the Iberian horses with less spice.

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Kris Hiney: Okay.

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Kris Hiney: that's funny. I guess. Maybe I don't ever think about them as as super spicy. I just know they. They're so distinctive in like their neck shape and some of their gait movement, and you know the short quarters and everything they just.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Look, they're a distinctive type of horse. All those Spanish breeds of horses are.

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Stephanie Hayes: And if you put a barb in an Andalusian, and I actually have

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Stephanie Hayes: 2 Andalusians in my barn right now, so it's always fun to compare them.

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Stephanie Hayes: there isn't. There really isn't a lot of difference body type wise. I don't think that the barbs have the neck.

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Stephanie Hayes: That the Andalusians do. But

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Stephanie Hayes: they can. But yeah, very short backed.

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Stephanie Hayes: the movement is very similar. Collection is what they're they're

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Stephanie Hayes: what they do, and they all have really great working minds.

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Stephanie Hayes: But like I said, the barbs just don't have that

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Stephanie Hayes: kind of like border collie work.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: No.

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Kris Hiney: As well.

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Stephanie Hayes: Knocking on.

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Kris Hiney: Does that work like a border collie.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: It was cool.

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Kris Hiney: Nobody should own that I own a couple of border collies, so I know how much fun.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: I thought. She's right down your alley there, Kris.

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Kris Hiney: Well, I couldn't handle it if my horse acted like that, too. So.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Yeah.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: well, and it was really cool, though, because Oscar came as a movie star. But along with Oscar came some of the 1st horses that Stephanie had brought, I think, from New Mexico right.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yes, yeah. And that's right.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Yeah. And as an organizer, you know, we have the big barn at the fairgrounds and all that, and it's like, here, where do you want to be? And she's like, Yeah, you know, we're fine in the shed row. They're happier outside with their, you know, able to be outside. It's like this is so different from many of our, you know, clinicians needing the fanciest place and the front stalls and everything else.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: And so it was really cool. And you guys did some fundraisers and had a booth where they could. The kids could actually put paint handprints and things like that.

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Stephanie Hayes: Right?

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah. Gosh, I think we were.

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Stephanie Hayes: I think you had what? Like 12 annual events. I think we were there for 11 of them. And yeah, each year it was just so great it was. It was just such a memorable time

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Stephanie Hayes: for me, because my kids were young and I had a barn full of little barn girls

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Stephanie Hayes: that were part of promoting this breed. And yeah, we set up a booth and we'd have the kids come and put their handprints on the horses, and

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Stephanie Hayes: do some fundraising for the center, and you know Oscar was there to draw the attention. But then we could really talk to people about the breed and what the preservation efforts

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Stephanie Hayes: were at the time.

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Stephanie Hayes: it was just it. It really brought a lot of attention to what I was doing here in Vermont with the horses, and you know I

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Stephanie Hayes: I so appreciated.

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Stephanie Hayes: Betsy, how you let us expand over the years at the event to doing natural horsemanship. Demos I remember Tori and I did a bridless, Demo. She was on Oscar, and I was on one of my Spanish mustangs. And

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Stephanie Hayes: yeah, that was kind of before all of that was a thing.

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Stephanie Hayes: And I think it might have been one of the last years that I brought.

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Stephanie Hayes: I brought 6 of my youth students that were part of my natural horsemanship for children program.

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Stephanie Hayes: and that we

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Stephanie Hayes: did. This wonderful demonstration in the big arena with these little kids! And I looked back at that, and they were like

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Stephanie Hayes: 9 and 10 years old.

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Stephanie Hayes: And here they are doing a performance with their horses just in in groundwork to music, to a, you know, packed audience.

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Stephanie Hayes: And it was just, you know, it was so great, really,

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Stephanie Hayes: to be able to expose the public and expose these. You know, these kids to

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Stephanie Hayes: you know, to performing and demonstrating. And

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Stephanie Hayes: it was just really memorable time for me.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Well, the cool part was, I think, that was like our horsing around on Saturday night. Event

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: had like, kind of just

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: yeah. And the one of the reasons I can say that you expanded and were a part of all of those is because, as everything went, you know, came about. We just we didn't know each other, but you just did such a nice job, being safe and being sane and being kind when you were doing other demonstrations in the arena, and I remember a couple of times when we had our UVM drill team, we had some. We always had a

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: variety of experienced riders and horses. And so we actually put some of our less experienced one in a day clinic section with you, and you just were so kind and so safe with them when they needed it, and gave them good skills. And then they had a great performance that night, and if they hadn't had that time with you, both getting used to the arena, and you working with them to work through some of their.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: you know, both skills and.

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Stephanie Hayes: Perfect.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Anxiety stuff, I mean. So you earned your way into doing, continuing to do things because you did such a great job, and that was great for the audiences to see as well.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah, thank you so much.

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Kris Hiney: Stephanie, could you? So we're kind of trying to talk about this, your, these horses and the you created the center for America's 1st horse, so maybe tell us what that is exactly.

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Stephanie Hayes: Okay? Well, it has definitely taken on a number of different

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Stephanie Hayes: kind of lives. Since the inception of the center, which was in 2,010.

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Stephanie Hayes: The inspiration really began when my other daughter, my youngest daughter, was gifted a little Spanish mustang colt from New Mexico. His name is Adelin Tado.

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Stephanie Hayes: and my daughter was 7 at the time, and

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Stephanie Hayes: he was just this amazing little 2 year old colt that we had no idea.

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Stephanie Hayes: That would be coming into our lives. It was really a lot of divine intervention that happened when he arrived to us, and

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Stephanie Hayes: there was something very special about him and his character and his look, and

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Stephanie Hayes: his athleticism, I could see through his roughness. He was just, you know, a little scrawny 2 year old.

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Stephanie Hayes: you know, off the

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Stephanie Hayes: farm in New Mexico. He wasn't much to look at when we got him, but I could see through that, and I thought, you know, with my experience as a trainer and

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Stephanie Hayes: and my competition experience like, maybe I could help this rare breed by promoting them a little bit, and

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Stephanie Hayes: I became, you know, very close with the family in New Mexico, the Baca family where we had got him, and

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Stephanie Hayes: they had about 50 horses that they had bred over the years that

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Stephanie Hayes: weren't doing anything, and they ended up sending me for

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Stephanie Hayes: other horses, all brothers to Otto and Tato, and over the next 4 years I got over 30 of their horses that I trained and either kept or rehomed

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Stephanie Hayes: and I was. I was helping them because they didn't have the resources to have all these horses, and I was enjoying

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Stephanie Hayes: doing something new in my horse career.

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Stephanie Hayes: And I knew that

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Stephanie Hayes: I needed to kind of take this a little step farther than just it being, I mean, it's kind of just a hobby at the time

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Stephanie Hayes: and my

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Stephanie Hayes: daughters and I went out to New Mexico for a year. We moved out there for a year to help kind of cull the herd at the Baccas farm, and when I came back

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Stephanie Hayes: I needed to make this something official. So I became a nonprofit in 2,010

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Stephanie Hayes: and out in New Mexico. I'd also had

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Stephanie Hayes: the opportunity to work with children with like emotional

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Stephanie Hayes: problems in a residential treatment, facility setting, and my horses and I did. Equine assisted therapy

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Stephanie Hayes: out there, and I saw my horses in a different light during that time.

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Stephanie Hayes: So when I came back to Vermont and I started the center. It was a heavy focus on giving

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Stephanie Hayes: children and adults some life skills through the horses, building confidence.

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Stephanie Hayes: giving, giving these people a safe place to come and spend time with horses, and I found that

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Stephanie Hayes: my horses were really enjoying this this work because they're very personable.

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Stephanie Hayes: And that that was like the 1st phase of the center.

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Stephanie Hayes: You know, we still had Oscar. We were still traveling around, doing a lot of expos and demonstrations and taking the horses to schools and libraries.

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Stephanie Hayes: So I probably spent.

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Stephanie Hayes: Excuse me, like maybe 4 years doing that.

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Stephanie Hayes: and then all these, you know, kids at the barn. They wanted to ride and not just do groundwork and brush horses all day. So I started a riding program for the kids, and then they thought that they might like to try to go to a little horse show. And so we started taking horses out to just some local dressage shows, some jumping, and we did a lot of trail riding, and

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Stephanie Hayes: and it evolved kind of the next phase was

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Stephanie Hayes: I had some really competitive kids, and I was doing a little more showing at the time, and people were starting to see that these

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Stephanie Hayes: great little horses were not only, you know, wonderful for helping people, but

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Stephanie Hayes: you could go out into the horse world, and

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Stephanie Hayes: you know, be competitive on them as well.

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Stephanie Hayes: But then kids grow up and they became teenagers, and all my little barn girls,

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Stephanie Hayes: you know, started having other interests, and my horses were starting to get older and just

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Stephanie Hayes: kind of telling me that that they

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Stephanie Hayes: they didn't want to be lesson horses anymore. And I didn't wanna

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Stephanie Hayes: you know I wanted them to be happy. So I started leasing my horses out

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Stephanie Hayes: and kind of starting another

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Stephanie Hayes: Another branch

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Stephanie Hayes: of what I was doing, so that other people outside of my barn could experience this amazing breed and resources that had all kinds of great experiences and

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Stephanie Hayes: training on them now.

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Stephanie Hayes: And that was probably around 2,012, 2,013 and

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Stephanie Hayes: you know, I felt like kind of a shift coming with the center as far as what

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Stephanie Hayes: like, how I was spending my time. And it just kind of a 1 man show with, you know, all these kids helping with barn chores and unloading hay, and

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Stephanie Hayes: you know they were my, they were my little helpers. Which was, which was great. But now I'm kind of doing.

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Stephanie Hayes: you know more on my own and

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Stephanie Hayes: you know I was looking at ways that I could continue to promote the breed

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Stephanie Hayes: to continue training because there were still young horses coming in from other breeders around the country.

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Stephanie Hayes: And

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Stephanie Hayes: So I was. I was like looking for something new and exciting to do, and that's when working equitation came into my path, which

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Stephanie Hayes: has a life of its own. I'll just backtrack a little bit.

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Stephanie Hayes: Betsy probably doesn't know this, but I, my husband and I met

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Stephanie Hayes: pretty much through Betsy. She had.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: I knew that.

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Stephanie Hayes: She had an event. At the University of Vermont, and my

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Stephanie Hayes: my husband to be, and I were both asked to be presenters there, and

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Stephanie Hayes: he and I met, he said, Hey, I'll do a benefit clinic for you. And

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Stephanie Hayes: I'm like, okay. So he came up in a couple of months later and did a clinic, and

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Stephanie Hayes: we got married a couple of years later

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Stephanie Hayes: and so Tim wrote a book about equine therapy just around the time that

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Stephanie Hayes: we had met, and

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Stephanie Hayes: Tim has always very much supported the work that I do with the horses. So it was just literally a marriage of his work

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Stephanie Hayes: in equine therapy, my work with the breed, my

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Stephanie Hayes: my history with the equine assisted, learning that it all just kind of came nicely together for us.

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Stephanie Hayes: So Betsy's part time matchmaker. Then that's right.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: Call me cupid.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah, we are forever grateful.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: And the funny part is, he was actually an alum of UVM, and that's 1 reason he came back

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: and was offering to do some stuff with us and for us in the classes.

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Kris Hiney: Cool.

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Kris Hiney: So I want to ask a little bit more about these horses. So how many Spanish mustangs Spanish barbs do you think there are in the in the Us. I mean. I'm sure there's a fair amount, but we just don't run across them that often.

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Stephanie Hayes: So there's probably about 2,000 in the whole world.

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Kris Hiney: In the whole world.

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Stephanie Hayes: The whole world.

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Kris Hiney: Well, that's not very much so.

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Stephanie Hayes: No, that's not very many at all. No. And if you really count the breeding stallions and the breeding mares

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Stephanie Hayes: very, very few like not a very strong gene pool.

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Stephanie Hayes: and the particular line that is close to my heart. The Baca horses.

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Stephanie Hayes: We have.

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Stephanie Hayes: we have 5 stallions. Well, they're not all stallions anymore, because we've collected semen on them. There's only 2 standing stallions. I think we have semen on 5

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Stephanie Hayes: and there's 7 breeding mares, maybe 7 to 8 breeding mares.

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Stephanie Hayes: Very small gene pool.

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Stephanie Hayes: back in 2015. I got a phone call out of the blue from a woman named Carol Powell in California.

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Stephanie Hayes: who said, I'm retiring from the social services

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Stephanie Hayes: from a career there, and I want to do what you do with these horses and kids

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Stephanie Hayes: can we get together? She flew out to Vermont.

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Stephanie Hayes: We talked. I showed her my horses, and we have had a wonderful 10 year relationship.

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Stephanie Hayes: as she has all of the breeding stock right now. I sent her my stallion

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Stephanie Hayes: and a mare, and Carol has gone on to find some of the other mares that had been dispersed back in New Mexico, and she's created a herd and has

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Stephanie Hayes: saved them really from extinction.

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Stephanie Hayes: So Carol and I work very closely together

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Stephanie Hayes: in our breeding plan and

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Stephanie Hayes: she has worked or is working with Gus. Catherine has worked with Dr. Spanenberg as well as a couple other universities internationally and here in the Us.

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Stephanie Hayes: To help with DNA testing for our horses, and breeding plans.

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Stephanie Hayes: so, although it's still a very small gene pool, we are still able to

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Stephanie Hayes: make babies. And I have gosh! Probably 6 or 7 of

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Stephanie Hayes: her horses in California have made their way out to Vermont

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Stephanie Hayes: into either new homes through me, or have come to me.

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Stephanie Hayes: And our, my, my competition horses or horses in training.

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Stephanie Hayes: So it's amazing how you know, I look back on this, how the center has branched out

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Stephanie Hayes: across the country. We also have 2 other breeders, one in New Mexico and one in Arizona. That also has some of the Baca horses that are

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Stephanie Hayes: doing breeding on a small scale also. So we're not talking a lot of horses. I mean, we're talking like.

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Kris Hiney: No.

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Stephanie Hayes: 2 dozen, maybe.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, that's a handful.

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Kris Hiney: So is there any plans to like? I mean, with that limited gene pool? Do you have to outcross any or just kind of

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Kris Hiney: keep what you have, and then eventually.

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Stephanie Hayes: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's something we talk about. All of the time.

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Stephanie Hayes: There in the US.

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Stephanie Hayes: I have not found any stallions Spanish, mustang, or Spanish barb stallions that meet my criteria

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Stephanie Hayes: for adding into this particular family line.

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Stephanie Hayes: because we don't want to change anything that we have. We want the same size, the same movement, which is, I think, really their signature is just their lovely, elegant movers that you don't see in some of the other strains.

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Stephanie Hayes: So I had. I hadn't found anything in the Us. That I was really excited about

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Stephanie Hayes: However, perusing Google.

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: I.

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Stephanie Hayes: Ran across North African barbs, and I looked at every picture I could find, and I identified

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Stephanie Hayes: my horse's Confirmation temperament movement in these horses that I researched online

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Stephanie Hayes: in 2019. I think it was Carol and I flew to Belgium

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Stephanie Hayes: to meet the largest barb horse breeder in Europe, and

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Stephanie Hayes: I saw, I think, over 50 horses in a couple of days. And these horses are right from North Africa

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Stephanie Hayes: and

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Stephanie Hayes: and I'm like this, is it. This is what we're looking for. And with the DNA testing that

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Stephanie Hayes: Gus Catherine had done for us, that was like a 2 year study.

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Stephanie Hayes: We found that that our particular horses are

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Stephanie Hayes: like matching exactly on the scatterplot. I am not a DNA. I'm not a scientist. All I know is like what I saw on a piece of paper that there's these little boxes. Yellow boxes are the North African barbs, and the blue boxes are the Baca horses, and those boxes are overlapping.

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Kris Hiney: Okay.

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Stephanie Hayes: So I saw that with my own eyes.

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Stephanie Hayes: So we are highly considering getting semen from our colleague in Belgium and

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Stephanie Hayes: trying to refresh our

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betsygreene@arizona.edu: gene pool. Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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Stephanie Hayes: But it comes at a great expense.

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Stephanie Hayes: Semen! It! It's almost cheaper than

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Stephanie Hayes: I mean getting a whole horse

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Stephanie Hayes: is almost cheaper than shipping the semen

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Stephanie Hayes: so yeah, we talk about this like all the time.

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Stephanie Hayes: But without the funds right now, you know we are, we are limited, and we're just trying to do the best we can

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Stephanie Hayes: on this continent.

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Stephanie Hayes: But long term, you know, I think one day I may.

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Stephanie Hayes: You know, when my ship comes in. I you know I would love to import a barb. I think it is would be the 1st North African barb in the Us.

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Kris Hiney: Very cool.

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Kris Hiney: Well, I say, just do it. Put it on the credit card

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Kris Hiney: very cool. Well, I think this is really neat, and it's not often we get to talk about a breed of horse that's that rare in the United States, and to give people

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Kris Hiney: some different perspectives. And I bet you we've inspired some people to go back and watch Hidalgo again so that they can be like, Oh, yeah, look at all those horses that we really enjoyed

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Kris Hiney: so well. I really appreciate your time today, Stephanie, talking about these wonderful horses. We'll put a link to the center for America's 1st horse in our show notes. I'll try to dig up some pictures and videos of these guys to link to that as well. But again, appreciate your time. And that has been another episode of our tech box talk horse stories with a purpose.