Born to Run, Willing to Wait

T.P. went out to put a saddle on her for the first time and came back having taken her for a ride. That was not the plan. The plan was to introduce the tack, let her think about it, and call it a day. But when the saddle pad touched her back, Cannelle d’Or made her position clear: she was not interested in a gradual introduction. She was ready. She stood square, ears forward, entirely focused, as if she had been waiting for this and was prepared to get on with it. So they did.

This is Cannelle. A 2021 buckskin dun tobiano — the French word for cinnamon turned gold — she is the youngest mare on the farm and already at 14.2 hands one of the sturdier presences in the herd. We started her under saddle at three, slowly and deliberately, because horses with this kind of conformation and build finish growing later than most and we were not in a hurry. She was in a hurry. She has been in a hurry from the beginning, in the best possible way: not anxious, not reactive, but forward, confident, and visibly interested in doing something with all of what she is.

She is calm and collected by disposition, spooky by nothing, eager to please by nature. She is also, when the moment calls for it, loud and showy — a horse who knows how to fill a field with her presence when she decides to. That quality, combined with her athleticism and her breeding, makes her one of the horses on this farm we are most excited to watch develop over the next several years.

Registered Information

Forty Miles and Still Fresh

As a four-year-old, Cannelle fox hunted with us — third flight, her first time out. The first moment Manny thundered past with first flight, she had questions. Why was that horse running? Why were they going that way? Why was she being asked to stand? It took her a minute to sort through it. Then she understood her job, and she settled into it completely — patient, attentive, and ready when asked. That is the kind of adaptability you cannot teach; you can only hope it comes with the horse.

She has roughly forty miles under her at this point, the majority of it on trail rather than in a ring, which is exactly the right kind of early education for a horse bred to cover ground. She takes terrain in stride, maintains her composure through whatever the trail presents, and comes home looking like she has more left to give. The endurance instinct is real in this horse — it is in her breeding from multiple directions — and what we have seen under saddle so far is entirely consistent with that inheritance.

Colonial Spanish Horses mature more fully in the later years than modern breeds — all horses grow until seven, but these horses in particular seem to finish out in ways that become most apparent between five and seven. At 14.2 hands with more growth anticipated, Cannelle is right in the middle of that window. We are bringing her along deliberately and watching her become more of herself with every season.

From the Llano Estacado to the Hunt Field

Cannelle’s sire line runs through Tabac Gold and back to Tabac (2006) — the same gaited Cherokee stallion who appears behind Tabac Rouge on the farm, carrying J’s Mystic Warrior and Swinging J’s Going Fox. Through Kiamichi True Gold on the dam side of her sire, the SS line enters her pedigree — Strong Seed again, the same grandsire who runs through both Achukma and Etta, threading through this program in ways that keep revealing themselves.

Her dam, Sonya (2012), brings deep Choctaw foundation on both sides. Through Beechkeld Icktinicky — a roan born 1991, SSMA 1326, 100% Choctaw — Cannelle traces to Ring Eyed Boy, a medicine hat stallion of the Johns Valley Choctaw line, and to Roan Star, whose dam reaches back through Chief Kiamichi and the Choctaw Maiden line. Through Metoakas Promise (1998, 100% Choctaw), the McGee Creek Bandit blood enters — the same line that runs through Etta’s dam side — along with Leleeta, who carries Geronimo T and Metoaka, foundational names in the Choctaw registry.

And then there is Looks Like Gold, a dun horse in the Satanas Gold Veins line, who carries Banditto Gold II in his pedigree. That name connects to a lineage that stretches back further than most registry horses can trace: through Banditto Gold to Spook and Carmen, through Carmen to Tijeras Lightning, and through Tijeras Lightning back to Old Dunny Boy — the buckskin stallion that Gilbert Jones of Finley, Oklahoma called the best he ever owned. Old Dunny Boy was foaled around 1932 from Llano Estacado mustang stock, descended from the horses that the Comanche rode on those treeless plains for centuries before the fences came. Gilbert Jones spent his life chasing the purest mustang blood he could find, from Texas to New Mexico, and Old Dunny Boy was the horse that represented everything he was looking for. That blood is in Cannelle d’Or. It is not close. But it is real, and it runs the same direction as the rest of her: forward, and without apology.

The Pairing We’re Watching For

Cannelle is already a fixture in the herd — at five, she is asserting herself as a boss mare, confident and clear about her place in the order of things. She has not been bred yet, and we are in no hurry. We want to give her the time she needs to develop fully under saddle, to show what she is capable of in the field, and to mature into the horse the breeding suggests she will become.

When the time comes, we are anticipating a pairing with Prince of Choctaws. Both horses can be loud and showy when they want to be and calm, collected, and playful the next moment — and both carry color genetics that could produce something genuinely striking. It is a cross we are looking forward to, and one we are content to let the horses earn through the work they do first.