03/14/2025
Bloodline of Influence - The Colorado Ranger Horse, Patches.
The Sugarbush Harlequin Draft is a breed with an amazing history, and it is built on the dreams made reality of our founder, Mr. Everett Smith. However, Mr. Smith was not the only man to see the benefits of combining Appaloosa and Draft traits. Another of those legendary horseman is Mike Ruby, the founder of the oldest LP breed in America, predating even the Appaloosa Horse Club, the Colorado Rangerbred Horse.
Mr. Ruby used several descendants of drafts in his new breed program, but one of the horses that founded it all was Patches, CRHA #1. The breed registry, The Colorado Ranger Horse Association, was started in 1935, beating out the Appaloosa Horse Club by several months. Today, it's thought that as many as one in eight ApHC Appaloosas is CRHA qualified by having the required lineage to Patches, or CRHA #2 stallion, Max.
Patches was the result of quite a lot of careful crossbreeding. Born in 1918 and described as 'cream, black, and white', his sire, Tony, was a double bred grandson of the grey Arabian stallion 'Leopard', who had been gifted to general Ulysses S Grant alongside another stallion, Linden Tree. Patches' dam was an LP draft cross mare, Judy. Her sire, Spot, was sired by a half Shire, half Percheron stallion named 'Chancelor', and her dam, Mollie III, was at least 3/4 Percheron. This made Patches himself roughly thirty percent draft at minimum, and possibly even more than that as Mollie, his great-granddam of unknown breeding, was noted by Mr. Ruby to have pulled a milk wagon.
But, the draft influence didn't stop at Patches! Quite a few founding CRHA mares had draft influence of their own. Several were sired by the Shire stallion, Albert Lee. One of the foals resulting in a cross of Patches to a daughter of Albert Lee was Black Mane, described by a CRHA Booklet as "One of the greatest mares the Plains ever knew." Black Mane was a prolific dam, producing several CRHA foals all at minimum 20% draft by different stallions. The blood of Patches is found in a majority of modern CRHA registered and qualified horses today, carrying his Percheron and Shire influence through time. It is easy to pick out those good traits in many of the Colorado Ranger Horses we know and love - hardy builds, good bone, and excellent temperaments.
Today, ASHDA benefits from the influence of these bloodlines by using dual registered Appaloosas which also carry the Colorado Ranger Horse breeding in their pedigrees. Patches can be found in the bloodlines of several ASHDA Hall of Fame horses including Rorschach's Hextatic, Stonewall Virginia, and Hexenhammer and their descendants, as well as in the pedigrees of multiple notable ASHDA horses across all books of the registry such as Twisted Heiress, Rip, Wisconsin's Charity, Rockin Mighty Belle and more!
It's great to see so much in common with a great breed founded almost a century ago and our horses of today, and to benefit from that influence in so many of the foals born for ASHDA. If you own a registered ApHC Appaloosa, there's a one in eight chance your horse is also a Colorado Rangerbred, and if you own a registered Main Book or Heritage American Sugarbush Harlequin Draft, the chances are even higher for having a horse carrying those historical bloodlines! A special thank you to CRHA breed historian, Sherry Byrd for her tireless work to record the accurate history behind the breeds that help make ours!
📸 RTD's Sugarbush YouNeedIt, an E-Designation ASHDA filly bred by Rockin the Dots and owned by ASHDA Lifetime Member, Randall Napier, and a descendant of CRHA #1, Patches.
