Give Her That Old-Time Foxtrotter
For Dyan Westvang, exploring her own horses' pedigrees led to a 10-year discovery of the breed
By Lisa Broadwater

Like many people, it was a bad back that introduced Dyan Westvang to gaited horses. Born and raised in Washington state, Westvang had ridden all her life. Then, in the early '90s, a doctor told her that her riding days were over.
"Well, I can't live without horses," she says, "so I explored all the gaited breeds. I had ridden a Foxtrotter about 40 years ago, and it stuck with me."
Westvang was drawn to Foxtrotters, she says, because "I wanted a horse that was surefooted, smooth-gaited, had a good brain and was still an athlete. And you don't really get those things with the other gaited breeds.
"Although they're really hot on the coast right now, at the time we started looking, they were few and far between," she recalls. "I had ridden my first Foxtrotter back in the early '50s in California, and I was so impressed with them then that I stored it in my brain — because you couldn't buy them on the coast. And when I got lamed up and couldn't ride Quarter horses and hard-trotting horses any more, this came back to the fore.
"I looked around until I found a Foxtrotter. There's just no comparison — in terms of the quality of ride, the ability of the horse; their mind is just phenomenal. They were my kind of horse: They can do it all."
For Westvang, it was the Foxtrotter's easygoing way, extraordinary balance and sure-footedness that really set the breed apart.
"We rode in the Cascade Mountains," she explains, "and a square-based horse, which is diagonally gaited like the Foxtrotter, is better in the mountains than a lateral-based horse. When they're laterally based [and perform a running walk, pace, stepping pace or rack], they're not usually as balanced because they use both legs on one side at the same time, which makes it relatively easy for them to tip over if the going gets tough.
"Granted, lateral gaits are sometimes extremely smooth if you have a good horse," Westvang adds. "And in our flatlands, they will actually cover more ground than a square-based horse because the front leg can get out of the way of the hind leg — they can take a longer stride. But that isn't a good function if you're climbing or working in the round, and it makes it harder for the horse to change leads. So they're not generally as athletic."

A Gold Mine
Westvang's first Foxtrotter purchase proved to be a wise investment.
"I hit a gold mine," she says bluntly. "It took me five months to find that first one because there are so few up there [in Washington; Westvang and her family moved their operation to the Ozarks — Oxford, Ark., to be exact — four years ago]. We found the second mare a few months later. She's a wonderful mare, but at the time, she was a little on the lateral side. Later, I found out she could square up and travel right; she just needed a chiropractic adjustment. But some Foxtrotters are actually bred to be more lateral. And I didn't know why there was such a difference from the first horse."
Back then, Westvang admits, "We knew nothing about gaits. I'm a pretty proficient rider, but I didn't understand that there were so many little nuances you needed to learn. And when I started looking for horses, I didn't understand why there was such a difference between horses if they were all Foxtrotters. That caused me to want to delve into the history of the breed and find out why things are the way they are."
In her quest to learn more about the Foxtrotter, Westvang began to collect pedigrees — with a vengeance. She now has more than 12,000 on her database. In fact, she has gathered together so much information that she's about to publish a book devoted to the Foxtrotter, Of Royal Blood: The Missouri Foxtrotter, which will include the history, development of its registry, breeding and the various facets of its gaits.
In Of Royal Blood, Westvang traces the Foxtrotter all the way back to King James' stable.
"The Foxtrotter has the richest gene pool of any breed in the United States," she says. "They're from the best of the best all through history, from the 1600s on down. Which makes the gene pool that we have in this breed special. It wasn't just that they contained this blood or that blood, it contained the BEST of that blood. So these horses have the potential to be absolutely phenomenal. And that's my goal."
According to Westvang, "You can trace almost every Foxtrotter living today to Justin Morgan. You can also trace them to Copper Bottom and Steel Dust, which were foundation Quarter horses. You can trace them to Eclipse and all the foundation Thoroughbred sires. They go through Denmark, the founding sire of the Saddlebreds, they go through Allan F-1, the foundation sire for the Tennessee Walking horse, they go to the foundation of the Standardbred — the top horses of these breeds. Therefore, any serious breeder who really wants to make something of it, can do that."
One of the breed's key strengths (aside from the foxtrotting gait), Westvang says, is its mind.
"The Foxtrotter has an incredible brain," she says. "And because they were bred for family use, they also have a good disposition. And that can be lost or it can be capitalized on, depending on how people refine the breed. And that's a real important factor, as far as I'm concerned — a horse is only as good as someone is able to use it.
"I have stories you can't believe of things that these horses have done. And why that happens is in the genes. If you go way back, to the Scottish Galloway and the Irish Hobbey for gait genes, those horses had to be handled by women and children because the men were either usually out at sea as fishermen, or they had to go out somewhere else to eke out a living. So the women were left with the horses.
"And the horses bonded so tightly with their owner, they would even sacrifice themselves for their master. When they were used in war, they would carry their owners off the battlefield, even though their own guts might be hanging out.
"They took care of their people. And that is a characteristic that still exists in this breed today. That's one reason the U.S. Forest Service owns several thousand Foxtrotters — because not only can they cover more ground in the day without wearing out and give a good ride, but they keep their wits about them when the going gets tough."
Another advantage of the Foxtrotter: They have great feet.
"White feet are usually considered inferior in other breeds because they think they're softer and they don't hold a shoe," Westvang says. "In this breed, that's not the case. They have good feet, period. It's very, very hard to find bad feet in a Foxtrotter. They have good joints, good bone."
The impetus for Westvang's initial research was her desire to do some breeding. However, when she first bought a Foxtrotter, she says, "I just planned on having fun with them. But everyone who came to my farm ended up wanting my horse, but they couldn't have her. They'd tell me, 'If you ever have a foal, I sure would like to have one.'
"But I can't breed just for the sake of breeding, so I started doing research. To breed, you really need to know what came before so you know how to achieve your goal. But there was no literature you could read up on. So I started tracing pedigrees.
"I started with my stallion, thinking that the pedigree would probably end within eight generations because the breed is so young. But I was amazed that it didn't. It went into other breeds — and it kept going and going, like the Ever-Ready battery. It went all the way back to 1623.
"Because a large number of the horses that came into this breed were registered with another breed, there were records all the way back. So I traced my stallion back to 1623 on almost all his legs. And I thought, 'Wow, this has to be a a rarity.' Then I started with my mares and found the same thing. Pretty soon, a pattern emerged; I started seeing what the breed really is.
"I still analyze pedigrees every day, and now I understand how the pedigree equates to motion and ability and how there is a balance in the genes to achieve one type of motion as opposed to another."

A Little Background
The original Foxtrotters were bred primarily from saddle horses — the forerunner of today's American Saddlebred.
However, Westvang says, "I differentiate that from Saddlebred horses because they weren't the fire-breathing, high-headed horses in those days. They were generally produced from horses that carried a lot of Morgan blood because back then most Morgan horses were gaited.
"But the strongest genetic background these horses have is actually the ancient Thoroughbred. They initially were bred for a modicum of speed and endurance, and they also used a lot of horses, like the Morgan and some of the early Quarter horse forerunners to make them athletic. They needed to keep that flat muscling, because they needed the endurance, they needed the bone, they needed the feet."
The Foxtrotter was developed primarily as a sound working animal in the Ozarks that could keep on its feet.
"They had a lot of problems with their horses falling as they were going about their daily work in the hills," says Westvang. "Because of the terrain — it's rocky, silty, crumbly — it's really hard for a horse to stay on its feet. Quarter horses would play out within a couple of hours. They would go through four to six horses to do a day's work because the Quarter horse couldn't handle the endurance part of it.
"They also tried other types of animals, but they just didn't work. Laterally based horses made a soft ride on the flat, but they weren't up to working in the hills. They literally tipped over sideways.
"So they looked for horses that could stay square but still give a good ride — if you spend 14 hours in these hills on horseback, you really need that. But you also need a horse that has the ability to work cows or whatever.
"Most of the people needed horses that would do multiple tasks because most families could only afford to have one horse or maybe two. So they did logging with these horses; they did some crop work with them; they used them to pull the buggy to town; the kids rode them to school; they used them to pull the buggy to church on Sunday. And they were still used for general farm work, so they had to be athletic."
The Foxtrotter's distinctive gait, Westvang says, "Originally came from the ancient Celtic ponies. All gaited horses in the Americas get their gaited gene from the same source. What differentiates them is what the other part is — the non-gaited part — and how many doses of the gait they got. Depending on what they were developed for, they'll be more or less lateral."

About That Gait
So what exactly is a foxtrot? It's a four-beat broken diagonal gait with a distinctive 1-2--3-4 rhythm that's created by a horse moving its front foot a split second before its opposite rear foot. (The foxtrot also produces a very distinctive sound, which is often described as having the same cadence as "a chunk of meat and two potatoes.")
The beauty of a foxtrotting horse is that there are two or more feet on the ground at all times (on both the front and back ends, the horse will set one foot down as it picks the other foot up, and for a moment both feet will be touching the ground). That's what makes the gait so smooth — the horse is in contact with the ground at all times.
"That means there's no free-fall within the stride," Westvang explains. "And one stride goes from two to three feet back-and-forth, and sometimes has four feet touching. Because of that, there's no impact to the joint. That means the horse doesn't tire nearly as easily because it's not wearing itself out.
"Almost any gaited horse, unless it's terribly lateral, will foxtrot," she adds. "Especially when the footing gets tough, if they're any kind of horse at all, they'll square up and foxtrot because that's the best-balanced gait there is in horses.
"What makes it a good endurance gait is that it's the only gait in equines where the front foot lands first, and the hind foot slides into its stride.
"When we started breeding, gait was what we used as our guideline. Because gait in general is a fine balanced gene. Some gaited horses will only have one intermediate gait, and some will have a whole range. My favorite riding mare has eight soft gaits, and she rides them all on cue and rates them very easily. Now, in an ideal world, they'd all be like that."

Changing Times
When roads became plentiful in the Ozarks and motor vehicles took over part of the tasks, the function of the Foxtrotter as all-around work horse began to change. The show ring started to play a part in the drive for producing these horses.
The Missouri Fox Trotting Horse Breeders Association was founded in 1948. Until the book was closed in 1983, the registry was open to any horse that would foxtrot under saddle before inspectors. The majority of the horses entered during those years were of Tennessee Walking horse breeding. And while they often did do a good foxtrot, many were laterally based horses that preferred to perform a stepping pace or running walk.
Back then, breeders often bred both Tennessee Walkers and Missouri Foxtrotters; consequently, stallions were often double-registered. With the introduction of the Walking horse blood, the general appearance and function of the Foxtrotter began to change. The most obvious difference was in the shape and size of the head (many old-time breeders rejected the Walking horse blood because of their coarser, bigger heads).
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Walking horse began to undergo a similar change, Westvang says.
"Where it had once been a fairly square-gaited horse that performed a square running walk naturally, it became a more lateral horse that performed the running walk at less than a 50/50 ratio. It became a much leaner, taller horse designed for speed and stride length and show, rather than the compact general-purpose type of Plantation-style horse."
Eventually, as the Walkers and Foxtrotters intermingled, problems began to arise in both breeds.
"A high percentage of foals were born pacing or doing lateral gaits rather than demonstrating a clear-cut soft gait," Westvang says. "Many of the newer generation also became hotter-natured, less-adaptable and less-athletic in a general sense while at the same time they became taller, leaner animals with more speed and stride."
In effect, a sub-group of the original Foxtrotter began to replace its predecessor.
"Right now, I see a rather disturbing division in the breed," Westvang says. "It happens in every breed. As soon as you get the show ring involved, you get a division because they want to capitalize on one part of the horse without necessarily tending to the other part. And right now the drive is for more and more speed, more stride length and overstride in the show ring."
In the old days, most Foxtrotters would cap their tracks, so that if their front foot landed safely, the hind foot would too.
"Today, the show ring is changing that, and they're getting more and more overstride," Westvang says. "But when they do that, they lose the balance and the sure-footedness, so there is a point of no return there."
The reason for the shift in speed and stride?
"If you're showing in a gaited ring, how can you change anything to draw attention to yourself?" Westvang ponders. "Every horse is going around in a circle on a little track, and you can't really vary that. So they started looking for more animation. And animation equated to more head nod and a fancier look. So they started elevating the head and artificially putting a big, old head nod on the horse, which really didn't enhance its flow of movement. And, unfortunately, right now, a lot of times we're getting this bobbing of the head that's independent of what's going on with the rest of the horse.
"Then they started pushing for a horse that could get around the arena faster. Well, initially, the foxtrot was used as a slow gait. It's not supposed to be a speed gait. And if you're going to do a true foxtrot, it's not going to be bobbing down the trail. But they've now gotten so much speed involved that the horses have been getting more and more lateral. In fact, some of the training barns prefer to get a pacing colt and teach it to foxtrot."
That trend becomes particularly problematic, Westvang says, when it comes to breeding:
"Let's say that pacer wins a championship. Well, everyone wants to breed to a champion — but that particular champion is not going to profligate foxtrotting foals. So it's a negative thing."
The shift in gait movement has also created a physical change in the Foxtrotter.
"What happens as you speed up the gait — and this is a conformational defect, in my estimation — the hind end begins to be camped out (where you get a longer gaskin than you have from the hip to stifle and from the top of the hip to the point of the buttock). You see that a lot in the Tennessee Walking horse. And when the gaskin gets long, when the horse stands square — if it can — its hind legs will actually be protruding behind it.
"A horse like that has to do two actions to get its legs back up under it, so it loses that athletic ability. It also puts a lot of stress on the stifles and on the hocks. It's not a good quality. What you want to see is a well-balanced horse, where all its parts are functional. Then you get a good all-around horse, and the gait is the same on top."
The main problem with old-style Foxtrotters, Westvang says, is that, for a while, people who were breeding them "had no way to showcase them because they weren't going to win in that [show ring] racecourse.
"But there's been such a hue and cry from Foxtrotter owners that they started adding versatility classes to accommodate people who want to stay with the original-style horse. And those classes are growing by leaps and bounds, which I feel will go far in promoting this breed the way it ought to be. Because it shows what the original horse was asked to do and can do — and are still doing; we just didn't have a way to get it out to the public.
"The pendulum is starting to swing back because they also found that for every horse that reaches the show ring, they're producing a dozen horses that don't. And where do those horses go? They go to people who want to ride on the trail, and they're losing the sure-footedness. So they're starting to swing that back a little bit and I'm glad for it. It'll make a better breed."
That's one reason the old-style Foxtrotter is the focus of Westvang's breeding program.
"We feel that if someone doesn't preserve these horses," she says, "eventually the breed will become so lateral that the only way you'll ever see a foxtrot is on a horse that's trained by a professional and ridden by a professional who can hold it in that gait, rather than by the common pleasure rider."
Meanwhile, interest in the Missouri Foxtrotter has begun to spread far beyond the Ozarks.
"Sixty percent of the membership of the MFTHBA now lies outside of Missouri and the Ozarks," Westvang says. "Most of the old breeders who started the registry are now either retiring or passing away, so some of the larger ranches that started the breed are disbanding and the horses are going elsewhere. I can't think of a state that doesn't have them. They're in Norway, Sweden, Austria, Germany. There are Foxtrotter shows now in Europe; it's a real growing breed.
"That's why I feel the background on the breed is so vital — because they won't maintain the same characteristics and qualities if people don't understand how they got them in the first place.
"That has become my goal in life, I guess," Westvang adds, with a laugh. "I think people need to do a better job of breeding and standardizing the breed. In any other breed, you can go pick up multiple publications and find out how that breed came to be and understand that certain bloodlines give you certain characteristics. In this breed, there's absolutely nothing. So you're left guessing. No one had taken the time to do it before me. It's sad because the breed warrants more consideration. And if you continue to just breed willy-nilly, you get mediocrity.
"The thing is, any serious breeder who really wants to make something of this breed can do that. I'm too old — I won't live long enough to see that, but if someone else can take the research I've done and run with it, they could make a breed like no other has ever been by just using common knowledge and good genetic source. It's there.
"I'm hopeful that a lot of the new people coming in have enough discipline and are conscientious enough that it'll get back to having goals beyond 'Let's make a trail horse.' I want people to realize that that's possible. And the reason it's possible is the material is there; it's how they put it together that's going to count."

Founding Fathers
A list of foundation sires that were key to the early formation of the Missouri Foxtrotter.

On her website (www.missourifoxtrottersatoz.com), Foxtrotter breeder Dyan Westvang provides an extensive list of sires that contributed to the evolution of the Missouri Foxtrotter. We asked Westvang to choose the handful of horses she considered most influential to the breed.
Not all of the stallions listed below were registered, and some came before the registry was founded, but they were instrumental in how the original Foxtrotters were formed. The list is in approximate order of their importance. There are a number of very popular stallions who came later, but they arrived when the numbers of total registered horses was too high for one horse to significantly influence the breed.

1. Old Fox
Chestnut stallion foaled in the mid 1920s.
Old Fox’s parentage was unknown but determined to be of Saddlehorse breeding. He stood approximately 16 hands and had a star on his forehead. Old Fox was a very widely used stallion and influenced the early foxtrotting horses in the Missouri Foxtrotting Horse Registry through both sons and daughters.
Even though he lived before the formation of the Foxtrotter registry, his spectacular gait and style became the criteria by which Foxtrotters were judged both then and now.

2. Ted
An early forerunner of the Missouri Fox Trotting breed, Ted is one of the best-known, respected and adored horses of those early times. Sired by Cadmus Dare, by Chester's Last, he was out of the Kissee Mare of Black Squirrel breeding, which made Ted line-bred on multiple legs to the smooth-gaited Black Squirrel horses.
Ted was popularly used to sire smooth-gaited, multi-use horses in the Ozark regions even before there was such a thing as the Missouri Fox Trotting Breed Association. Though many generations removed, all who own horses tracing to Ted proudly declare those links to this fine old horse. For more information on Ted, there are stories of him to be found in Nadine Moeller's book, Foxtrot Tracking.

3. Golden Governor
F-107 Palomino horse foaled in 1943.
Sired by Ozark Golden King and out of Betty Fox by Deacon, Golden Governor is considered by many to be the founding sire of the breed.
Golden Governor followed in the footsteps of other good horses such as Ted, Old Fox and Deacon in siring many, many offspring that went on to build the breed. It’s difficult today to find an extended pedigree that doesn’t have Golden Governor in it. He sired many successful show horses, as well as many successful and prolific breed sires.
In breeding, he had some unknowns, but those known lines were Saddlehorse. In many circles even today, the value of a horse is counted in the number of crosses to Golden Governor.

4. Sterling Merry Boy
5881173 Tennessee Walking Horse Grey horse foaled in 1958.
Although he was a full-blooded Tennessee Walking horse, Sterling Merry Boy sired countless foals in the Missouri Foxtrotter registry and was one of them most influential sires of his time. His most notable son perhaps is Zane Grey.
Sterling Merry Boy changed the look, style and gait of the foxtrotting horse, adding reach and speed to the gait. His name will be found on the majority of pedigrees today. He was sired by Sterling Silver by Top Wilson and out of Merry Snow Lady by Snow Man by Merry Boy.

5. Dare's Trigger
F-356 Chestnut horse foaled May 1, 1955.
Dare's Trigger was one of the most used and influential stallions of his time. His name lives on today in hordes of pedigrees. He was sired by the immortal Cotham Dare and was out of Flicka D., who was of Shaddy breeding.
Dare's Trigger was reported to be out of a draft mare. However, pedigree shows that if the mare was carrying draft blood, it was only in part. Dare’s Trigger was primarily, if not entirely, of Saddlehorse breeding. He stood at stud in many different areas, including Arkansas and Missouri, and had several owners during those times. He was still being advertised at stud in the 1978 Celebration book at the age of 23.

6. Blankenship Diamond
Chestnut-sorrel stallion with a star foaled approximately 1940.
Blankenship Diamond was a heavily built horse that stood about 15.1 hands. Sired by Old Fox out of Betty Fox by Deacon. Betty Fox was out of Nan. Deacon was by Rex Shepherd and Nan was by the Lambeth Horse. He was a Saddlehorse by blood and was brother to Golden Governor.
Blankenship Diamond was known by several names to include Old Diamond, or Diamond. He was a good cow horse and was known for his wonderful gaits. He had a quirk that stayed with him his life long: He bucked when first mounted. After that, he would work and do well all day. He sired a multitude of foals around the Protem, Mo., area and in north Arkansas.

7. Cotham Dare
F-10 Sorrel horse foaled May 9, 1941.
Cotham Dare was sired by Cyclone Dare, by Mountain Dare, by Chester Dare, by the immortal Black Squirrel. Cotham's dame was May Cotham by Dink Not. His name is often misspelled with a "G" making it Gotham Dare.
Cotham was 100 percent Saddlehorse. He sired many scores of good foals and many successful show horses. He was a naturally gaited horse with a lot of prepotence that passed along to his get.

So You'd Like to Buy a Foxtrotter
A Few Tips from Breeder Dyan Westvang

1. Don't listen to all the propaganda out there about bloodlines — that this bloodline is better than that one. It's all baloney. If you go far enough back on those bloodlines, they all go back to the same horses. So go out and find a horse you feel suits your needs and is comfortable, then just go with it and be happy.
Throw away the names and the titles and all that. Find a horse that you think looks good, get on it and ride it, and if it gives you a good ride, then that's the horse you need. And quit worrying about whether it's in vogue or whether it's the proper politically correct bloodlines for this season. Just go with it and enjoy it.

2. If you're interested in doing some old-time Foxtrotter breeding, you can't really go wrong with horses that have a lot of Golden Governor, Golden Rawhide, Red Rawhide or Zane Grey. I also like Missouri Traveler. Those old horses did a good job. Most of those horses are either Saddlehorse or part Saddlehorse; none of them are more than 50 percent Tennessee Walking horse. Because even though some of the really good foxtrotting horses in the old days came from Walkers — Walker's Merry Lad had a lot of rhythm, and his horses always have a lot of rhythm; you can just hear it — you're dealing with a lateral base because Walking horses in general had more doses of the pace. Don't worry about names, but keep that balance of genetic material.

3. It takes the same year to produce a good baby as it does to produce a bad baby. Our gene pool started out so small that we can't afford mediocrity. You can have the most beautiful stallion in the world, and if it doesn't match up with your mare, you shouldn't breed them.