Midnight Sun #410751

(Reprinted from The Heritage Tennessee Walking Horses Website)

From being a humble, back-country type known in a few southern states, the Walking Horse started going places after the registry society was formed in 1935. It seemed that nearly everybody was reading about the Tennessee Walking Horse, and wanted to see this distinctive "new" breed in action. Great singers, actors, athletes, and horses are "box office", and the big, black stallion was prominent among the performers to sell the breed to the public.

For years a guest book was kept at Harlinsdale Farm. Some days the champ was brought out of his stall twenty times a day for visitors to see and have their pictures taken with Midnight Sun. He was never ill natured. A child could go in his stall and pet him.

It was a farmer, the late Samuel Ramsey, who bred Ramsey's Rena, a bay mare, with Wilson's Allen, a chestnut. Rena died young after producing just three foals. Rena was about 90% Standardbred. Her sire was Dement's Allen by Hunter's Allen. Her dam was by Bell Buckle, a registered trotter of Bow Bells and Wedgewood blood. The registry gives her next dam as by John Covington's Hal, and the next as by "Galleston". This was a trotter, but not an American Standardbred. Old timers in the Woodbury area who remember him say his name was Galson. He was an imported black German Coach stallion. Galston was nearly seventeen hands and fifteen hundred pounds.

Midnight Sun was sold as a suckling because he was one of the last crop by Wilson's Allen, and the buyer was stuck with him for nearly three years. Nobody could see anything promising in that solid black colt that was plain, thin, and gangly. Alex and Wirt Harlin were among those who didn't want the black colt until they saw him perform under saddle when he was turn four years old. They paid 4400 including the commission for the horse in 1944.

The history makers pedigree contains out-crosses that have probably added much vigor. Instead of Roan Allen in both lines, he had Hunter's Allen on the dam's side and some of the stoutest trotting blood of his ancestor's day.

The Tennessee Walking Horse, June 1951 issue says: "Throughout the United States, the get of Midnight Sun gain in popularity each year because his are the colts that are good in every department - conformation, style, animation, good looks and the inestimable ability conductive to performing the three gaits just right!

There was considerable speculation among various horsemen relative to the performance ability of Midnight Sun about the time he was acquired by the Harlin brothers. Evidently they were confident they had something. Although at the time of his purchase Midnight Sun appeared as a gawky, awkward individual, with kind handling and efficient training, they made a polished gentleman of this backwoods-looking black stallion.

Before crowned champion in 1945 and again in 1946, Midnight Sun became the first Tennessee Walking Horse stallion to capture the Grand Championship, the most coveted honor of the breed. In winning his championships, Midnight Sun exemplified a regeneration of the old fashioned, easy slipping, flowing gaited Tennessee Walking Horse of fifty or seventy five years ago. Winning these championships was not sufficient to prove his worth to the breed, but since that time he has been able to transmit his greatness to his offspring, which will leave for him a living example yet to be matched."

Billy Taylor says of Midnight Sun, " Midnight Sun, in my opinion, was the best and most consistent breeder of true gaited Tennessee Walking Horses. We have two mares and one stallion that are grand-get of this great horse. These mares and stallion are some of the closest links to this horse."