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Why Walking Horses?

Our family's love of horses runs generations deep. One of my favorite stories while growing up was about Nel, one of the work horses that our family kept on the farm when they lived on Old Rag Mountain (now part of the Shenandoah National Park). My grandmother was a young girl when Nel was born. She wasn't a purebred anything, just a big plain grey mare from good working horse stock. Grandma was the horse lover of her family, and spent a good deal of time with Nel and the other animals on the farm. When her father decided to sell Nel, Grandma was heartbroken. She cried and pleaded with her father not to let the mare leave, but such was life on a farm. Nel was carted away to a new home several counties away. My grandma was devastated. She missed Nel terribly, so bad in fact, that she thought she saw Nel outside of her window several nights later. Actually, she did! The mare had escaped and journeyed all the way home to her family! While Nel had to be returned to her new family, the story of such equine devotion stayed with me as I grew up.

Growing up around the heart of hunt country, there was no shortage of horses in my life. I owned Arabians, Thoroughbreds, Paints, Grades, and finally settled on Quarter Horses - "the All-American horse." I was an avid Quarter Horse fan, I thought that no breed was better. When my father, although plagued with back problems, decided that he wanted to purchase a horse and ride with me, I thought the quarter horse was the natural choice.

Fortunately for me, he disagreed. Because of his back problems, he couldn't ride a horse that trotted. He had looked into gaited horse breeds and decided that the Tennessee Walking Horse was the horse for him. He was sold on their gentle dispositions and smooth gaits. I was unconvinced. I believed walking horses to be "ugly, roman-nosed, duck-walking, pad and chain wearing high-strung show horses." I am ashamed to say that I was so blindly devoted to "my" breed, that I refused to give walking horses a chance. But if my "Daddy" was going to ride with me, I didn't care if it was on a purple striped giraffe; so we were off to find a walking horse!

In 1996, Daddy found an ad in the paper advertising "walking horses for sale," and called the farm. He decided that he wanted to take a look, and brought me along to help him. When we arrived at the barn, I was pleasantly surprised. Where were the ugly roman-nosed horses that I had seen in photos and heard so much about? We toured the barn and Daddy selected a big, handsome chestnut gelding. Since Daddy had a bad back and wasn't up for riding an untried horse, I was chosen to take him for a "test ride."

They say the walking horse is "the ride of a lifetime." They aren't kidding. I could hardly contain a laugh of pure joy as I floated effortlessly across the ring on the gleaming chestnut. It was like nothing I had ever experienced: a true "glide ride", almost like what you expect riding a pegasus to feel like. They also say "If you ride one, you'll buy one." Again, they were dead on. We went looking for one walking horse and ended up taking home three. To make a long story short, we sold every non-gaited horse we had, and replaced them all with walking horses.

Since then, we have developed a breeding program aimed at producing naturally gaited, intelligent, walking horses with unparalleled beauty and versatility. I am particularly fond of buckskins and palominos, so that plays heavily into the program. We have quite a collection of bloodlines in our herd, from western "working" lines to old-timey eastern show lines. While we enjoy researching and learning about our horses' bloodlines, we judge each horse as an individual and have chosen our foundation stock carefully.

I can't say enough good things about their loving, loyal dispositions and the smooth-as-glass ride...but I can say that there is much more to the walking horse breed. I am proud to say that our walking horses can do anything that our quarter horses did: trail ride, jump, fox hunt, barrel race, work cattle, and more! Actually, they can do anything that a non-gaited horse can do, only smoother!

Westwood Farms
Locust Dale, Virginia 22948
stephanie@westwoodfarms.net