The breed goes back to the late seventeenth century, to the northwestern corner of North America and especially into the huge area that covered what is now part of the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. This was the land inhabited by the Nez Percé American Indians, and it is to their forward-thinking horsemanship and breeding practices the Appaloosa owes its success.
Though the Nez Percé developed this spotted breed, the history of spotted horses is a very long one, with images of spotted horses emerging in prehistoric European cave paintings from around 17,000 B.C.E. Spotted horses-in particular the Austrian Noriker and the Danish Knabstrup – were extremely popular in Europe and were in good demand from the sixteenth century to do from the increasingly popular Riding Schools. Lots of the hallowed Spanish horses, also, including the revered Andalusian, once exhibited spotted coat colorings.
Horses introduced to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadores carried the powerful spotted coat gene, which spread into North America since the Spanish continued their explorations. The Shoshone tribe from southern Idaho became great horse traders, and it was largely from the Shoshone the Nez Percé, whose land was further west and north, acquired their stock of horses. The Nez Percé’s land, with its fertile plains and sheltered locations, was highly acceptable for raising horses, and the tribe quickly established a substantial breeding stock. Only the best horses were stored as stallions, whereas those of poor quality were gelded. The tribe kept the best of its breeding stock and got rid of the poorer horses through trading with other tribes. The numbers of their horses rose rapidly, and the Nez Percé became an affluent tribe according to their huge stock of horses. In the early 1800s, the American explorer Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) described the Nez Percé’s horses as”of an excellent race; they’re elegantly formed, active, and durable.”
Color was an important consideration for the Nez Percé, not just for ornamentation and decorative purposes but also for camouflage. However, their main concern when breeding was to create an all-around horse of excellent stamina, speed, and toughness, and one which was able to survive on lean rations. Their horses became renowned for these qualities and were as effective at pulling a plow since they were of covering enormous distances at speed with a rider. The most prized of their horses were used during biblical campaigns and were swift, agile, and smart, and the most revered of them were the spotted ones.
Afterwards the horse became known as”a Palouse,” then as an Appalousey. The name Appaloosa was not given to the strain until 1938 with the formation of the Appaloosa Horse Club, established to preserve the breed. Some fifty years earlier, however, the plucky, spotted breed was all but wiped out during the Nez Percé War fought between the American Indians and the U.S. government in 1877. The Nez Percé managed to outwit and outrun the U.S. cavalry for over three months and around 1,300 miles (2,092 km) of treacherous terrain, solely due to the fortitude and endurance of their Appaloosa horses. The Nez Percé were undefeated in battle but finally surrendered to prevent further hardships to the people trying to weather the frigid Montana winter. The conditions of their surrender stated that they be allowed to return to their lands in the spring with their horses, but instead they were sent to North Dakota and many of their beloved and prized animals slaughtered. Some escaped, and others were later rounded up by ranchers and sold or used.
Following this, a few of the horses which had survived were quickly dispersed at auction and acquired by a few private individuals and ranchers who recognized their own inborn qualities and began to breed them. In 1937, the magazine Western Horseman published a post on the Appaloosa written by Francis Haines, sparking public interest in the breed. The following year, Claude Thompson, a breeder of the spotted horses, combined with others and established the Appaloosa Horse Club to preserve and promote the horses. By 1947, there were two hundred registered horses and a hundred members. Just three decades later, under the leadership of George Hatley, the team had a phenomenal figure of over 300,000 horses registered, making it the third-largest light-horse breed registry. During this regeneration of the Appaloosa there was a introduction of Arabian blood and considerable influence in the Quarter Horse, which may be observed in the muscular framework of the modern Appaloosa.
In 1994 the Nez Percé tribe now based in Idaho began a breeding program to develop the Nez Percé horse. The intention of this application, which relies on breeding old Appaloosa stock with Akhal Teke stallions, is to create an elegant, tough, versatile, and agile horse that’s equivalent in its attributes to the original horses of the Nez Percé. Some, though not all, of those horses exhibit the spotted coat pattern of the Appaloosa heritage, even though they generally stick to the sleeker, finer frame of the Akhal Teke. Today, Appaloosa is considered among the most beautiful horse breeds