FOR YEARS THE WORD PALOMINO spelled one thing, C-O-L-O-R. The goldest color in the world. But today, besides the emphasis on color, the Palomino is accepted as a breed.
To reproduce Palominos is such an uncertain venture that a tingle of excitement and apprehension hovers over the marebarn at foaling time. For only a few of the colts turn out to be golden. Even if both parents are Palomino, the youngster may be a colorless creature with glassy pink or blue eyes . . . an outcast! When this happens, the stable owner turns away, heavy-hearted, wondering why in the world he ever wanted to raise golden horses.
But even in his disappointment he knows why. He is a prospector, searching for gold, hopeful of finding a sire and dam that will always stamp their offspring with Palomino gold. This bonanza is still a dream, but each year it seems nearer reality. Breeders are learning that when one parent is bright chestnut and the other Palomino, a golden colt may well be expected.
Sometimes outcroppings of gold appear quite by accident among Arabians, American Saddle Horses, and Quarter Horses. These Palomino foals come as a happy surprise—a gold premium! They can be entered in their own registry, just as if they wore the sedate gray, bay, brown, or black of their ancestors. And for good measure they can be entered in the Palomino Registry, too.
The name “Palomino” whets the imagination. Some say the word comes from the Spanish palomo, which means a white pigeon or a man dressed completely in white. Others point to the Spanish word palomilla, which means a moth or a milk-white steed. Palomino breeders disagree with both; they insist that a Palomino is not a white horse. The only white about him is his mane and tail, and white stockings or socks perhaps, or a white blaze.
Only in the United States is the name Palomino used at all. In Mexico, golden horses are Ysabellas in honor of the Spanish queen; in Peru they are Bayos for the color, bay; and in Spain they are simply Caballos de Oro, Horses of Gold.
The Palomino came to America by way of Spain—from the royal family of Palomina. They were wine makers for the king, and they used golden grapes to make their wines. They were noted too for the beauty of their royal horses, described as “tawny creatures with manes and tails white as milkweed floss.”
Just how the golden horses reached America is a mystery. Storytellers give many versions. The most romantic is the legend of Don Estaban, a wealthy wheat grower of Old California. One year at harvest time, when extra horses were needed to thresh the wheat, he called his peons together. “Ride into the hills,” he commanded. “Gather in many horses. And to the one who brings me the most beautiful steed I will give a bagful of silver.”
The peons rode hard and fast, the promised silver already jingling in their ears. But in the roundup they could not pick out any one animal because of the dust the fleeing horses made. They were completely swallowed in dust, and later in the threshing their coats were all covered with chaff. It was a sharp-eyed Indian boy who spied the merest glint of gold in the dusty mob. He singled out the bright one, brushed him clean, washed his mane and tail, and presented him to Don Estaban. This one, the story goes, was the first true Palomino found in the New World.
Mexicans tell a different tale. On a quiet starless night two Indians, they say, stole into the hacienda of a Spanish grandee and spirited away a pure-white stallion and a chestnut mare. Almost a year later the mare escaped from the Indians and fled back home with a golden filly tagging at her heels.
Whichever story you believe, it seems that both golden creatures were remarkable for more than color. They had the prominent dark eyes and the underlying dark skin of the Arabian, and his graceful body lines as well.
Palominos flourished in numbers for a while, and then they began to peter out because they lost their Arabian look. Who wanted to ride a jug-head, even if his color did vie with the sun? The established breeds could furnish better riding horses, and color was only skin deep after all.
But was it? California, always partial to its gold, began to “breed up” the Palomino. Horsemen brought in chestnut and bay Arabians, Thoroughbreds, Morgans, American Saddle Horses, Quarter Horses, and bred them to their Palominos. They wanted to produce more than color, and they did. Today the dark eyes, the underlying dark skin are specifications for acceptance in the Palomino Registry, plus the golden color of course. And the color can vary only in the degree of its goldness—three shades lighter or three shades darker than a newly minted coin.
In time California breeders developed three fixed types of Palominos—the stock horse, the pleasure horse, and the parade horse. The stock horses are really glorified Quarter Horses, and Roy Rogers’ Trigger was the most famous of them all. They can do what any good Quarter Horse can do—help in steer roping and bulldogging, and race the quarter-mile to win. One golden stock horse could take a lasso in his teeth and rope a little dogie all alone. Another, Gold King Bailey, in race after race with Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds, finished away out in front. He won so many times they nicknamed him Galloping Gold.
The pleasure Palomino often has American Saddle Horse blood in his veins. When he high-steps the bridle paths or hacks across country, his owner sits tall in the saddle, quite aware of the beautiful picture they make.
The parade Palominos, however, are the best known. In the Tournament of Roses on New Year’s Day they are, for many, more stirring than the millions of roses covering the floats. It is the Palominos that draw shrieks of joy from the children, especially when the sheriff’s golden posse marches by to the oom-pah, oom-pah of the bands.
Life for a parade Palomino is a gay round of music and excitement. He could enter a parade naked and still be beautiful. But instead his saddle is heavy with silver and gems until his coat and his trappings outshine one another. In action his tail is high-flung, his neck arched. He prances, he dances, he struts. He seems to know that his business is show business.
This new breed of Palominos has become so popular that horsemen from all over the world are going west to find them. A new gold rush is on! Men seek Palomino gold.