MANY PRYOR MOUNTAIN MUSTANGS HAVE a distinct look — part Spanish heritage, part Pryor Mountain adaptation. Where Spanish breeding left off, the rigors of their adopted home took over.
There is often a resemblance to their jennet ancestors, with a twist. Their legs are straight with thick, dense bone. Tufts of hair or “feathers” adorn the fetlocks of many of the horses, which some observers attribute to draft horse blood, others to generations born to the cold. Chestnuts on hind legs may be tiny or missing altogether, typical of Spanish-blooded stock. Hooves are supremely healthy, thick, and strong.
On the average, the Pryor Mountain horses are taller and stouter than most other wild horses. Some mature at little over 13 hands (52 inches), yet possess great bone and substance, while others reach 15 hands (60 inches) with a leaner, lighter build.
Coat colors sparkle like the contents of a treasure chest. Golden duns are abundant, as are gunmetal grullos, onyx blacks, amber chestnuts, and deep garnet bays. A few copper-colored apricot duns, topaz palominos, and frosted, ruby-red and sapphire-blue roans decorate the Range, and a young sabino stallion offers the promise of future generations of white-splattered coats.
Dark or “primitive” markings on duns and grullos — leg bars (called zebra stripes), a dorsal stripe (lengthwise along the spine), and shoulder stripes that cross the withers — contrast vividly with gold and silver, apricot and deep gray-brown coats. Foreheads may sport a spider web pattern. The markings stand out most on newborn foals and fade somewhat as the horses mature.
This cluster of inherited traits is caused by the dun gene. Fairly common in horses of Spanish descent, it produces lightened coat colors and, often, primitive markings. Early roundups favored leaving these unusual colored and “Spanish-type” horses on the Range.
LAKOTA’S BAND passes Cloud’s band in the background. The band is the family unit, with one dominant stallion; occasionally a secondary, younger stallion; and from one to several mares and their foals and/or older offspring.
A DUN STALLION, mounting a complacent mare, shows his dorsal (spinal) stripe, one of the primitive markings of the inherited dun gene.
BRUMBY, A GRULLA, sniffs the air next to her dun mate, Jackson. The “frosting” in her mane, and in Baja’s to her right, is another unusual aspect of the dun factor.
STUNNING VARIATIONS OF THE DUN FACTOR. Audubon, a black-faced grulla roan, and Exclaim, also grulla, show dorsal stripes and neatly black-edged ears — typical dun factor markings. In the image at left, Felina’s red dun coat shows a lighter dorsal stripe.
“You can never again re-create what we have in the Pryor Mountain horses because of their unique genetic make-up and their unique genetic heritage.”
— Rev. Floyd Schwieger, who studied the Pryor Mountain horses beginning in the 1960s and helped establish the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, one of the first of its kind in the country, in 1968
NOW A SOLITARY BACHELOR OF 26, Flash was once a band sire with a thriving family. Tecumseh is his son with War Bonnet.
