Laurie Harris
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Rebecca will have two of the Spanish Colonial Horses at the Horse Festival, be sure to look for her booth with information about how you can help!
Reported by: Tom Yazwinski
Reported by: Tom Yazwinski
T
hursday, Feb 28, 2008 @05:33pm CST
Local Woman Preserving Horses Future
These Choctaw horses exhibit the spotting patterns that occur in some of the remnants of this strain from Southeast Oklahoma in what was historically the Choctaw nation. Rebecca Gilpatrick raises and trains four legged critters. She even has a zebra named barcode who knows how to sit. She does this kind of thing for business and pleasure but she's pretty serious about her new project.
"They're a dream come true for one thing," Gilpatrick said. Ever since I learned of them I've wanted to have several of them and do my part in preservation. That's what we're trying to do."
What she's trying to do is save a certain breed of horse. These three horses are some of the last Colonial Spanish Horses in the world, leaning towards extinction. It's a breed so rare, they've been long gone in their native country of Spain. Gilpatrick said, "There's only about 150 of the pure Choctaw horses remaining that are descendants of the horses that came on the trail of tears so they're critically rare."
The large plot of land they've grazed in southeast Oklahoma is being taken over by a lumber company. Now these horses have no place to call home to keep they're lineage alive.
Gilpatrick said, "It's important to find, raise the funds and purchase land for a permanent preservation for these horses. They're a national treasure and very much a genetic treasure. Once they're gone they cannot be replicated."
So Rebecca is putting these horses on her back, trying to not only raise money but awareness about a horse with a long past and a bleak future. If you would like to find out how you can help, you can call Rebecca Gilpatrick at (479) 601-3295, or e-mail her at horselady1000@hotmail.com.
http://nwahomepage.com/media_player.php?media_id=15692# Click here for video story
Photo credit http://www.research.vt.edu/resmag/2007winter/sponenberg.html
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