The Gypsy Vanner Horse

Gypsy banners, as a breed, were bred to be by man's side. They are very bonded to humankind. They're everything. They're beautiful. They're sweet. They're just everything I ever wanted in a horse, and more. There's very few of these animals in the United States, and every one of them is a treasure. They're very, very friendly. They love for you to touch them. They come right up to you, whether they're in the field or whether they're in the stall. I start thinking about, I get goosebumps with these horses. They're magic. There's an enchantment capturing the passions of horse lovers across America. It's steeped in the legend, romance, and mystery of the gypsies and traveling people of the British Isles, and embodied here, in this most magical horse, the Gypsy Banner. Gypsies and traveling people of the British Isles are famous for their horse breeding and trading skills. It was shortly after World War II when a few of these gypsies began selectively breeding their local stock with two Irish stallions, the progenitors of the Gypsy Banner horse breed. The stallions were known as Sunny Mays and the Coal Horse. A vision was born, and they soon began to hit upon a type of horse that pleased their colorful tastes and neatly complemented their changing lifestyles. The horse was sturdy, compact, reliable, and most of all, eye-catching. From father to son, the type has been focused, improved, and refined, and is still evolving today as a masterpiece of living art. This is what you call a real horse. Deep chest, wide chest, good bone, short back, and good hocks. White tail, and it's nothing that I've written down, it's all in my head. What I've been brought up all my life to do is to breed horses, and my family to breed them as well, and my sons and all that, and do just the exact same thing. Tradition all the way along. It started in Ireland about 70 odd years ago. My grandad and my great grandad bred them. But this is what we're mainly after, is the colored ones. Red and white, blue and white, and black and white. It's like we're starting to bring them down small, but we're keeping the one gene, 14.1, 14.2 as well, at the one side, and we're breeding the fillies down smaller. We're crossing Blue Boy across the smaller ones and bringing them down. It's just a show really, just bringing them down different, so that we can do something different again. We've brought the hair and straight silk at them, and heavier and shorter heads, smaller backs, white tails, white manes, we're doing everything different. This is all the one breed, this is all that white horse breed and all that. It goes back to the Checkerley horse, the Checkerley horse in Ireland. That came out of the Henry horse. We have all the one breed for the last 50 odd years. We take a lot of pride in breeding these horses. They're our life. Piebalds is our life. These horses are our life. The first routine about anything, work or anything like that, is just the horses. It's not for money, it's not for profit, it's just that we like doing it. It keeps us out of trouble as well. It keeps the wife's out of her hair and all. We can have a family to do with, kids and all, looking at the horses. Tradition and family are well evident among Gypsy communities. It's the first week of June in northern England. The roadsides and public areas all along the way to Appleby Township are decorated with colorful Gypsy camps. It's been this way for perhaps hundreds of years. They are making their way to the historic Appleby Horse Fair. In this age of motor cars, the once everyday horse-drawn living wagon is now reserved only for recreation and holidays such as this. I was born in a wagon. We used to walk here. This is the old road to Appleby. This is the A66. We used to walk this road when we were children with 20 or 30 horses to come to Appleby Fair. There was no traffic on the road at all. That's the trunk belt. The only thing that had passed you was our tanker. I only remember missing it once. At how many years? At 61 years old. I only remember missing it once, and that was when the wife was expecting the baby. We had a tiger on the side. Should we pull over the head? The journey to Appleby Fair is to many a pilgrimage, a gathering of culture, and celebration of a lifestyle past. It's an exciting journey, a treasured tradition for the old and a lifetime experience for the young. Some will travel weeks to get to Appleby, plying the same roadways as semis and speeding autos with little patience for slowdowns, no matter how colorful or charming. It can be an arduous trip, and not one for the faint of heart. As wagons string into Appleby Town Center, making their way to the fairgrounds, steps are a bit livelier. Heads are held higher as all eyes turn to view the feathered procession. Today is opening day of the 323rd year of Appleby Fair. Founded back in 1685 for the purpose of horse trading, Appleby Fair has run continuously since. Crowds are growing steadily, but are still only in England at the throngs the weekend will bring. Along the banks of the River Eden, the long-held tradition of bathing horses in the river seems more like a spectator sport. Up on Fair Hill, caravans, traditional and modern, already command the acreage. The fair offers a modest midway with fun, food and goods. The main focus, however, is still on the horses, and many of various quality are in view. The main road up there is called the Flush Road. That's where all your bred horses go. The best thing in the world is for the kids to drive them. And when the kids drive them, people buy them, you know. They buy them a lot more when kids are driving them, because they're, you know, they're trusting the horses like, you know. Someone will just walk along and stop you and ask you how much you want on it. And obviously tell them how much you want on it. And there's a little bit between you, so you just try your best to have a deal. How are you? Fine. Some people have good deals and some people have bad deals. Only about 20% of the horses raised by gypsies are of the Gypsy Vanner breeding. The rest are of unknown heritage, with the colored trotters being likely a standard bred cross. We own the road. Oh, yeah? When are you guys going out? If the weather's good, I'll be as good. If the weather breaks like it did yesterday, they can show up empty the place within an hour or two. It's empty, you know. Yeah. It doesn't take folks long, you know. Lovely. In the morning, six o'clock in the morning, if it's a nice morning, I'll get up, get the fire lit, get the kettle on, and the little birds are singing. I'll make me a pot of coffee, drink a whole pot of coffee and numerous cigarettes. Then I have to go to the loo every hour, because you know what coffee does to you. I should drink tea. And then I hear people going to work. The cars start going through the village, and I think, God, I may not have that much, but by God, what a wealthy man I am. All these poor people going to factories and offices, and oh, on a lovely sunny day, stuck indoors. Sad. Yeah, I've been a wagon painter for 50 years. 1958, I started doing wagons. I bought my first wagon in 1958, and I used to travel about doing the odd wagon, doing farm work, making clothes pegs, baskets, wooden flowers, paper roses, knocking doors, selling this sort of stuff, and then do another wagon. There's very, very few. You can count on one hand how many people are still travelling and living in wagons now. All the year round. And so people that go to Appleby, they just take them out for a month or a few weeks holiday. To think, 40 years ago, I was in a horse-drawn wagon on a farm, picking up potatoes at four in tuppence an hour. Yeah, and freezing in the wagon in the winter, waking up with the condensation on the boards at the back. Frozen. You couldn't get out of bed. Frozen. And being shifted by the police. When the old wagon builders had either gone bust, or they'd changed over onto the motor car age, gypsy people still wanted wagons, then they built their own. And that's where the open lot wagon comes in. And they weren't carved, so I gave a fellow with a paintbrush plenty of scope, and all the stroll work, beautiful stroll work, and a bit of gold leaf. And now, it's just gone mind-blowing, really. More and more carving, these beautiful new wagons. And so with the horses. In the old days, you just had an old plodder to pull your living wagon, something safe with the traffic for your missus and kids. It was your home. There was a very sickly smell, a sweet, sickly smell in the living wagons. And that was through the baby's milk. It was through the black bacca, the smoking. It was from the wood smoke. And the body sweat, of course. The smelly old feet. And so you had that sweet, sickly smell in these old wagons. It was really lovely, yeah. Gypsy carts and caravans can be found throughout Europe, but only one place in the world did a gypsy caravan become an art form, and that's Great Britain. So the most highly decorated gypsy caravan in the world is the English gypsy caravan. So it only made sense then that there would be a vision born to create an art form to pull the art form, and that, of course, is the gypsy van or horse. So gypsy describes the people, and van or describes the vision, much like American quarter horse. Not very many people have the opportunity, or we'll call it responsibility, of naming a breed. The final question went to Fred Walker. Fred Walker, a.k.a. King of the Colored Horses by most gypsies, was the most dedicated breeder of this vision that I ever met. Fred died living in a horse-drawn caravan. I said, Fred, it's between Romany horse and gypsy van or horse. He said, well, gypsy van or horse is the perfect name. That's what they are, a gypsy's van or horse. So that was the end of it. If it was the perfect name for King of the Colored Horses, it was the perfect name for us. Gypsy vanners are famous for an abundance of hair, often with showy double manes and a refined, sweet, well-proportioned head set on a strong neck. Their ample signature feathering starts at the hock and flows down profusely over the hooves. The gypsy vanner's strength, docility, and spellbinding beauty are influenced by three major breeds, the kindly Shire Horse, the agile Clydesdale, and the tough and hardy Dale's Pony. All three of these breeds share lineage to the magnificent Friesian horse. Variously known by gypsies as piebalds, colored horses, or colored cobs, the resulting gypsy vanner horse is only recently recognized as a distinct breed. They typically measure around 14 to 15 hands with a hand being equal to 4 inches. Their body is that of a small draft horse with a powerful and compact build. They come in all imaginable horse colors but are most commonly black and white or brown and white, called piebald or skewbald. Back in the early 50s, there were only maybe a half a dozen colored horses and they were all in Ireland. It wasn't a desirable thing to the typical Englishman. It was a reject, but gypsies liked it. And so, of course, they embraced it and, you know, all these ingredients came together. In the mid-90s, my late wife and I were on a business trip to Great Britain and we had spent a weekend in northern Wales doing research on the shire horse, the largest horse in the world, when Cindy spotted a little black and white horse. And she said, did you see that little black and white horse? And I said, no, do you want me to go back? And she said, no, and then within seconds changed her mind and said, yeah, let's do. So we turned around and went back and we parked on the side of the road, got out of our car, and when we closed the door, his attention was alert. And he came running over to see us and as he crossed the field, the mane and feathers were flying. You know, there was magic in the air. And we fell in love. Some children are born with a passion for animals that can't be explained or denied. And we were two of those children. And so we went and introduced ourselves to the farmer that was keeping our horse and, of course, he quickly explained it was not his horse. He was only keeping it for a couple days and it belonged to a gypsy. And so he got in touch with him by cell phone. He came over and a few minutes more of small talk and he invited Cindy and me to his caravan. Took a few steps towards his vehicle, looked back and said, don't worry, it's respectable. We didn't know what to think of that. We got in our car, started to follow the man, had a little bit of a laugh and said, some things are worth dying for. We've got to follow this guy. So that was the beginning of an adventure that would never end. Thirteen, it's not an unusual age for young men to be dealing in horses back home. They start, in fact, a lot younger. Like Alec, for instance. His grandfather and his great-grandfather, they were dealing in horses. But it passed my dad and my generation, but Alec's brought it back into the family. I've got two black and white mares at the moment, what I just recently got. I've got a little flea foal, which is an eight-month foal at the moment, and I've got a black and white half-bred trotter, but that's my little riding pony. Riding and driving. And hopefully this time next year I'll be able to get some foals out of the mares and maybe carry on and get some horses and go into the trade. How many mares do you hope to have? As many as you. We've been in the Gypsy Banner horse business for about six years, and in that six-year time frame, I think in the last two years, there seems to be a boom with this breed. We were looking for a new breed of horse and started searching on the Internet and kept going back to this black and white horse with all these feathers. And then doing more research... That's our deer. After meeting them, their temperament is what sold us. One of the horses that we use all of the time to show is Aja Bob. And when we take him off of the trailer at a horse show, all the little kids are yelling, there's Aja Bob! And they gather around the trailer and just follow Megan and Bob everywhere they go. The Gypsy Banner breed to us is not just a business. It's also a passion. We love the breed. We love their look. We love working with them. We started out with two, and now on the ranch, we have about 22. So they are very addicting. I really don't want Sue to know this, but I'd be fine with me if we kept all these horses. We're in business to sell the horses, don't get me wrong. But it's great having these black and white and these beautiful horses just on your property. They're fun to look at. They're fun to ride. They're fun to handle. They're excellent for driving. They're just a great all-around horse for most anyone who enjoys the pleasure of horses. Oh, look at him! It's so awesome! Look at him! He's beautiful! Beautiful! Pretty! I've had a passion for horses infinitely since the day I was born. But we've been officially affiliated with horses for two years. And now we have 15. I'm an artist. They grew me in. I can't deny that I was just enamored over what I saw. And they're so gentle and so easy. They are very bonded to humankind. And it makes it very, very easy to own them, to handle them, to train them to do pretty much anything. Nothing but feathered horses created this breed. And all feathered horses are cold-blooded horses. All cold-blooded horses came from the forest horse. A hot-blooded horse would be like an Arabian or a thoroughbred. They're a higher energy. Cold-blooded horses are more easy-going. Their temperament is more maybe kinder and slower and so on. So, by the focusing on that feather, creating the most feathered horse in the world, they wound up with a horse with extraordinary temperament. We came across some gypsy vannas in Ocala, Florida. And Wendy was smitten. And she kept saying, when are we going to get a gypsy vanna? When are we going to get a gypsy vanna? In a weak moment, I said, let's go get it. Now we have 13 horses, gypsy vannas. And one halflinger. And a couple of bond cats. We have 10 cats to tell you the truth. The first time I saw the gypsy vanna horses, we had just bought the halflingers and Bill just couldn't believe I wanted a different breed. But I stayed with asking him all the time and constantly on the internet. It was almost like a soul thing. I just had to have one. They were just everything. They're beautiful. They're sweet. They love you when you come up to them. They're always happy to see me. I don't know. They're just everything I ever wanted in a horse. And more. I'm on my way to being a horse person. I'm getting there. Actually, yes, Merelda has been helping me learn how to ride. She's teaching me to drive. And it's exciting. And it's turned into a wonderful life for us. Whenever we go someplace, these horses draw a crowd. And everybody's excited to see them. And one of the things, a number of times, we've had people come up to us with tears in their eyes saying they've wanted to see them and they were so excited to see them. It's gratifying. We got involved with this and the breeding for the horses. And we find it's less expensive than a boat. It's a wonderful opportunity. And sometimes you can do well and sometimes you don't. In the horse business, a lot of things can happen. Breeding horses with value is essential or you absolutely are going to lose money. They're all interconnected. The look, the genetics, the feelings, and the values. You can't take any of those away, really. Or there's a reduction in what you found. If I make a circle like this, and I say, within that circle are all horses raised by gypsies. We'll call those gypsy horses. And then once I understand the breed and what created the vision and the genetics that are part of that vision, I begin to realize that only 20% of those horses live within that vision. If we concentrate on this circle with a 2.0 exchange rate and import fees, you have an animal that costs $15,000 to $50,000. So if we can maintain that parallel kind of mentality, everybody wins. It maintains the integrity of what they created. It applauds and rewards them for what they created. And at the same time maintains or develops an integrity to our the worth of gypsy banner horses all over the world in a way that it's attractive to play forward as a vision. Great job! At least once a week, everybody gets rotated in and out for cleaning. For health reasons, if nothing else. When you have that much hair on the horse, the more often you clean them, the better off you are. The stronger the shampoo, the better with these guys. There's all different scrubbers you can buy. This one works really good. It's got good thick tines on it and you can use that to scrub because if you wash more than one, your fingers will get sore. One of our trade secrets when we start young horses is get them hot and sweaty. Make them want to have a bath and then it's playful for them. They actually learn to like it when they see the water hose come out. They'll literally come running to you. The hardest part is back here behind the passenger and it's just getting it all the way down. We usually do at least probably five or six a day. If you don't get all the soap off it creates problems with itching and rubbing. If they begin to itch, they'll rub on the fence boards or in the stall on the stall walls. I'm putting on a little conditioner. Well, actually a lot of conditioner. It makes it easier to comb through the tail, makes it silky. The no tears effect of baby shampoo keeps the horses from having sore eyes. They don't get any infections in their eyes, anything like that. When you're washing the face, the most important thing is to keep the hose out of their eyes and ears. That'll create a lot of tension with the horse if you have water going in their ears. Keep coming left, way left. That's good, stay where you're at. Play with her now, play a little. Apart from the obvious physical beauty, in my work I'm trying to capture a spirit, a bit of the personality in my subjects. These horses being so laid back are sometimes a little bit harder to get excited than the hotter breeds, but they show a surprising energy and athleticism. We have various games that we use to persuade them to give us the energy and control them to put them in the areas that we want them to go. Invariably, as soon as we let up, these horses want to be right back with you. I photographed the very first Gypsy Vanners in this country and became a fan immediately. We use the Gypsy Vanner images in many of our horse calendar titles, video productions, and books. As their recognition grows, they're becoming quite popular. We've met some really great people in our work with the Gypsy Vanner horses. You're not going to make a lot of money showing or competing these horses, so they're not as much of a commodity. A lot of the people are new owners and they seem to be really in it for the love of the horses. I feel that the Gypsy Vanner's personality is one of the best personalities out there. You can mess up with a Gypsy Vanner and they'll forgive you for it. Tomorrow you can come back out and you'll be able to get along with them. They're really quick to learn your leg cues and your seat cues. They really want to please. Tinker Toy is a stud of mine that we took to Ohio at one of these deals at 10 months old and actually laid him down and a wagon circled him up there at the Ohio show. That's what won me over with the Gypsy Vanner. I'm really amazed with the way the Gypsy Vanner horses are coming around and each day as we come back to the next day, it seems as though they don't forget anything. They're very quiet, very well-mannered. Of course, like any horse they can get spoiled, but when you remind them, you can remind them very gently that they're to behave. They say, OK, I'll behave. They're just very responsive. Gypsy Vanner is a completely different experience, a very nice different experience because I've been working with a different breed of animals, different temperaments, and this horse is completely different for me. When you work with a horse, you see the temperament, you see the way they are. This horse is in a very pleasant way most of the time. So the temperament is very kind, easy, and friendly. I just started working with a 10-year-old stallion just for fun, just to see how they really are, even a 10-year-old without nobody riding before. It took me less than three days for me to put them out and ride them on the trail. They really give you anything if you know how to ask. She was not serious about horses at all until she saw Gypsy Vanners. When she saw Gypsy Vanners, she was completely gone. It's true. I went online and about five hours later I was totally, completely passionately in love with Gypsy Vanner horses and had scheduled pretty much a country-wide trip to find our herd, and that's kind of how our story began. People are really amazed when they see ER Gypsy with her eight foals standing there together. They start asking questions. What are these horses? They're all related. Then you tell the story behind it, and they are just blown away. We use what is known as the embryo transfer program. Within a two-year period, we have eight different foals on the ground. We were especially keen about it when we understood how horses that would have been sent to a glue factory, would have been sent to the slaughterhouse, are now given a new career as a mare that carries babies for more valuable horses. We did it in this way, with this number, because we really wanted to know in our breeding program, what is the consistency with these two particular stallions that we've used? We're not a breeding factory. We're not trying to overpopulate the breed. The Gypsy Vanners are rare. They need to stay rare. We're going to go forward from this point on, very selectively, breeding our horse. That should be enough for people to see how close to the target of the standard that these premier mares are. Perhaps years of planning, 11 months of pregnancy, and hours of watch labor, dovetail into this one miraculous moment. The birth of a new foal. And nature takes over. Coachworks has 12 shops under one roof. We can make you a car here. The average car we work on is right at a million dollars. We're one of the most famous Ferrari restorers in the world. And I want to help make Vanner horses the most famous horses in the world. This is Enzo. He's the first Gypsy Vanner horse in Cook County. And he's named after Enzo Ferrari. All our Vanners are going to have Italian names. And the studs are all going to be famous people. Enzo Ferrari made the Ferraris and he started the factory 60 years ago when the Gypsies were creating these horses. And I think these horses, after studying and researching horses, are the Ferrari of horses. These horses are really smart. They're magic. There's a very small number in America. Ferrari's a special car. And the Vanners are special horses. Not being a horse person, being scared of horses in the first place, for me, to go inside the stable with them, to brush them, to walk them and handle them, which I'm just now learning how to do. Sophia, I'm really attracted to her. And she's my baby girl. And I pet her every day, groom her and feed her. And we've kind of developed a relationship. And I get to kiss her and hug her and I get kind of emotional talking about it. People ask me what I do and I say I raise Gypsy Vanner horses with my daughter. They say, what's a Gypsy Vanner? So we end up googling Gypsy Vanners. I've done it in fairs. I've done it at different llama shows and bringing up the horses and the reaction is always the same, wow, how come we've never seen these? There's very few of these animals in the United States. And every one of them is a treasure. We currently own 11 Vanners, which includes two young stallions that we bought in England. Introduced right straight off the trailer for the first time seeing a llama, there was no reaction. They were just as calm and placid. They just say, hi, how are ya? My daughter can go up and open the gate and say, let's go for a walk and not even put a bridle on and the horse will just go with me. And I can tell ya, I've never had a horse that would do that. When I was a kid up in Montana farming, we couldn't afford a horse so I rode a Jersey cow. That's how dedicated I was to get him to ride. I've been riding for probably, well, since I was 3 and 12, I've been riding for about 9 years. Well, their feather flying is awesome. Their color is just amazing. And I've seen some horses with manes past their knees. They've got forelocks down to their nose if not past. And they've got tails that drag on the ground. They have an extremely kind nature most of the time. And they're fun to ride and when you are pooped and can't run, they will. She's probably one of my favorite mares. It's hard to have a favorite. I've just totally fallen in love with these horses. They're probably the most gentle horse I've ever been around in my life. They like to play. They like to go out in the field and chase the ball. They like to drive. They like to be ridden. There just isn't anything about them that I don't find appealing. You can't help yourself when you see a gypsy banner for the first time. There's just so much magic about them. You have to investigate immediately and I was so drawn to it that I did exactly that. The reaction from people when they come off the trailer. They want to know what is that? Where can I get one? And they seem to follow you to the barn. You're like the Pied Piper. It's just something about these horses. I start thinking about it. I get goosebumps with these horses. They're magic. The highlight of my year really is when these babies start to show up in the spring and watching the young ones as they first come out and within a day or two they're ready to start playing with you. We're very, very excited about the coming years with these horses. I think we will probably never be horseless again. Certainly without some of our gypsy horses. It's just unthinkable to us. Travelers have always they understand their horses. They've always known the difference between the good ones and the not good ones. But the world now wants you know wants to participate and it's not it's important that we all work together to take custody. I mean to protect and to identify the genetics that live in the minds of men who have spent 50, 60 years of their life focused on producing a horse so sweet.