When drought and the arrival of mechanized farmer destroyed the market for the usin' horse in the fifties, many bloodlines were lost forever. Other bloodlines forged the foundation for today's padded show walkers. A few stalwart breeders retained the original vision with bloodstock that had been in their families for years, often several equine generations. These breeders insisted that the horses they that rode and used regularly have smooth, natural gaits.

Today's Heritage Tennessee Walking Horse descends from bloodlines that have been in families for generations, bloodlines bred for gait and sense, not show ring primp and fire. A Heritage Walking Horse will trace back to horses with little or no breeding from padded sires and dams. The Heritage Walking Horse is an investment-quality horse!

Breed documentation, the late Ben A. Green, dated the breed now known as the Tennessee Walking Horse back to the period directly following the War Between the States. The blending of Southern saddle stock with lines brought in by the cavalrymen from the North resulted in a special type of horse developing in the Central Tennessee basin. This was a utility horse, as comfortable pulling the doctor's buggy as it was marching down the cotton row in Mississippi or Alabama. Pride in his stock prompted the farmer to want to exhibit these horses at county fairs and at other venues, but the horse was first and foremost bred to be useful.

 
During the fifties, things changed in Tennessee. Show ring classes called for a horse with a different way of moving. During this period, the show horses changed standards to require built-up shoes and the pacey type of horse capable of producing a high-stepping gait with these shoes. Horses with naturally comfortable, four-beat gaits were not suited to breeding programs where paciness was desirable. Many lines of Tennessee Walking Horses, lines that are found in abundance in the Studbooks, died out, or carried on for only a generation or two, then were no more. Some breeders paid only for registration on the show prospects, but did not register foals with the color or movement marking them as pleasure horse material. During this period, black and bay were the favored colors in the show ring, while the still common sorrels, chestnuts and sabinos, along with grey, palomino, buckskin, and roan, brought disfavor in competition and at breed auction venues.
 

Today's Tennessee Walking Horses are often linebred, sometimes heavily. The TWH Heritage horses offer genes that are quite rare in the overall breed pattern. These rare genes offer breeders the option to breed within the Heritage groups to retain the traits for which these horses are becoming known, or to outcross with popular show horse lines to obtain the best of both worlds.

The TWH Heritage Horse is by definition a working horse. Fine bones, narrow chests, crooked hind legs, and hooked ears may be the goals of the show ring, but they are not what the original breeders strived to produce. The Heritage TWH is a sturdy animal with strong, weight-carrying bones. Endurance is his forte, and he can go for miles without tiring. He has the bone density and conformation to climb hills, ease steadily down embankments, and move effortlessly along smooth tracks at a consistent gait that covers ground with comfort to him and his rider.

Heritage Walking Horses are people-oriented horses. Bred for decades to work happily at whatever chores their owners requested, the Heritage stallions and mares pass these traits to their offspring. Heritage foals are easy to imprint, but even without that initial contact, the Heritage foals seem to crave human contact. They are generally easy to halter break and train to lead, stand, clip, and load. The saddle horses are willing and sensible, and often enjoy a challenge as part of their work. Owners of Heritage babies find that they take well to the demands of the saddle and perform any task with smoothness and grace.

These youngsters get better with age. We've had comments from buyers who remark on the willingness, calmness, and intelligence of these horses. The vintage bloodlines produce intelligence, structure, and mental stability not always found in modern bloodlines.