Breed Description:

The gentle and easily trained Fox Trotter is a product of more than a century of careful breeding. About 150 years ago settlers and pioneers in the rugged Ozark hills realized the need for a sure-footed and easy traveling horse which would also be comfortable to ride. As the western migration began, the settlers from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia brought with them the best of their saddle horse stock. These were the foundation stock of what was later known as the Fox Trotter. This includes the Arabian, Morgan, Tennessee Walker and American Saddlebred horses. All of these bloodlines were poised, graceful horses that responded with sensitive eagerness to training.

Thus evolved the Fox Trotter, a horse that is handsome in appearance and agreeable in temperament. The ability to travel long distances at a comfortable speed made the Fox Trotter a favorite mount of the country doctor, sheriff, assessor and anyone else required to spend long hours in the saddle.

Today, when automobiles have replaced the horse as a necessity, the Fox Trotter is again in demand as a pleasure horse, show horse and a cross country trail horse. Their gentle dispositions make them a suitable mount for most anyone.

Reprinted from a 1986 AFTHBA Western Division publication.