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Tennessee Walking Horse Heritage Society

The Tennessee Walking Horse Heritage Society is a  group founded by like-mindedbreeders and advisors who value the genetic potential of the rare heritage bloodlines almost lost within the Tennessee Walking Horse show bloodlines. Our group is dedicated to preservation through breeding and rearing of quality brood stock and we occassionally have broke horses for sale.

 We are promoting plain shod or barefoot horses who can perform a true four beat walking gait. We are not a club and we are not soliciting membership.  For more information, see our Mission Statement and Goals below.

Our Goals

To preserve and promote the RARE heritage bloodlines of the Tennessee Walking Horse in animals that are intelligent, willing, sane, and naturally gaited for the running walk.

To protect and preserve the rare bloodlines within the Tennessee Walking Horse gene pool so they will be available for future generations of horsemen.

To provide information about the history of the breed as it was, outside of the show ring circles.

To educate the new Walking Horse buyers about the colors availabe in the breed and how to use the science of color genetics both in one's own breeding program, and to avoid buying into lines of horses with genetically impossible colors.

To make young stock, as well as broke saddle horses, available to discriminating individuals who appreciate and wish to enjoy this unique type of Tennessee Walking Horse.

Characteristics

        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.

The ideal for gaits in the early days of the Tennessee Walking Horse was a three-gaited individual with a bold, cadenced flatwalk at 3-4 mph. A pronounced head nod combined with a distinctive overstride of the track of the front hoof with the track of the hind hoof on the same side to carry the horse and his rider for miles at this working gait. The running walk was simply an accelerated version of the flatwalk, as the horse increased speed without losing the basic take-off and set-down pattern of the walk. Some individuals performed this gait with a pronounced head nod and long overstride, while others are at their best with less nod and stride. The canter, as with all horses,was a distinctive three-beat gait that was especially comfortable to the rider.

Breeders of the Heritage Tennessee Walking Horses strive to breed to this time-honored standard. Due to the nature of equine gait genes, however, not every horse will inherit a preference for the running walk. Some will exhibit a more lateral four-beat gait, some have the tendency to go at a rack, while others will treat their riders to extremely smooth foxtrots. The common link among the horses of the Heritage bloodlines is the lack of the two-beat pacing tendency. Unless he has been deliberately taught to pace, a Heritage TWH will reward his owner with a consistently smooth intermediate gait every ride, every time.

Heritage Tennessee Walking Horses can satisfy most buyers' preferences along the equine color palette. Horses within the group are found in basic black, bay, chestnut, and sorrel, but also in the more exotic shades of grey, palomino, buckskin, and sabino. Horses from these various shades can trace their color heritage back to the colors of their ancestors as noted in the TWHBAA Studbooks published in the thirties and forties.

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.

What is a Heritage Walking Horse?

The horse bred in the Central Basin and surrounding areas of Middle Tennessee was first and foremost a utility saddle horse. Blessed with a steady, dependable flatwalk, a ground covering running walk, and a smooth comfortable canter, the horse was also intelligent, gentle, and willing to perform whatever chores were required.

Although shows developed across the area which allowed farmers and other breeders to showcase their best stock, the show ring was not the initial emphasis of the breed. Gradually during the forties, however, the impact of the changing show ring standards began to be noted by breeders.

When drought and the arrival of the 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 breeder insisted that the horses they rode and used regularly have smooth, natural gaits. Of equal importance was the traditional gentle disposition. These horses had to be athletes with good bones and correct conformation to tackle the steep hills and rocky terrain of much of Middle Tennessee. The horses were and remain ruggedly handsome, with the luxurious manes and  naturally high tail carriages that were considered the hallmark of a fine-bred horse in the formative years of the breed.

All Tennessee Walking Horses, padded and flat shod, trace back to 115 foundation sires and dams chosen by the founders of the TWHBAA. The term "foundation horse" was coined in the eighties to describe horses that traced to the foundations of the registry through older and rare lines with little or no padded show horses in the pedigrees. Those hoping to preserve and develop the older lines of horses during this period conducted careful searches to locate stallions and mares still showing older registration numbers that were found in the old TWHBAA Studbooks.

The Heritage Tennessee Walking Horses are animals that take the concept of a foundation horse several steps further. Heritage Walking Horses have foundation bloodlines with the F-number horses either still on the certificates, or just bumped off the final generation.

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.

Many of today's Tennessee Walking Horses are often linebred, sometimes heavily. The Heritage Walking 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.