Paige’s Echo pictured on the Billy Taylor Farm at approx. 29 years old

Society's Dan Allen (photo courtesy of Mike Stephens)    

    

In the early 1900's, Grey John breeding was very popular in this area. Mr. Luna, the man that owned Buford F-11 and Bramlett     F-9, was a school teacher and taught school in the Hurdlow community in Moore County and he also taught school at Cowan, which is in Franklin County. He had  one or both of these stallions with him at this time. Because of their popularity as breeding horses, this area became infused with Grey John blood through these great stallions. Jake Reese, a black man from Moore  County, bred mares to these stallions at this time. Even though Mr. Reese has   been deceased for approximately twenty years,   his Grey John based breeding program is still impacting the Walking Horse breed through        such popular stallions as Generator's Silver Dollar.

 

"Echo bred horses are different from any Tennessee Walking Horses that I have ever owned. People that have owned        horses all their lives say the same thing. They are horses with a good mind, they have the ability to learn and also the desire, they seem to  want to please their owners/trainers. Also they typically have an excellent natural four beat gait with good overstride. Echo bred horses are making a name for themselves as excellent pleasure horses in several other states as well        as Tennessee. They are typically good using horses like our forefathers bred in the early 1900's."

 

The NWHA Exchange talks about one of the Echo bred horses raised on the Taylor's farms, Echo's High Society. Of this horse,   the Exchange says,   " He comes from the well known and increasingly popular Danny Taylor farm in Winchester, Tennessee. He gaits beautifully. Solid four beat  timing with good back end and a neat little flippy front. I had an opportunity    to ride this horse for several weeks and I guarantee the following:  1) the horse walks 2) you will never, EVER find a more sensible and laid back horse of any gender."

 

Franne Brandon, popular author writing for the Canadian Walking Horse News and Walking Horse Journal, writes, " After Midnight Sun and  Merry Go Boy became the first two stallions to win Celebration World Grand Championships, their offspring were in great demand. The preferred cross became a Midnight Sun on a Merry Go Boy or Merry Boy bred mare,  or variations  of this. In  the past couple of decades, though, with the emergence of the Pride and Pusher lines as the two  most prominent within the breed, the "royal cross" became null and void, as both the lines  are in themselves Midnight Sun-Merry Go Boy crosses. Other lines, though rare, are still available. One such line traces to the flatshod World              Champion Society Man through a  grandson named Paige's Echo. Only a handful of these Echo stallions are scattered        across the  country, but  they are siring, in  limited breedings, excellent trail horses and  young show prospects with intelligence, trainability, and beauty. Representing the rare  non-Allan lines of Red Eagle F-61 and the Grey John          foundation  horses, as well as non-Sun Wilson's Allen strains, these Echo stallions could  well be the next  "royal cross" in taking the  Tennessee Walking Horse breed to a new plateau of equine excellence."

 

Below are photos of Confederate Hills brood stock and more.