The Wild Black Horses of Tehachapi

It was November. The cold air crept in. Clouds of dust and surreal swirling shadows cast by giant wind turbines framed the herds of jet-black horses in a scene of sharp contrasts. The sun, unencumbered, burned brilliant on a pale dirt landscape.

Diana Palmer waded through a sea of ebony rumps. She avoids naming the horses in an effort to remain impartial and objective, but her love for them is obvious, her commitment all-consuming. Diana and her husband, who are caretakers for the primary land owners where both the wind farms and the horses reside, have organized trainer challenges, manage an adoption program, and oversee the welfare of the horses with a long-term approach to management and a fervent desire to preserve these unique animals.

They are known as the Oak Creek Horses, and they roam roughly four thousand acres of wind farms and wild canyons in the mountains of Tehachapi. They were there when the giant wind turbines were installed. They have roamed these hills for the better part of the last century…perhaps longer.

They are living history, a heritage resource, and almost without a doubt of Morgan descent. Old-school Morgans, remnants of a past that vanished with scarcely a trace as the automobile left the horse behind, and commerce centers shifted from rural to urban locations in the rapidly changing California of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Morgans, and Morgan-Standardbred crosses, were perhaps the most popular all-around mounts for Californians, possessing an even temperament, intelligence, a sturdy build, willing attitude, hard hooves and dense, clean legs. They were hardy, compact, honest and versatile, with comfortable gaits and good stamina.

There are at least four bands of Oak Creek Horses, possessing all of the behavioral characteristics of wild horses. A dominant stallion controls each band, driving off its own offspring as they reach breeding age, adopting the fillies of other stallions in, zealously maintaining his rank against rival stallions.

And they are all black. Absolutely, deep, true, uncompromising, pure black. In recent years, white socks have begun to appear, and more recently, a very small white star on some of the younger herd members.

Foals are often born appearing bay, and in their winter coats the horses take on a red bay hue. They may exhibit a reddish tone in the flank region. There are two varieties of black faces; solid black, and black with a reddish muzzle and a swirl of red (bay) color around the eye, more or less the reverse of typical pigmentation patterns.

Morgan historians and breeders have come to examine the herd, adopted foals, written about the horses, even participated in genetic testing efforts to determine their heritage. Diana has spent the last decade researching what few historical records of the region remain.

Morgan Horse magazine published Brenda L Tippin’s article “Morgan Americana” about the horses in 2016.* In that article, Tippin provides extensive records of the Morgan horses known to have been imported, foaled, bred and purchased within twenty miles of the Oak Creek region. Following those records, Tippin identifies a number of mares and foals who fall from the records after the initial purchase by Roland Hill from the Sellman family.

Kern County, in which Tehachapi lies, was home to three well known Morgan horse breeders, the most prolific of which was the Roland Hill family. Between 1923 and 1955, the Hills and Horseshoe Cattle Company registered over 600 Morgan horses. Roland purchased the brown stallion Redwood Morgan and 16 mares in 1922, of which six were black, five were chestnut, two were brown, and three were bay. In 1923 Hill decide to experiment with out-crossing the mares to a stallion of different bloodlines, and purchased the 1920 black stallion Pat Allen. From 1924 to 1926, Pat Allen produced three foal crops, totaling 50 registered Morgans in bay, brown and black. More than half of the foals were black. We understand that today as meaning that Pat Allen was homozygous for his color, and did not carry the chestnut color gene.

In the same general time period, Diana Palmer’s research found that a different shipment of horses made its way to Tehachapi, about which almost nothing is known, except that the person responsible for them was wise of horse flesh. No record of their breeding exists; no mention of a prominent color, nor from where they came.

Nor do we know the genetic composition or the original number of the Oak Creek horses at the time in history when they officially “went feral.” It is presumed that they were released, escaped or abandoned on the land where they live to this day. They may have always been free-ranging, grazing throughout the year on the grasses that were once much more plentiful, finding water in the meadow where they still drink today and likely many other places also. It would have been the most economical way to manage a herd in a land rich with resources.

We do know that around 1935, Hill moved his horses out of the Tehachapi area and farther north, due to a particularly severe drought. Were some left behind, either intentionally or because they could not be found?

Genetic testing of various herd individuals through Texas A & M University has proven one thing; they are not descended from the other prized horse of the Tejon Ranch/Kern County region, the Barileno Mustang. The Barilenos were the last wild herd of pure Spanish stock in California, descended from Andalusians. They were primarily palomino and buckskin in color. Despite the physical markers that suggest there may be a Spanish Barb influence in the Oak Creek Horses, the Morgan line is almost certainly their origin.

Today, the horses number somewhere around 125, with the Palmers operating an adoption program aimed at maintaining their numbers around one hundred. Keeping the size of the herds sustainable is more critical now than it was a century ago, when snow regularly covered the rolling hills in a nourishing wet blanket. The lush landscape is being dramatically affected by drought; as we studied the herd in mid-November, the ground was parched, dotted with shrubs, barren in between. The only viable grazing was a vast, still-green meadow kept cool and shaded by the surrounding turbine-studded hills. Giant oaks, hundreds of years old, had been recently felled, victims of the drought; their limbs were crashing to the ground atop the pens the Palmers use to manage the horses.

Those oak trees, oddly enough, are a source of sustenance for the herds in hard years such as 2018; the Oak Creek Horses eat acorns, and apparently with no ill side effects. Perhaps the bitter tannins enhance the richness of their incredible true black coats.

Bringing the herds in for veterinary procedures and adoption inspection is relatively easy…especially in the autumn when grass is scarce. Years of the Palmers offering private tours has taught the horses that certain vehicles…Diana’s in particular…have alfalfa hay. For that, they come running.

Maintaining the physical integrity of the horses is a paramount concern, done partly through natural selection, augmented by gelding and adoption. Horses with conformation anomalies are sterilized to prevent such characteristics from being passed on. Injured animals are evaluated and either treated or euthanized. A number of foals are chosen each year to be placed for adoption.

The long-term genetic viability of the Oak Creek horses could someday depend on the infusion of new blood. It’s not something the Palmers have approached at this stage. They are still seeing evidence that the black stallions and their black beauties are healthy and strong, which suggests that the original horses were of a sufficiently diverse genetic make-up.

Line breeding (breeding horses which are related to each other by at least one parent) reinforces all of the traits of the dominant bloodline…good and bad. Over time, line breeding and in-breeding can also cause diminished size, loss of physical strength and stamina, and low fertility rates. The Oak Creek horses are not witnessing any of these impacts to date. There is some variation in the conformation of the horses; some exhibit a roman nose while others have a beautifully straight profile, and there is variation in the body type, with some horses being lighter and finer than others to a subtle degree. As for white socks and facial markings appearing, there is no evidence that another bloodline has been introduced. **

Adoptive owners call their Oak Creek Horses “their go-to horse” - willing, calm, brave, intelligent, sensible, hardy, sure-footed, rugged, gentle. They possess all of the traits which made the “old school” Morgan horse a reliable, all-around riding, driving and ranch work equine.

The Palmers offer both tours and adoption by appointment; you can learn more about the Oak Creek Horses here:

http://www.oakcreekwildhorses....

https://www.facebook.com/group...

(*In her article, Brenda Tippin describes the Oak Creek Horses as “black or brown-black”).

(**The appearance of white markings has been noted in other species when they were farmed (raised in captivity), such as fur-bearing animals. Within three generations of captivity, foxes and some weasel species began exhibiting white markings, which made the harvest of their coats not profitable. Whether or not in-breeding or line breeding was a causative factor in these instances is unknown).

The images that accompany the article were taken in November 2018, in the worst drought year since record keeping began in California. It is my hope that I will be returning to see the herd in spring, with better photographic conditions and more time to interact with the horses.