4
CALIFORNIA
BIXBY AND THE COJO
Southern California about 1910, was booming. The carnival
atmosphere of the fledgling Movie Studios contributed
to a colorful
aura. Movie filming lots sprang up to make silents, talkies,
western
and romance movies. The Western genre required horses
and was to
set the public perception of what a real cowboy must be
like. Of
course his horse had to be colorful in the movies too!
Graphic
Paints, white horses, golden palominos, dapple grey Arabians,
and
the ever present spotted horse made the scene.
Before there was a term for the spotted horse being an
Appaloosa, there was the mythical circus horse type called
spotted
Arabians. Defined as white with oval spots, or white with
gaudy tear
drop spots from nose to tail. They spawned as many legends
and
myths in the new American Frontier as there were people
who paid for
a peek at them as circus and movie attractions.
The circus leopard had a following of admirers because
they were
bred to be sport type horses, Warmbloods. They could do
dressage,
were calm, tractable, easily trained and not easily shaken
up by
crowds, noise and lights. We have no exact importation
records
from Hagenbeck because during the World Wars, most European
stud
books were to disappear. Lost forever was the exact pedigree
heritage
of the European leopard horse that was brought to America.
But arrive, they did.
Given fanciful credit for being horses of royalty, and
their
heritage spawned a multitude of myths. They were called
spotted
Arabians, Libyan Leopards, Moroccan Leopards, African
Barbs, and
many other labels in an attempt to boost their value as
a rare
animal. A few movie studios had them and beyond that they
found their way into the hands of California’s most
wealthy and
influential businessmen.
Men such as George Hearst, Fred Bixby, and L. J. Rose;
all
owned vast ranches acquired from land deals when the Spanish
Californios left the US as California gained statehood.
The new
guys on the block loved their horses as well as the equine
diversions; flat and harness racing, steeplechase, polo,
any horse
activity that lent credence to their new money.
The leopard color existed in California long before the
Appaloosa registry, from varied sources. G. S Garcia of
Elko,
according to Arnold Rojas research, shipped carloads of
spotted
horses caught by Utah and Nevada Mustangers.
In the 1920’s spotted horses arrived from Argentina,
with and
trained as polo ponies. The color began to be equated
with the
Appaloosa name in the late 1930’s as even the loudest
colored leopard
when put to the breeding test was shown to produce the
very same coat
patterns found in the NiMiiPu horse of the Northwest.
When the new ApHC was formed, some of the movie horses,
Argentine bred horses, and Hagenbeck descendants were
to become
registered as Appaloosas and assimilated into the general
horse
breeding population of the registry.
In 1960, the “Appaloosa” name was promoted
to the world by a new
movie of the same title. It stared the hot ticket of the
day, Marlon Brando.
FRED BIXBY
Fred Bixby’s love was the giant Shire horse and
he was a widely
recognized authority on that particular breed. At one
time his
family ranch holdings encompassed much of what is now
prime time real
estate known as the Southern California town of Long Beach!
There
was little in the way of business that did not appeal
to Bixby.
Oil, land, ranching and stock raising. His family had
done it all in
a grand scale starting in the year 1878 when John Bixby
leased the
Rancho Los Alamitos to raise sheep and grain. In 1881
with a
partner, he formed the J. Bixby Land Company to purchase
the rancho
which had been reduced to a mere 28,087 acres in a grand
scheme
vision to develop the bare land into a town. Build it
and they
will come… just as with gold strike fever, southern
California became
the land of opportunity. The new West where the pioneer
city known
today as the L.A. Area sprawled across the development
landscape
under the name of Bixby Land Company.
The Cojo ranch, established by Fred H. Bixby, Son of John,
had
the monetary resources and the network to secure the best
of breeding
stock from around the world. In its heyday, the Cojo Ranch
headquarters was a Mecca for the new rich and famous.
For Fred
Bixby, this new found ranching hobby included producing
some spotted
stock horses. The year was 1918, only nine years after
the State
of California outlawed wagering at the race track. Good
horses
were plentiful as many blue blood horses were dumped onto
ranches,
onto the range, and found their way into cattle working
outfits.
There was no market for race horses with the gambling
and
wagering business outlawed because feed was high, resources
scarce as
the “great depression“ was settling in. California
was not the only state to feel the pinch; in general a
campaign was begun to discredit the American race horse.
Be it called Thoroughbred or Standardbred, the American
horse industry was viewed as corrupt.
Each racetrack closing only fueled a death spiral in the
American equine industry.
In 1916, the overseas market dried up as breeding investors
became nervous about the authenticity of pedigree of the
Americanbred
race horse. Prompted by the view of American horse breeder
ethics, and American breeders trying to export their surplus
horses,
The Jersey Act was accepted. This prompted the international
General Studbook of the Thoroughbred horse to outlaw registration
of
American Pedigree horses that did not trace to their three
foundation
sires.
“Hell was to pay. Breeders with means struggled
on for a
few years, hopeful racing would do a comeback, but in
the
end nearly all the priceless bloodstock was given away,
sold for (as low as) $25 a head, or turned out on the
range
to shift for a living.”
Solomon, acquired in 1918, was the first spotted stallion
to
stand on the Cojo. According to Bob Peckinpah, an authority
on
early California Appaloosas, Bixby had an employee make
“a trip north
up the coast to the foot of the Casitas Grade where the
Craven’s
ranch was located close to Carpenteria,” to secure
Solomon for a herd
sire. Solomon Figueroa was said to be totally blind and
an aged
horse of around fourteen years old. We have no record
of what
attracted Bixby to the stallion. Perhaps the purported
value of
the spotted movie horses, or because the old horse claimed
Hearst’s
valuable “Clay” racing pedigree or simply
because he fancied spotted
horses. Solomon was to become a California spotted horse
legend.
Fred Hathaway Bixby, was to die in 1952. An eyewitness
source
whose family was associated with Bixby Land Co. business
is quoted as
saying;
... “all the horses, over four hundred of them;
drafties, Thoroughbred, Arabians,
trotters, and Appaloosa spotties, were turned (out/in)
together in a huge mix of horse running free on the Bixby
ranch range. It was the daughter, Elizabeth, who married
the ranch foreman Janeway, that was to sort out and
recreate the pedigrees of the spotted horses she so dearly
loved.”
In fact, the first Studbook of the ApHC lists mass numbers
of
registrations of Bixby spotted horses of all colors. Some
list
the Thoroughbred sire “Jack Paine 2”, some
by “George Spahn- Patchy
movie horse”, some listed as sired by a NW Patches
bred horses called
“Cojo” who was later gelded and registered,
some are listed as
“unknown”, some by a Morgan Horse “Harvest
Field #8906”, still others
listed as by “Stormy”, “Patches”,
“Rex”, another Thoroughbred
“Bayards Sun”, and “Solomon”.
An article in the FAHR News discussing the rationale of
the
pedigrees of Bixby horses, states the belief that in particular
Easter F33, was sired by a Thoroughbred named Bayard Sun.
As with
all accounts of piecing together preregistry pedigree,
that author
failed to note the age of Bayards Sun who was foaled in
fact three
years AFTER the foaling date of Easter!
One of the named Thoroughbreds on the Cojo, was Domino’s
sire
Jack Paine; used on the Cojo in the late 1920’s
after Solomon’s
death in 1924.
Other horses were sold after Bixby’s death to settle
the Bixby
Estate, but the spotted horses remained. Eventually the
pedigrees
and types were sorted out to the Janeway’s satisfaction.
Footnote: Quoted from The Complete
Book of the Appaloosa,
First Printing 1976. pg 70
“Fred Bixby's first love was the giant Shire horse
and he was a
widely recognized authority on that particular breed,
in addtion to
being a great horseman. His interest in the Appaloos breed
came
second to that for his Shires, and his many “appy”
horses received
little of the attention they deserved. The pedigrees were
not
closely kept, and in many cases the pedigrees of those
few horses
eventually registered as Appaloosas list simply Cojo mare
for the
dam.”
Similarly, there was an interview in my source material
that
stated at the time Janeways sorted out the free roaming
herds of
Bixby horses, at his death, it was a free for all round
up. Horses
were sorted by visual “guess” based on age,
general type, color, and
attributed to one or more of the sires known to be used
as sires and
reference sires on the ranch. Many were simply noted and
registered
(in AQHA, or ApHC, Authors note) as being simply, Named
sire:
(selected by deduction) dam: “Bixby mare.”
