By Christy Solo
We’ll be horsin’ around in this week’s All Things!
Oregon may be known for our llama population, but we have no shortage of horses either!
Did you know that Oregon is home to about 4,000 wild horses? It’s a case of “had ‘em, lost ‘em, got ‘em again and you can get one.”
The ancestors of today’s modern horses evolved in North America 3.5 million years ago but went extinct about 11,000 years ago. They had a good run.
Spanish explorers brought horses back to the West in the 1500s. By the 1800s wild horses once again ran free in Oregon and they’re still running today.
Following the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 – which was spearheaded by Velma B. “Wild Horse Annie” Johnston, the responsibility of managing Oregon’s (and all states’) wild horse population fell to the Bureau of Land Management.
Presently there are 18 Herd Management Areas in Oregon managed by BLM as well as one Wild Horse Territory which is co-managed by BLM and the U.S. Forest Service.
Once a year horses from some of those management areas are gathered up to keep the population balanced and to help ensure each range area has enough resources to sustain the remaining population.
The captured wild horses then go to the Wild Horse Corral Facility near Burns where they are (ideally) prepared for adoption.
While Oregon’s horses are famous for their quality and color – thus popular with those who adopt wild horses – the number of folks wanting to adopt has declined steeply this century.
There is also controversy surrounding the entire program, but the horses don’t know that and those in the management areas keep on running free and enjoying their wild ways with their true Oregonian spirit.
While wild horses can be successfully adopted – and Oregon’s are gorgeous – if you are pondering the idea, be sure to do your research first.
Pop Quiz! Where did Appaloosa horses originate?
To be fair, if the answer were anywhere but Oregon – we probably wouldn’t include them in our horsin’ around article!
Face it, you love your Breyer Collectible Appaloosa even more right now.
As we just learned, the Spanish brought horses back to North America, so very technically speaking their “spotted horse” became our Appaloosa. This is thanks to the Nez Perce (Niimipu) Tribe who spotted those spotted horses, acquired some and knew “we can do better” and they began breeding what are today’s ab fab Appys.
What’s in a name? Palouse was the region where the horses were bred, so “a Palouse” was a spotty bread there, and Bob’s your uncle, we got Appaloosa.
What makes Oregon’s Appaloosas so awesome? The Nez Perce did some serious seasonal commuting from their wintering spot in the Wallowa Valley in eastern Oregon, through the Rockies to their summer place on the plains.
Appaloosas are intelligent, sure-footed (key for negotiating those Rockies) and have that chef’s kiss combo of both speed and endurance. In auto terms Appaloosas have the speed of Mustang, the off-road capabilities of a Scout (you thought I’d go with Jeep, didn’t you?) and the smooth ride of a Mercedes. If any car company is ever smart enough to design this hat trick of a vehicle and names it “Appaloosa” take that bad boy for a test drive – stat!
How smooth is smooth? Appaloosas’ gates are so fine a hunter can shoot with accuracy while riding their Appy at a full gallop. Smooth as silk.
The Appaloosa was almost lost to us when the U.S. military confiscated the Nez Perce’s herds following the 1876 Nez Perce War. The military clearly didn’t know what a prize they’d taken and let them all but die out.
Luckily a few Appaloosas survived into the 1900s and savvy eastern Oregonians worked hard to revive the dying breed with so much success that it is now one of the most valued American horse breeds.
We’ll close out with an historical site/state park that puts the “round” in “horsin’ around!” – the Peter French Round Barn.
The Round Barn is a five and one-half hour drive from our area, but absolutely worth putting on your summer road trip list for 2026.
In reviews visitors describe the Round Barn as, “an architectural masterpiece” and have said, “it’s like walking into a cathedral” and that “the workmanship is amazing!”
The Round Barn was built in the late 1800s on Peter French’s P Ranch – an approximately 150,000-acre ranch south of Burns in between the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Diamond, Ore.
The Round Barn was one of three on the ranch and is the only one left standing. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
With a diameter of about 100 ft. the barn is an impressive structure. It’s supported by 29 juniper poles around the outer edge. A circular stone wall sits about 15 feet inside this outer ring. The stone wall is 18-inches thick, about nine-feet in height and has a diameter of 64 ft. Plug that into your πr² calculator and you’ll find that the inner corral has just over 3,200 square feet of space for horse training which is what it was used for.
Also within that corral is where the Round Barn gets “cathedral like” indeed. The interior is constructed of 14 more juniper poles around a central 25-ft. high central juniper pole; 15 diagonal braces radiate from that central pole.
The Round Barn was built to provide a covered space for training and exercising horses in winter and French had a lot of horses and mules to train. At its height, the P Ranch saw nearly 300 horse and mule foals born annually. The horses and mules were trained to pull wagon trains as well as for riding.
You can find directions to the Round Barn here: https://stateparks.oregon.gov/
Fun fact: The Round Barn includes a visitor’s center and gift shop.
If all of this horsey talk has you itchin’ to get back into the saddle, but you don’t own a horse and/or don’t have a friend or relation who has a horse you can ride, we do have two trail riding outfits in our area: Applegate Trail Rides and Diamond Lake Corrals. Check them out on the web and schedule a ride for late spring or summer.
