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| *RASEYN at the Kellogg Ranch, 1926 |
W. K. Kellogg bought the Arabian stallion *RASEYN (Skowronek x Rayya) from the Crabbet Stud in England in 1926, adding the stallion to his herd in Pomona, California. (*Raseyn has an asterisk * before his name, to indicate he was imported to the US from another country and registered with the Arabian Horse breed registry in this country.)
The first example I find of *Raseyn posing for an artist is in 1929, when sculptor Annette St. Gaudens visited the Kellogg Ranch, art supplies at the ready.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZhqxVdSnI
(We also know how *Raseyn's name was pronounced through this and other old newsreels: sort of like "Ra-SEEN.")
Ms. St. Gaudens had homes in Claremont, California and in New Hampshire. Newspaper accounts said the sculptor had planned to take it back to New Hampshire with her, cast it in bronze there, and exhibit it in New York.
The Kellogg House on the campus of Cal Poly Pomona now has her sculpture of *Raseyn, closed away in a cabinet with trophies won by some of the Arabians and Percherons of the Kellogg Ranch. They took little *Raseyn out for his photo shoot during the 75th anniversary of the Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch; his picture appears in Mary Jane Parkinson's The Romance of the Kellogg Ranch.
We also see *Raseyn in this 10-plus minute newsreel film. (Be sure to come back here to finish the story, after you get lost in this film.)
https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/5355/rec/13?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1JTFDxQQrJLjzlZaig8UbnLNLTx2sB7fPxVa48WF2P19m8R8TTaBpnXAI_aem_AaZqQAPcwKLR-dh7PRebZPicO8Aj6uZjgF2X51tBADfykOfvZ_cr-8hJoV9FEuJerFynwJ_ozzP6P7icw8we04jT
The beauty of this video is that we can see *Raseyn in action, almost throughout. At about 8:03 we see *Raseyn and Antez at a trot and canter under saddle.
*Raseyn was a favorite subject for other artists. Here he poses with his friend Miss Gladys Brown (Edwards) in 1934.
In later years, GBE created an iconic etching of *Raseyn. This copy is on display at the Al-Marah Arabian Horse Galleries at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.
Wesley Dennis tried his hand at drawing *Raseyn for Esquire magazine in the 1930s. Since he apparently lived in Massachusetts and Virginia, Dennis may have been using a photograph as reference, rather than having visited the Kellogg Ranch himself.
Sculptor Lawrence Tenney Stevens (1896-1972) also captured *Raseyn, this time in an Art Deco style. There's one small copy in the Kellogg House on the Cal Poly Pomona campus, and another one in the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, also on the Cal Poly Pomona campus.
WKKAHL notes that Stevens created the portrait in 1934.
Why do I think it was *Raseyn who posed for sculptor Stevens? Because of two articles that ran in the Palm Springs, California Desert Sun during World War II.A local insurance broker and realtor, Herbert Samson, had been given a copy of the equine head study by Stevens, who had lived in the area. Samson boxed up the artwork to send it to Stevens and stored it in the trunk of his car. Then thieves stole the box.
The November 10, 1944 issue of the Sun did not name the Kellogg Arabian...
But a later issue of the Sun, did. The paper repeated Stevens' appeal for the return of the horse sculpture on December 1, 1944, and this time the reporter identified the subject of the art.
Interestingly, the newspaper didn't spell *Raseyn's name correctly. They spelled it like the city in Wisconsin: "Racine."
"It all started some years ago when Stevens was a resident here and a close friend of Herbert Samson, modelled Racine, famous Arabian stallion at the Kellogg ranch near Pomona." (emphasis mine)
I have never been able to find out whether that stolen copy was recovered. __________________________________________________
The W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library website is here:
The Kellogg House website is here:
Certain images in this post are provided under the Fair Use provision in Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. "Fair Use" specifically allows for the use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes only.
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