In
his quest to fulfill a childhood dream, cereal magnate W.K. Kellogg of Battle
Creek, Michigan sought out the finest Arabian bloodlines of the day to begin a
breeding program at his winter home in Pomona, California, outside Los Angeles.
An early
brochure called “The Romance of Pomona Ranch” stated, “Mr. Kellogg is thinking
of his ranch at Pomona as a contribution to the entire United States, through
helping to improve the saddle horse stock of the nation.”
The legacy of the Kellogg Arabians continues to this day. Sometimes the evidence of this turns up in unexpected places.
The US Postal Service recently released five new postage stamp designs featuring various horses. Four of them were taken by photographer Stephanie Moon, and the fifth by designer/photographer Karen Wegehenkel.
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| Image from USPS.com |
The gray horse is the one that caught my attention first, though, because it somehow looked familiar. The USPS website describes the horse as "a gray-maned, dappled white stallion." I contacted Ms. Wegehenkel, who told me that the gray horse on the postage stamp was, in fact, her own late half-Arabian mare, Cats Charity.
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| Image from USPS.com |
The Arabian Horse DataSource website provides incomplete information on Cats Charity. It shows she was foaled in 1997, and lists her registration number as HAHR 1A329492. It gives the name of her Arabian sire Class Cat and his lineage, but only shows her dam as a "grade" mare named Bristol.
Bristol, in fact, was a Trakehner, according to the All-Breed Pedigree website, by an Estonian stallion called Briis. Charity had both Trakehner and Thoroughbred ancestors on her dam's side.
The names of her Arabian forebears in particular read like a Who's Who of famous horses. They include Russian and Polish imported horses like *Muscat and *Bask; Ofir, the sire of *Witez II; and many Arabians owned by the famous Crabbet Stud in England, Peter Bradley's Hingham Stock Farm, and Homer Davenport's Arabians.
Cats Charity also traces back to several of the most famous Kellogg Arabians, giving her a connection to California, and thus the subject of this blog. Her Kellogg ancestors include Ferseyn, *Raseyn, *Raswan (when he was still at the Crabbet Stud), Antez, and Farana.
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The (subscription only) Arabian Horse DataSource website lists the Arabian stallion Class Cat as the sire of Cats Charity, but does not provide any information on her dam Bristol, a Trakehner. The All Breed Pedigree website shows both parents:
Karen Wegehenkel's Facebook page is here:
Stephanie Moon's website is here:
For more information on the Kellogg Arabians, the Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona has a huge collection of their history and that of many other Arabian horses.
I have written before about some of the Kellogg Arabians in Charity's pedigree. Here is a post on *Raseyn:
*Raswan:
Ferseyn:
Farana:
Here's the USPS page for the Horses stamps:
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