Registration:  ApHC #F-2219
Foaled:    1952
Died:       1980
Color:     Blue roan w/blanket

Chief Of Fourmile started his life in the heart of the Palouse just miles from the present location of the Appaloosa Horse Club. Roy Parvin of Pullman, Washington, bred Kamiak Trixie -- a foundation bred Appaloosa mare -- to the Washington State University owned Thoroughbred stallion, Piccolo. On June 13, 1952 she foaled the black-and-white colt who'd set a new standard for Appaloosa performance horses.

Roy asked ApHC co-founder George Hatley to take a look at Chief Of Fourmile and give his honest opinion of the colt's potential. "We saw this colt running across the pasture and George said what a good horse he was," George's wife, Iola Hatley, says about their visit with Roy and his family.

George urged Roy to register the colt and show him at the Seventh National Appaloosa Show in Deerlodge, Montana. Chief Of Fourmile placed second to Patchy Jr. in two-year-old halter and came in second to Apache in the 220-yard stake race.

"He attracted a lot of attention," George says about the stallion's performance debut. He definitely had Gus Otterman's attention. Gus offered Roy $1,000 for Chief Of Fourmile, a record price for a colt in the Palouse. "At that time $1,000 was like $100,000 is now," George says.

The stallion continued to prove his ability as a performance horse while Gus owned him. He won stakes races at all distances at which Appaloosas were raced and was national performance horse champion three times, a feat not repeated for almost 40 years.

In 1960, C.D. Leon of Abilene, Texas, bought Chief Of Fourmile for $10,000 in the Otterman estate sale, then syndicated the stallion -- a first for the breed.

Later, Chief Of Fourmile passed hands again to a person who neglected him almost to the point of starvation and allowed a reproductive infection to go untreated. Robert and Delores Ludwig then gained possession of the stallion and nursed him back to health. Before he died in 1980 at the age of 28, Chief Of Fourmile produced several more foal crops via artificial insemination.

Chief Of Fourmile is being honored as the 1999 Breyer commemorative edition model horse.

{This article, by Michelle Berg, and photograph were originally published in the Appaloosa Journal, April 1999, Vol 53, No. 4, "Appaloosa Bloodlines Chief of Fourmile F-2219" and is used here by permission.}

Copyright © 1999 Appaloosa Horse Club. All rights reserved.