The Old Blue Mare
By Frank Holmes 

       She was foaled in the early 1900s on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies and lived out her entire life in relative obscurity. She was never registered, never shown and wasn’t even broke to ride. For all of this she remains the single most influential mare in the history of the Appaloosa breed.  She was known as the “Old Blue Mare.”

       To fully understand this cornerstone producer, it is necessary to take a closer look at the Appaloosa (ApHC) and Quarter Horse (AQHA) registries.

       Both registries were incorporated at approximately the same time—ApHC in 1938 and AQHA in 1940—and both accepted into their early stud books a number of outstanding roan mares whose roots traced to the breeding program of AQHA Hall of Fame inductee Coke Roberds of Hayden, Colorado 

       It was not fully understood or accepted by AQHA until years later that some of these horses were in reality roan Appaloosas, with the final irrefutable proof being the loud-colored Appaloosa offspring they produced when bred to solid-colored horses.

       These roan horses were members of one of the oldest documented Appaloosa families in existence, one that would have a far-reaching and positive impact on both the Appaloosa and Quarter Horse breeds and one that would ultimately produce the Blue Mare.  But let us start at the beginning.

       Coke Roberds was born near the Brazos River in West Texas in 1870. Before he was of school age, his father, Gideon, moved the family to a ranch near Trinchera, Colorado, in the south-central portion of the state. 

       As a young man, Coke went to work for the Holland and Easley Ranch in West Texas. In the late 1890s—looking to breed some good ranch horses for his own use—he acquired a set of between seven and nine Steel Dust mares.

       In the early 1900s, Coke changed jobs and went to work for the A-ll Ranch in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Shortly thereafter, he bred a running mare—which he either owned or borrowed—to an Appaloosa stallion known as the Circus Horse.

       Various accounts claimed that this stallion belonged to the Sells-Floto Circus that was headquartered in Denver, while others listed the owner as the Barnum & Bailey Circus. In any event, the result of the cross between the Circus Horse and Coke’s running mare was a blanket-hipped Appaloosa stallion named Arab. This horse was the cornerstone of all the Coke Roberds Appaloosas.

       Roberds used Arab as a ranch horse, buggy horse and herd sire for several years. In time, he found himself in need of a junior stallion. His search for one took him to the ranch of Senator Casimiro Borilla of Trinidad, Colorado. There, he selected a blaze-faced, stocking-legged sorrel stallion named Primero. Primero, meaning “first” in Spanish, was sired by Leadville (TB), making him a half-brother to Borilla’s famous racehorse and namesake, The Senator. 

       Roberds crossed Primero on the older Steel Dust mares and the younger Arab daughters for several years. In 1908, he moved from western Oklahoma to Routt County in north-central Colorado. He shipped a group of horses—including Primero and his band of mares—by rail to their new home. En route, the train wrecked and Primero was killed. (By this time, Arab had apparently been sold or given away. There is no record of his having made the trip north.)

       Among the Roberds mares to survive the ill-fated trip was a roan Appaloosa daughter of Primero. This mare, along with several other Primero daughters, was eventually purchased by Roberds-employee Jack Kitchens of Hayden, Colorado.

       Around 1916, Kitchens went to California to work for the famed Kellogg Arabian Farm. AQHA Hall of Fame inductee Marshall Peavy of Clark, Colorado—then all of 18 years of age—purchased the entire set of Kitchens mares and one-half of the stage was set to produce the Blue Mare.  The other half arrived in town hitched to a freight wagon.  This was, of course, Old Fred.
       
       The story of how Coke Roberds, searching for a replacement for Primero, found Old Fred pulling a freight wagon for a living has been repeated to the point of becoming legend.

Old Fred was a big, powerful palomino who weighed 1,400 pounds. Coke has been quoted as saying of him, “You could breed Fred to a draft mare and get the best work horse you ever hitched, and you could breed him to a race mare and get yourself a racehorse.”

Si Dawson, a friend and neighbor of Roberds, bred Queen Litz (TB)—his favorite mare—to Old Fred and came up with Bob H.

Marshall Peavy, again while only 18 years old, had the foresight to purchase Bob H from Dawson in 1916 and make him his main sire. With the roan Primero daughter already in residence at the Peavy ranch, the stage was now fully set to produce the Blue Mare.

Mavis Peavy, Marshall’s wife and a pioneer breeder in her own right, vividly remembers the Old Blue Mare’s famous sire.

“Nobody would forget a horse as great as Bob H,” she recalled. “He weighed 1,350 pounds and could run a quarter with three stopwatches on him on a circle track in :22.3 seconds.”

Bob H was killed in a freak accident in 1923. He was spooked by a huge herd of sheep stampeding past his pasture and ran a tree branch into his abdomen.

Six years prior to this—in 1917—Marshall Peavy had bred Bob H to his roan mare. The result of this cross was a little grayish-blue filly known first simply as Blue, then as the Blue Mare, and finally as the Old Blue Mare.

“The Old Blue Mare was born in May of 1918, in a snow bank,” Mavis said. “It was one of the worst winters Routt County had ever had. Because of the hard winter and how hard it was on her mother, she never got very big. That is probably why Marshall never broke her to ride but put her right into his broodmare band.

“Marshall was probably ahead of his time in that he believed in riding his mares before breeding them. In those days, people rode mainly studs and geldings, but Marshall believed that the mare was 60 percent or more of what her colt would be, and he wanted to know what they could do before he put them in his broodmare band.”

Despite his decision to not break the Old Blue Mare and prove her through performance, Marshall had enough faith in her breeding to place her into production. Her first foal for him was the result of an accidental breeding.

“Bob H had been sick,” remembed Mavis. “Marshall turned his 4-year-old daughter, the Blue Mare, out with him just for company. Papoose, a 1923 blanket-hipped Appaloosa mare, was the result.

“Papoose was a big mare. She weighed 1,200 pounds and could run a hole in the wind and carry you all day in the hills. Marshall raced Papoose some and it got to where people didn’t want to match her.

“She was a wonderful riding horse,” Mavis continues. “You know those homesteaders used to tack barbed wire everywhere and then brush would grow up all around it. When you were riding, you’d be in it before you realized it. Papoose would stand and let you untangle all four feet and lead her out of it.”

In 1924, Marshall purchased a young stallion from Coke Roberds. This was Sheik, a 1918 palomino stallion by Peter McCue and out of Pet by Old Fred. (When AQHA was formed years later, Sheik would be recognized as one of its foundation sires and assigned registration #11.)

After Bob H’s death, Sheik was elevated to the head of Marshall Peavy’s breeding program. Bred to Sheik three times, the Old Blue Mare produced Mandy, a 1926 solid-colored mare; Flossie, a 1927 roan Appaloosa mare; and Jenny Lee, a 1928 solid-colored mare.

Mandy and Jenny Lee—the two solid-colored Old Blue Mare daughters—were registered with AQHA. Papoose and Flossie—the two loud-colored daughters—were not. Both Mandy and Jenny Lee went on to enjoy long and fruitful lives as Peavy broodmares.

Continuing on with the Blue Mare’s story, as noted earlier, neither of her Appaloosa-colored daughters was ever registered. That fact did not preclude them from being fully utilized.

Papoose, who Marshall Peavy thought highly enough of to give to his young, school-teacher bride as a wedding present, entered the broodmare band late, at approximately 9 years of age. Bred to Ding Bob, she produced three famous sisters: Margie, a 1933 sorrel; Sue Peavy, a 1937 bay; and Chipeta, a 1940 dun. Margie and Sue Peavy were solid-colored, while Chipeta was marginally colored. All three were registered with AQHA.

“Papoose was supposedly mine,” Mavis says, “and I did ride her until an eye injury ended her usefulness under saddle. After she was retired to the broodmare band, she was such an outstanding producer that Marshall had a hard time relinquishing control of any of her offspring.

“Margie, with her four stockings and blazed face, was the glamour girl. She just cried to be raced and was, winning 25 out of 26 and getting beat only when she was four months in foal with a catch colt that we knew nothing about.

“ ‘Sue’ was a marvelous athlete who had plenty of speed and could turn on a dime.

“Chipeta truly was mine—mine the day she was born and mine on the day she died. I rode her for years, right up to when she got hurt in a barn aisle accident, and then I started raising foals from her.”

As far as the Peavy-bred daughters of Papoose went, neither Margie nor Sue ever produced an Appaloosa. The same could not be said of Chipeta. 

Several years before his untimely death in 1944—the result of a riding accident—Marshall Peavy was racing Margie in Tucson, Arizona. He would exercise her in the cool of the morning out on the desert. On occasion, the owner of the well-known Quarter Horse racing stallion Little Joe Jr would accompany him.

On returning home to Colorado, Marshall discussed with Mavis his interest in leasing Little Joe Jr to cross on their mares. After Marshall’s death, Mavis decided to go ahead with his plans. In 1950, she leased Little Joe Jr and bred him to some of her best mares, including Margie and Chipeta. In 1951, Margie produced the AQHA-registered stallion Due Claw, and Chipeta produced the ApHC Hall of Fame stallion Peavy Bimbo.

In addition to “Bimbo,” Chipeta produced a son and five daughters that would go on to make positive contributions to the Appaloosa breed.

 The list of great Peavy-bred horses that stem from the Papoose branch of the Blue Mare family tree goes on and on—far too extensively to record here.

And, lest we forget, the tree had more than one branch. There was also the roan Appaloosa Blue Mare daughter named Flossie, who was every bit as great a producer as her half-sister.

Like Papoose, Flossie spent some time in Ding Bob’s band of mares. By him she produced two full sisters—Little Buck, a 1931 buckskin mare; and Speck, a 1933 bay mare. Both were marginally colored and registered with AQHA.

Bred to Red Dog P-55, Little Buck produced “Brown Fox”, a 1943 brown colt. Brown Fox was born marginally colored and registered with AQHA. As a yearling, he was shown at halter and was named Reserve Champion Stallion at the 1944 National Western Livestock Show in Denver. With age, he developed into a classic red roan Appaloosa and he was registered with ApHC as Cooterville Norell’s Little Red F-1673.

Like Little Buck, Speck lived up to her spotted heritage. Bred to Song Hit (TB), she produced Cuadroon, a 1943 brown mare. Cuadroon was marginally colored and registered with AQHA. Bred, owned and trained for racing by Marshall and Mavis Peavy’s daughter, Mary Peavy Stees of Clark, Colorado, she won the 1946 Western Slope Derby. Retired to the broodmare band and bred to Gold Heels (QH), she produced Wapiti, a 1955 bay, blanket-hipped stallion.

Getting back to Flossie, she still had two more outstanding contributions to make to the Appaloosa breed.

Bred to Saladin, the beautiful palomino son of Ding Bob, Flossie produced Si, a 1937 palomino colt; and Ding Bob II, a 1938 palomino, blanket-hipped colt.

Si sired only two foal crops before dying of tetanus as a 3-year-old. Among his few foals, however, was Gold Heels—Grand Champion Stallion at the 1944 National Western Livestock Show and the sire of Wapiti.

Ding Bob II—a blazed-face palomino with four high stockings and a big white blanket—was purchased as a young horse by the Miller 67 Ranch of Big Piney, Wyoming. There, he went on to found his own great family of Appaloosas. Included among them were a number of roan mares that were registered with AQHA.

The Old Blue Mare…Papoose…Flossie…

They were three un-registered Appaloosa mares who were born decades ago to a horse world that was far different from the one that exists today. Their spotted genes were never intensified and yet the color and the quality bred true.

The title “most influential producer in the history of the breed” is a heavy mantle to place on any mare. By virtue of her incredible genetic potency—a potency that resulted in a long line of National and World Champion halter, race and performance horses—the Blue Mare is more than deserving of the crown.