Colorado Ranger

The breed was championed by rancher Mike Ruby, who founded the Colorado Ranger Horse Association in 1935.

[1] All registered Colorado Ranger Horses trace directly to one of two foundation sires in their pedigree.

[3] The original foundation ancestors of the Colorado Ranger were two stallions brought to the United States and given to US president Ulysses S. Grant by the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1878.

Upon reaching Virginia, they spent 14 years in the breeding herds of Randolph Huntington, a noted breeder of trotting and roadster horses.

In 1896, Randolph leased Leopard and Linden Tree to a friend of Grant's, named General Colby, who used the stallions to breed a number of mares on his ranch in Nebraska.

[1] The second was a Barb stallion named Spotte, imported from North Africa in 1918 by the owner of the W.R. Thompson Cattle Company as a wedding gift for his daughter.

[5] Mike Ruby, a horseman from the Colorado High Plains, became interested in the breed and acquired Max and Patches, a son of the original Colby Ranch stallion.

Ruby was invited to bring two stallions to the Denver Stock Show in 1934, and chose to take Leopard #3 and Fox #10.

[4] Ruby was influential in saving some of the highest-quality Ranger stock during the severe drought of the 1930s, by driving them over 300 miles (480 km) to better pasture in a history-making journey.

After re-establishing his herd, Ruby developed a practice of leasing groups of his Rangerbred horses to other ranchers throughout the western United States for use as breeding stock.

While originally bred in the western US, today many Colorado Rangers are found in the midwest and eastern parts of the country, including the states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.