Happy Friday! Here is your First Friday Flashback! To go along with the Independence Day (Fourth of July) holiday here in the United States, we’ve chosen a 1985 piece about one of our Veteran members, Ray Potts. Ray passed away in 2012. Here’s to you and your service to our country (and to the Lippitt Morgan), Ray, and to our other club members who have served in the Armed Forces (please feel free to identify yourselves in the comment section).
FARM SPOTLIGHT: BOLD VENTURE FARM, Ray and Carol Potts; Eva, Alabama
From Lippitt Club News, Vol. XII, No 4, p.3 (1985)
I grew up fascinated by Gordon Voorhis’ Applevale Morgan Horses. I only saw them in the field but remember them to this day the similarity among them.
When we decided to buy a horse, I remember saying, “I like Morgans,” not really knowing why I said that. Well, our first horses were a Quarter Horse and an Appaloosa. When we moved to Alabama, we found a Morgan listed for sale, and bought her, no knowing that Morgans should not be Palomino. On purchasing the second Morgan, the sellers mentioned that there were basically three families of Morgans – Lippitts, Brunk, and Government. They mentioned that Lippitts were “old type.” Since “old type” piqued our curiosity, because we are interested in preservation of history, we started checking the Morgan Horse magazine. Most of the information we gleaned from farm ads, and we started writing letters asking about horses for sale. We visited a few farms, but found we were getting more confused all the time. We couldn’t see where these horses looked alike, and we felt there should be more basic uniformity.
In 1980, we acquired 5 horses from Mrs. Jackson Kemper – three full Lippitts and two 1/2 Lippitts. In December 1980, we bought Royalton Donald Ash from Roy Wahyne’s Patoka Ridge Farm, in Indiana. We also bought Patoka Charlotte (Onyx) from him.
At that time, we didn’t know about the Lippitt families. We happened onto the horses we bought. We later found out that Jackson Kemper had planned to lease Royalton Donald Ash to breed to his mares. We are very pleased with the results. Donnie has sired 19 foals since coming to Alabama – eight full Lippitts, nine 1/2 Lippitts and two 1/2 Morgans. This year we are expecting two more full Lippitts on our farm and another full Lippitt and one 1/2 Lippitt on two other farms. Donnie’s gentle temperament and calm nature impresses everyone.
In 1982, we acquired Becky Twilight and her three month old filly, Meredith Melody Ash, from Emery Rice, Meredith, NH. Melody has been bred to Donnie this year. Twenty-three year old Becky has had two fillies for us and is expecting her third foal by Donnie this October.
Our next acquisition was Castlebrook B Joyfull from Connie and Steven White, Campbellsburg, KY. She has been bred to 21 year old Donnie.
On June 10th, we made a trip to Vermont and purchased Horton’s John Moro from Mr. and Mrse. Lyle Horton, Hartland, VT. Johnny is now in residence on our farm. We plan to breed Meadowood Aleta and Becky Twilight to him this year. Our future plans are to breed Johnny to the Royalton Ash daughters. We are very pleased with his temperament and action. His high head carriage says, “I am proud to be a Morgan.”
Venturous is our prefix and that stands for the horses and ourselves as well. It’s taken awhile to break ground down here. Our accomplishments, we hope, would be to have reintroduced the old type Morgan to Alabama, and to continue to educate the public so that the old type will not be forgotten.
We were VENTUROUS in that we didn’t know the first thing about horses – breeding or training. Bless the book writers! Training is now divided between Carol, her daughter Beth Lucas, and Ray, when he’s home. We haven’t found time to show, since Ray is on the road for the government so much and has National Guard each month. The rest of his time is spent repairing or building fences and trimming horses.
We didn’t start out breeding by pedigree, but we have observed that the Lippitt Ethan Ash-John A Darling-Twilight crosses have produced great foals for us. We plan to continue to breed short backed, stocky, upheaded Morgans with calm, willing natures. We feel they are our best advertisement. We tell the Lippitt story, but we sell Morgans for pleasure, show and farm work – one horse to do it all.
(Facebook administrator’s note: Sadly, Ray Potts passed away two years ago last spring. Carol continues, however, to carry on with the Lippitts Morgans that she and Ray so loved. The first photo is of Venturous Dawn, a 1988 mare by Horton’s John Moro and out of Venturous Destiny. Destiny was by Royalton Donald Ash and out of Becky Twilight. Dawn, therefore, was a beautiful early result of the crosses that the Potts strove for. The second photo is of Carol and Ray. Venturous Morgans continues to produce high quality Lippitts. Carol can be reached at alippitt@centurylink.net for more information.)
