2002 Mare, sorrel with sabino.
MFTHBA 02-72995
15.3 Hands
$2900

Yankee's Sunrise Sonata Pedigree

Of all the fox trotters that we have owned and raised, we are most proud of Soni. No other horse has shown such a strong, natural gait with a willing, lively disposition. She's a big sturdy mare, with a big gait and a big heart. Her talent, attitude and conformation can be traced back to her Southern Sunrise and Yankee bloodlines. (See sections below on Yankee and Southern Sunrise.)

Soni had a great start as a 3-year-old by Clint Surplus in Terrebonne, OR. The day we picked her up at Clint's place, Ben got on her and she went into a fox trot with a very slight pressure on the bit to get her into frame! On a completely loose rein she does a beautiful running walk. She has the long powerful Yankee stride, very smooth and ground covering.

This is a good strong horse, at 15.3-H, 1200 LBS. She is very gentle and non-argumentative, well socialized. Bathes, clips, loads, etc. We just had her teeth done to get her ready for riding season. She's had very little riding in the last couple of years so we'd recommend a more experienced rider for this summer. In the best of times and situations we'd price her at $6,000 minimum, but considering that she needs a tune-up and we really want to sell her to a good rider who would appreciate a fine horse we're asking $2900.

More about Soni's special bloodlines:

We were lucky to come across a daughter of Mack K's Yankee.

Back in 1999 when we were just getting into fox trotters we visited Ava, MO, the headquarters of the Missouri Fox Trotter Horse Breed Association (MFTHBA). We were shopping for fox trotter geldings for ourselves plus one or two for friends. When we were in the MFTHBA HQ Ben noticed two photographs of great foundation stallions hanging on the walls. One was Mack K's Yankee.

Mack K's Yankee was born in the mid 60's. Yankee injured his leg as a two-year-old so he was never shown. He earned his place of honor on the wall of the MFTHBA HQ by the outstanding quality of his offspring.

Here are a couple of excerpts from Nadine Moeller's Fox Trot Trackings:

Junior Haddock, a MFT breeder, wrote in 1984: "YANKEE was a wonderful horse to handle and his disposition was perfect. I have owned a lot of stallions but he was one of the best behaved stallions I ever owned. I rode him some but I didn't show him… I think he had the most beautiful front end on him, a good head, and just real good conformation… he was just a pretty horse all over… I don't believe I ever saw a colt out of him that didn't have the head shake and (fox) trot…I have been in the stallion business for all my life and have had a lot of different stallions but YANKEE was the best." Haddock, Junior. "Mack K's Yankee." Nadine Moeller's Fox Trot Trackings. 1st Ed. 1986 pp 143-144.

L.D. Dampier, MFT breeder and showman, wrote in 1984: "Yankee has helped Charlotte and me the most… YANKEE today has probably sired as many champions as any horse… YANKEE is the best dispositioned horse I have ever seen. A five-year-old kid could go to the barn, get him out and breed a mare to him. His colts are good dispositioned. YANKEE is just not any trouble, easy to handle, you would never know he was on the place… We are real proud to have him, he sired us two grand champions." Dampier, Charlotte & L. D. "Yankee to Charity." Nadine Moeller's Fox Trot Trackings. 1st Ed.. 1986. Pp 145-149.

Well, it wasn't our intention to start breeding MFTs, but on our Missouri travels we heard about a 16-yr-old daughter of Yankee for sale in Arkansas. We headed our rig south and bought Midnight Sass! Sassy looks just like Yankee, a sorrel sabino, and she has his big engine and the Yankee "Yes ma'am, no ma'am" attitude. This was just the beginning.

We combed the USA for the best breeding partner for our Yankee mare, and came up with Southern Sunrise.

After reading about the old bloodlines in Nadine Moeller's two Fox Trot Trackings books plus scanning 10 years worth of MFTHBA Celebration magazines, we chose to AI semen collected from Southern Sunrise. The thing we liked best about Sunrise, besides him being a multi-world grand champion, was the fact that amateurs were winning more fox trot competitions on his colts than the get of any other stallion. Sunrise passes on a very natural fox trot. He was also very handsome and good natured, and he got the job!

We were only able to settle our old Yankee mare once with Sunrise semen, which makes Soni a very special lady indeed!

By the way, Southern Sunrise is the only fox trotter to have been chosen to be a Breyer horse model — one of the large ones!

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