Truly, Bay Acres started out as little more than a pipe dream. I (Sam) had a Morgan (Beamer) with what I felt were vanishing lines and I truly was heartbroken at the prospect. His dam line is strongly carried on through the Janzen Morgan Farm in Alberta, CA but his sire line from the illustrious Black River program was dwindling with what felt to almost obscurity. Beamer was sired by one of the Black River productions, Black River Trojan. I’d heard a myriad of reasons as to why, including that Fleetwing offspring were notoriously tough horses that required a skilled hand. But in all my time quietly watching in other Morgan groups on social media, digging through ages of documents and following the blogs of some of the brilliant breed historians Morgans are blessed with including Richard Trower and Laura Stillwell, it seems simple enough a reason. The Black River horses were not quite showy enough for the main ring as other lines specialized for saddleseat, but still had too much saddlebred blood that they weren’t “foundation” enough for the western working crowd or sport crowd in the early 80s and 90s. Which has always intrigued me, as Fleetwing was bred by the time tested Devan stock that had immediate heritage to the Government bred Morgans. As was Trophy (One of the last stallions bred by the US GOVT program) but maybe it’s that darned Forest Whirlwind in there causing all the problems! Such a shame saddlebreds derived from Morgans and they interbred (In case the sarcasm isn’t clear, yes, this is sarcasm. I don’t believe in nor use the term foundation for any of our stock). That isn’t to say the breeding is gone or didn’t play any role in the Morgans we see today. There are several programs who founded an era in their own right from the Black River horses, among them Merriehill Chicagoan, Serenity Masterpiece (By Serenity Grandmaster, who was the son of Black River Thor), and Topa’s Crystal.

Regardless, so started the search to find this breeding. At first it was dead end after dead end in the registry, either owners who’s contact information was outdated or not in service or owners who had no desire to breed. So the search expanded to include Fleetwing descendants and after about a year of searching, an outpouring of the Black River surfaced. This led to us bringing in descendants of Black River Major, Black River Trojan, Black River Leo, Black River Circe and Black River Dandy. So a lot of Fleetwing, with a touch of Trophy! We have plans to continue to build around these lines and add stock as needed to help balance out certain traits we find in these lines. Our program went from nothing to something in a matter of 2 short years. They were stressful years with a lot of logistical work bringing horses here from all over the country, but well worth it considering the strong start we already have in our broodstock. 

Now onto our reason WHY. Why are the Black River horses so special? It probably helps my case considering my first Morgan was a Black River Trojan son. And the more I learned, the more I was sold. Yes, Fleetwing bred horses can be tougher to work with but in exchange, what they learn, they never forget. They weren’t put on this earth to suffer fools and they know they are clever. They aren’t going to balk when asked hard questions or put into precarious situations. They are show-offs with larger than life personalities. They are also determined and gritty with great structure. Those that weren’t, like my spitfire gelding, were gelded (He’s gritty with nine lives but a bit unbalanced and too long through the underline). The US GOVT program that these horses directly descended from were also subject to some of the most rigorous culling methods that included extremely long distance trials to prove that the horse could travel miles upon miles without coming up lame or struggling to be able to keep up with the demanding life of a cavalry horse. Those that couldn’t, were sold without papers or were gelded, or both. 

Now what are our goals? Ideally, we are going to produce amateur friendly Morgans that will succeed in the sport arena, predominantly Dressage. Our long term goals include producing horses with high enough quality of movement and temperament to succeed up to Grand Prix. While we are not educated enough to bring a horse along that far, thankfully there are wonderful trainers out there willing to take on “other” breeds to showcase their talents. Many Morgans have already successfully made it through several areas of sport, up to Grand Prix Dressage with very respectable scores. As such, movement and tractability have been the highest on our “list” when looking at broodstock to bring in. No, we don’t have incredibly large movers like the international PREs or Warmbloods but everything has to start from something. From there, we look at what siblings, parents or relatives have gone on to do. Then lastly, does the pedigree align with what we are working towards? We won’t turn our nose to a beautiful mover with papers that are a mishmash, show bred or western bred.

That being said, my partner (Saige), is a rancher’s kid through and through. Which leads into our largest overhead goal: Maintain the versatility of the Morgan. To that end, we’ve added a western bred mare into our broodstock. A horse built for sport will do just as exceptional a job at working cattle, just look at the beautiful stallion Spring Hollow Statesmen owned by the ever dedicated Katie Bostick. 

We are very much playing a long game and having to prove our bloodlines in sport as not many have before save a fantastic handful. So we aren’t flying blind here, but definitely a project of passion. As our program grows and evolves, we may see some changes over time but for now, we have an excellent foundation and such a fantastic crew behind us. The saying it takes a village normally applies to kids…but with horses, who are just as (if not more) stressful, the saying rings true here too! So many of us couldn’t forge this path alone because of the work and dedication it takes, so those waving our flags mean more to us than they could imagine!

I hope this has given everyone an idea of what we are about here, and we’ll likely keep the updates to a minimum to keep emails less clogged but still enough to remind folks we are still here working at it everyday!