Gypsy Vanner Horses at Blarney Stone Acres

Gypsy Vanner Horses History

For decades, Rom breeders have relied on these Gypsy horses to pull their family caravans, with all their belongings, up and down the rural country lanes of England and Ireland. These were true work Gypsy horses, not just family pets, so they had to be strong, sensible, and easily trained.

Their intelligence and loyalty were such that nomadic Romany families used them as "guard dogs" in their encampments — the animals would snort in warning when they sensed an intruder or possible danger. The Gypsy horses also had to be docile enough so that at the end of a day's work, they could be used to teach Gypsy children how to ride.

The colorful markings of these Gypsy horses are like a brand — they are so distinctive among individual Gypsy horses that it's easy to tell them apart. As a result, their coloring tended to discourage theft.

Many Romany families, even those who have given up the itinerant lifestyle of bygone days, continue to breed Gypsy horses as part of their cultural tradition.

Gypsy horses are a mongrel breed because so many different breeds go into the making of the traditional Gypsy horse. To say that Gypsy horses are a mixture of Shire, Clydesdale, and Dale breeds dramatically simplifies the reality, namely, that generations of Gypsies have been breeding "the best to the best" to achieve the distinct features that characterize the modern Gypsy horse. The large differences between certain types of Gypsy horses can be traced back to the geography of the area where they were originally bred and the jobs they were intended to perform, such as pulling a Gypsy van. However, as English Gypsies began to settle down, the need for a strong drafthorse decreased, and with it the size of the horse. The modern Gypsy horse is a cob-sized animal bred as an all-around family Gypsy horse capable of many equitations and prized for its beauty. In the last ten years, the goal of the breeder is not only to create a better Gypsy horse, but also to fine-tune this uniquely bred horse.

Within the United States, there are three separate Gypsy horse registries, and you will find high-quality Gypsy horses within all three. For more information on these registries, see our links page. However, in some respects, the only authentic "registry" of the breed as such exists not in paper records, but in the collective memory of the Romany families who breed and raise the Gypsy horses. They maintain an astonishingly detailed oral history of breed type and bloodlines that is actually much older and more accurate than most conventional paper-based registries.

In other words, the most reliable way of obtaining authentic Gypsy horses is to buy them directly from a trustworthy provider, such as one of the Romany families in the U.K. who have been breeding them for generations. At Blarney Stone Acres, that is how we obtained our breeding stock of mares.