05/15/2026
Long regarded as the cowboy’s horse, the American Quarter Horse helped define ranching in America.
In the Wild Horse Desert of South Texas, Richard King and the generations that followed at King Ranch carefully bred horses for the realities of ranch work: agility, endurance, intelligence, and cow sense. Those bloodlines helped shape the modern American Quarter Horse, and King Ranch horses became some of the earliest and most influential registered by the American Quarter Horse Association.
The ranch’s legendary breeding program produced foundation sires, like Old Sorrel, and the very first horse entered into the AQHA registry, helping establish bloodlines still respected throughout the Quarter Horse world today.