...Although Herman Oliver did not keep a son of
Clark’s Red Allen to
continue the legacy of those bloodlines within his
breeding program, other people did.
The majority of grand-get of old
Clark’s Red Allen,
though, can be attributed to a son who was bred and
kept all his life by one of R.H. Clark’s sons.
Jesse Clark raised a dark red
colt by his father’s stallion out of a mare named
Lizzie Allen, a daughter of
Hunter’s Allen F-10.
Foaled in 1937, this colt was registered as
Red Bud
Allen. As a two year old,
Red Bud Allen was broke to
ride, and even made a few shows under the training of
Zolly Derryberry.
Jesse had a special relationship with this very
intelligent stallion, not only
riding him and using him in the stud, but also
teaching him tricks. During his life,
Red Bud Allen
sired 145 registered foals. The vast majority were
bred in the heyday of the young breed during the mid
to late forties, after the death of
Clark’s Red Allen.
During the final years of his life, he bred
very few mares, as the times had turned to the padded
show horse, black was the color in vogue, and the
bloodlines of the padded horses were those in demand.
In the last years, when the old stallion was in his
late twenties, he sired only five foals. Three of
those five were out of a bay mare named Merry Man’s
Star.
Foaled in the fifties, Merry
Man’s Star was not registered until 1965. In 1965,
however, the breeders association changed its
registration rules. All foals had to be registered
during the year that they came, and any adult horses
whose paperwork was not in order had to obtain
registration certificates then, or be reduced to grade
horse status. Leon Oliver, who had returned from Army
service, made the choice to produce a foal by his
uncle’s horse out of Merry Man’s Star. The bay mare
went to the Delina area of Marshall County
for a tryst with Red Bud Allen for three consecutive
years.
The
first product of the mating of Red Bud with Starr was
a filly. The next two years, in 1966 and 1967, Oliver
was more successful in obtaining the stud colts that
he wanted, first in 1966, then in 1967, another colt
arrived posthumously. He became Red Bud’s Rascal. When
Oliver lost the older colt, it remained to Red Bud’s
Rascal to carry forward the equine heritage of his
sire and his grandsire.
Red
Bud’s Rascal had been foaled the spring after the
victory of the four year old stallion
Shaker’s Shocker in
the Grand Championship Stake at the Tennessee Walking
Horse National Celebration. An extremely popular
winner with his petite blond owner and trainer in the
irons, Shocker inspired a surge of popularity for the
padded show Tennessee Walking Horse. Interest in the
kegshod registered horses was at another all-time low.
Red Bud’s Rascal arrived with the wrong gait genes,
the wrong pedigree, and the wrong color to attract any
interest from the vast majority of mare owners in the
vicinity of his home barn.
Red
Bud’s Rascal began the pattern of the life of an
Oliver farm stallion. Strong boned, red, and naturally
walking, he seemed unsuited for the times.
The first dozen years of Red
Bud’s Rascal’s life passed.
Leon became the family’s collector and
preservationist. He tried to keep alive the bloodlines
of every animal that he had owned, even a heifer given
him by his uncle! In 1979, Leon felt that the
ever-swinging pendulum in the Tennessee Walking Horse
business was beginning to change its direction. Trail
rides were becoming popular once more, shows were
beginning to add classes for plantation horses, and
interest in the pleasure aspect of the breed was on
the upswing. Anticipating better days ahead, Oliver
ordered a set of business cards advertising the
specialties of his farm, and advertising Red Bud’s
Rascal as an “old bloodline” stallion, a grandson of
Clark’s Red Allen,
born in 1921.
In 1984, the Pleasure Walking
Horse Association of Tennessee was formed to promote
the pleasure walker in the state of its origin. Leon joined the group and supported
its magazine, PWHAT News, with his business
card ad. Through this ad, many people whose interest
was the natural walking horse from the older
bloodlines that had not been bred to pace learned of
Red Bud’s Rascal. Mares came to the stallion’s court
that had never visited before. The resulting Red Bud’s
Rascal foals had good gaits, strong bones, and sweet
dispositions to go along with good minds. Mares owners
came back again. When the foals went under saddle,
many owners were so pleased with their horses that
they were never on the market. Like two of the early
fillies by Bud, Lonesome Last One and Red Bud’s Lady,
they would remain forever with the same owners.
During the eighties, a parallel trend to that of
discovering old foundation bloodlines without the
padded show strains was an emphasis on color.
Perceiving a need for a stallion of color, Oliver
searched until he found a handsome grey tracing its
color line to Top Wilson. The second mating of the two
resulted in a dark chestnut colt also blessed with the
grey gene. Naming the colt
Buds Sterling Bullet,
Oliver groomed him as a future stallion prospect for
Brown Shop Road Farms...
Red Bud’s Rascal died on
July 13, 1997, two months past his 30th
birthday. As promised, Oliver buried the faithful old
stallion in a shady spot in front of the barn where he
had spent all his life. A granite marker at the
gravesite bears the simple epitaph “Red Bud’s Rascal,
1967-1997, Pleasure Sire.” The following year, eleven
foals gamboled in the sunshine in testament to a grand
old stallion who gave his all until the very last
day...
