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Cracker Horses Saddle Up For Trek To Tallahassee

Tribune photo by GREG FIGHT

Billy Ray Hunter, left, Carlton Dudley and Kevin Webb ride along Cockroach Bay Road on Monday. Their trek to Tallahassee is intended to highlight the breed's role in Florida history and persuade lawmakers to make the Cracker the state horse.

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By SUSAN M. GREEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 26, 2008

Updated: 02/25/2008 11:48 pm

RUSKIN -- It's easy to forget, in the ribbons of highway and rows of two-car garage homes, that Florida was built by real horse power.

For more than 400 years, a relatively small breed of horse carried people through the pines and palmettos of a wilder landscape, starting with armor-clad Spanish conquistadors and later missionaries, settlers, American Indians and cowboys who drove cattle across an open range.

Monday, two little horses had no trouble looking the part of their ancestors as they prepared to carry riders 300 miles from Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve to Tallahassee.

"These horses have been a major part of all phases of Florida history," James Levy, a state historian dressed in late 1800s garb, told a small crowd that gathered at the preserve to see the riders off. For centuries, descendants of Spanish horses pulled carts and plows and carried men into battle, Levy said.

Levy, also executive director of the Florida Cracker Horse Association, said the trek is intended to remind people of the state's equine heritage and build support for a bill that would name the Cracker the official state horse.

Lawmakers are to consider the bill during the legislative session that starts in March. The number of Tallahassee-bound Cracker horses is expected to grow to posse size by March 6, when the entourage is scheduled to reach the capital.

Billy Ray Hunter, 44, of Alachua, a retired sheriff's deputy, will make the trip astride Buddy, a 3-year-old Cracker horse. The colt is one of about 850 of his kind, salvaged through breeding the stock of longtime ranching families and named for the whip-cracking cattlemen of yesteryear.

Joining Hunter is friend and retired firefighter Carlton Dudley, 58, of Newberry.

"We catch cows together," Dudley said. His mount is Harvey's Dun Dealin, a 5-year-old Cracker stallion. Also along for the first leg of the journey was Kevin Webb of Parrish, who rode a 21-year-old Appaloosa mare fresh from the annual 120-mile Cracker Trail ride from Bradenton to Fort Pierce.

The route to Tallahassee will roughly follow Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto's blaze through Central Florida. Organizers said they inquired about starting the Tallahassee ride at Piney Point, thought to have been DeSoto's landing site in the 1500s. But security issues at Port Manatee steered them north to Cockroach Bay, a county and state preserve.

Relying On Eateries, Feed Drops

Members of the association plan to drive horse feed to various campsites along the route. The riders said they wouldn't carry much in provisions, preferring to stop at eateries along the way.

It's not the first long-distance ride for Hunter, who rode a young Cracker horse 525 miles from Homestead to Tallahassee in 2004. He said he set out on that adventure "just to do it."

Though fences and highways present challenges unknown to cowboys until the mid-20th century, crossing the state on horseback can still be done, Hunter said. He made the 2004 trip in 12 days.

"I rode over 70 miles in one day," he said, noting that 35 miles a day is typical.

"My horse stayed with me in a motel room in Yeehaw Junction," he said. "It said pets were allowed. It didn't say how big."

Usually, he and his horse slept under the stars.

"I slept where I slept," Hunter recalled. "Sometimes it was on the side of the road. Sometimes on park benches. Sometimes on a sidewalk in front of a convenience store."

People generally were friendly and encouraging, he said, though he had to gallop away from one scary incident when he left a pub near Okeechobee.

He said that a drunken man and woman had followed him in a car and had tried to take his horse.

The horse, only recently broken for riding and with little other training, did not have a firm name for most of the trip, Hunter said. When it was over, he decided to call the horse "Roadie."

Hunter and Dudley said Buddy and Dun Dealin received high-energy feed and had been taken out for long rides in the weeks leading up to the Tallahassee trek.

Building Interest In The Breed

Levy said the breed now known as the Cracker horse herded cattle and ruled the range until about the 1920s, when an outbreak of cattle illnesses led ranchers to import quarter horses from Texas.

The larger horses were better suited for roping and holding cows for medical attention.

Cracker horses typically stand 13.5 to 15.2 hands high and weigh less than 1,000 pounds, according to the Florida Cracker Horse Association.

Many of them sport a gait that owners said is difficult to describe but makes for smooth riding.

Levy said he hopes building interest in the breed will lead to their long-term survival. When the Cracker horse association was founded in 1989, only 141 of the horses could be found in the state, he said.

The Cracker horse travelers were scheduled to camp Monday night at the Alafia River State Park and travel on to Dade City.

They said they would transport the horses to the Alafia park, 14326 S. County Road 39, Lithia, on Wednesday to meet with the public at 4 p.m.

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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