– Hall of Fame Inductees –
The Hordern Family
The Hordern family’s influence on the
development of the Quarter Horse breed
in Australia extends for over more than
a decade prior to the 1964 formation
of the AQHA as a breed registry. The
late Samuel Hordern Snr, a leading
business- man and a founding director
of King Ranch (Aust.), together with
Sir Rupert Clarke, Peter Baillieu and
Robert J. Kleberg Jnr of the King Ranch
(USA), were the first to introduce Santa
Gertrudis cattle to this country back in
1953. And around the same time Samuel
Hordern Snr and Robert
J. Kleberg Jnr were also in the process of
selecting four King Ranch-bred Quarter
Horse stallions for importation to Australia. Chosen as foundation sires for the
King Ranch (Aust.) QH Stud, based at
“Risdon” near Warwick in Queensland,
they would establish a new breed of
stock horse to be utilised across the
ranch’s extensive cattle enterprise.
One of these four stallions, Mescal, a
son of the renowned American KR sire,
Wimpy, was gifted to Samuel Hordern
Snr. After six months of quarantine in
the UK the horses arrived at the port
of Sydney in May 1954. The three King
Ranch stallions, Vaquero, Jackaroo and
Gold Standard were transported up to
“Risdon”. While Mescal initially stood at
Samuel Hordern’s Retford Park Stud in
Bowral, NSW.
With no purebred Quarter Horse mares
in Australia at this time, the Hordern
family purchased a number of Stud
Book Thoroughbred mares to breed to
Mescal. The resulting first cross QH
foals became foundation horses not only
for the Hordern Stud but also for the
breed. Their quality was such that in
a relatively short space of time it was
considered that if you owned a horse
that traced to Mescal, you were a fine
judge of horseflesh. In 1970 Mescal was
awarded the AQHA Award of Honour
for his contribution to the QH industry,
as an AQHA Leading Broodmare Sire,
his daughters were held in very high
esteem. He spent his entire lifetime in
Australia with the Hordern family.
Mescal’s progeny excelled in every
equestrian discipline, but in particular
they made impressive stock horses. One
fine example was his 1962 son, Quarter
Elgrando R1-167. His dam was Snow
Sarah Myer, Ricky Glen and Sam Hordern
collecting the HOF award for the Hordern
family (Sarah’s maiden name is Hordern,
she’s Sam’s sister)
Page 30 • The Australian Quarter Horse Magazine • November • December 2015