PATCHY #416

Patchy 416 was the early day icon of the Appaloosa breed.  His image was on all the official Appaloosa Horse Club stationery and on all the registration papers. To see Patchy was magic and stirred emotion like not many other horses of his time did. He was a valuable ambassador to the Appaloosa breed.

What follows is a word for word account written by George B. Hatley in a letter dated September 28^th 1963 to J. Wayne Schwindt with a copy being sent to Ben A. Johnson                                               .

“KNOBBY was bred on the Nez Perce Reservation and was owned by Chet Lamb at Central Ferry, Washington. Chet Lamb used to ride the horse quite often from Lewiston to Central Ferry, which is around sixty miles.  He made the trip easily in one day.  KNOBBY, as well as having tremendous endurance and easy riding qualities was an excellent stock horse and proved to be an unusually good sire.  KNOBBY was the sire of PATCHES who in turn sired PATCHY 416.  PATCHY 416 was used widely as a stock horse and as Herb Camp put it, “He’s been ridden a million miles.”  I first saw the horse early in the spring of 1948.  I has heard about him and had written to Herb Camp stating I would like to come up to his place some Sunday and see the horse.  On the Sunday I was to look at the horse he had the horses rounded-up and in a corral on his ranch which borders the Palouse River.  It was spring and PATCHY was running with about 20 brood mares.  Seeing this magnificent stallion in the corral with his band of mares was a most impressive sight.  At that time, we were making plans for the First National Appaloosa Show. PATCHY looked like a potential champion stallion to me, and I encouraged Herb Camp to bring him to the First National Show.  Herb did not seem very interested in bringing him and I assured him that PATCHY was the best looking horse I had seen and I felt certain he would do well in the show.  Evidently my enthusiasm helped encourage Herb Camp to bring him to the show because when the show date finally arrived, Herb Camp was there with a load of Appaloosas.  My “corral fence” judging was confirmed by the two official judges at the First National as they placed PATCHY first in the Aged Stallions class and later Grand Champion Stallion.  This was in the spring of 1948.  Four years later at the Fifth National Appaloosa Show PATCHY won the title of Champion Performance Horse.

Herb Camp usually sold his fillies as weaners or yearlings but kept his geldings until they were three or four years of age.  They would be broke and ridden after cattle until they could be sold as broke geldings.  I was quite anxious to own some PATCHY fillies, so I purchased one filly and traded a young gelding for another filly.  The fillies names were LOLO #462 and KATHY #895.  These two mares both sired by PATCHY have been excellent brood mares.

The dam of PATCHY 416 was a registered Thoroughbred mare named MISS ROSALIA.  She was raced considerably in the Northwest.  At one time, she is said to have had an owner who raced her several times, holding her back, and then entered her in a large race and let her go and won a large amount of money.  She was considered to be an unusually fast mare.

Herb Camp sold PATCHY 416 to Ben Johnson on June 25, 1950. From that date on, Ben Johnson has the history of PATCHY 416.

Early this year I was asked by an author to list the horses which I felt were the top ten Appaloosas in the United States, and to say a little about each horse.  High on this list was PATCHY 416.  I stated that he was an unusually smooth, well-balanced and symmetrical horse with a commanding appearance.  He had a smooth graceful way of walking and showed a great deal of both speed and agility.  He was both a “picture horse” and a “performance horse”.  He is one of the only two stallions to have been both National Champion Halter Horse and National Champion Performance Horse. “  George B. Hatley Executive Secretary.