Mountain Island Farm

Mountain Island Farm is located in Swanton, Ohio, west of Toledo and adjacent to the Oak Openings Metropark  The park features miles of riding trails that wind through the unique scenery provided by the rare ecosystem known as oak savanna.  This ecosystem exists only in the strip of sandy soil, about 100 miles long and 20 miles wide, that characterizes this corner of Northwest Ohio, and contains many endangered plants and animals.  Many horse farms are located near this beautiful park.

There is no Mountain Island in Swanton, however.  The farm is named after a piece of land found in central Kentucky and owned by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt Vinegar and other members of his family,  descendants of slaves who once worked a fertile valley where a creek splits into two and reunites further downstream.  The Vinegar family was given title to the island, and their freedom, upon the death of the landowner.   Mr. Vinegar, who passed away in 2001 at age 90, raised, trained and sold riding horses in central Kentucky all his life.  Most of this time he maintained a herd of 30 or so horses.  His herd always included a few good gaited stallions, which were also used to breed neighboring mares, often with Mr. Vinegar's consent. :)   In the 1950's, he bred a black and white gaited pinto stallion named Hillrise, out of a mostly Thoroughbred mare with just a splotch of white on her body, and sired by a gaited stallion named  Rooster.  For 50 years, he bred for gait and pinto color from Hillrise and his offspring, and these horses were prized all around Owen, Grant, and neighboring counties.  These horses undoubtedly represent a major contribution to the Spotted Saddle Horse breed, first made official in the 1980's when the existence of a pool of compactly built, pinto gaited horses was discovered in central Kentucky.  Today many Spotted Saddle Horses are part- or full-blooded Tennessee Walking Horses, but Mr. Vinegar's gaited stock predated the creation of the Tennessee Walking Horse breed.  He preferred a smoother and less "hip-jiggling" gait than that of many modern Tennessee Walkers, more like that of  the Plantation Walker.  Mountain Island Farm's Spotted Saddle Horse stock are the offspring of the last gaited pinto stallion bred by Mr. Vinegar, Floyd (featured on our home page).  Floyd is 5-gaited, as are his offspring.  Several of Floyd's progeny remain in Owen and Grant counties in Kentucky, including mares owned by Ted Vinegar's son, Grover.

At Mountain Island Farm, we have branched out into the Big Horses by breeding a Saddlebred mare and her pinto daughter by Floyd to Clydesdales.  The results have been spectacular (see Horses for Sale).  The 50/50 Saddlebred/Clydesdale offspring are being registered as Georgian Grandes.  We have not been breeding for Spotted Saddle Horses.   The breed is not well known in this area, and since our showing is limited to a little local 4H, we did not feel we had the time or resources to be the ones to introduce the breed to the area at this time.  In a few years, however, we will breed Floyd's daughters for color and gait, so keep checking back for Spotted Saddle Horse babies!