You’ve heard this one before: someone buys a $5 box of prints in a dusty old antique store, takes it home and pulls out a Rembrandt drawing.
Michael and Donna Doss, who own and operate Mountain View Paints and Quarter Horses in Chesaw, a little more than an hour north of Omak, Washington, did much the same thing in buying their new Quarter Horse stallion Skips Contention, one of 12 standing at the Youngker’s Quarter Horse ranch in Oklahoma.
They’d seen a small ad in the December, 2000 Paint Horse Journal, their version of the dusty old shop, for a 100% Wiescamp-bred paint stallion that was for sale because he’d lost his AQHA papers. Born in March of 1996, he’d been destined to replace his father as herd sire until a white spot on his belly no bigger than a restaurant dinner knife disqualified him for AQHA papers as a cropout Paint. The ad said that he was standing until sold, so the Doss’s acted quickly, buying him at a reduced price.
Michael Doss drove him back to their 120-acre ranch a year ago last March 1, and the new owners were pleasantly surprised. “The pictures and video we saw didn’t do him justice,” said Michael Doss, who’s been breeding and raising Paints and Quarter Horses almost 30 years. In all that time, Doss said, “he’s got the best attitude I’ve ever seen in a stallion.” Skips Contention is a 15.3 hand Sorrel with a flaxen mane and tail, weighing 1,575 pounds. His Skippers W ancestry includes “Old Fred” mares that harken back to a late 19th-century wheelhorse on a team that by conformation was declared to be a foundation sire of Quarter Horses even though he had the same cropout spot on his belly as Skips Contention.
Two weeks later they found their Rembrandt sketch. Two months earlier an AQHA rule change meant that the belly spot was no longer disqualifying and Skips Contention suddenly got his AQHA papers back, a decision neither the Doss’s nor the Youngker Ranch knew was being contemplated. The muscular horse, which some have nicknamed Arnold after Schwarzenegger, immediately quadrupled in value to over six figures.
A deal’s a deal, but the Youngker Ranch wanted him back, offering the Doss’s use of any other horse on the place for two years, but they declined. “We were really blessed in this,” said Michael’s wife Donna Doss. “We didn’t want to send him back even for a little while, and they’d already gotten 14 foals before we got him.”
“He’s the horse of a lifetime, because of his breeding and disposition. He goes back to Skipper W 16 times,” said Doss, referring to one of the better-known hallmarks in the Quarter Horse world. Famous for producing winning foals, Skipper W was born in 1945 out of Hired Girl by Nick Shoemaker and was owned by Hank Wiescamp, the legendary Quarter Horse breeder in Alamosa, Colorado. Of the nearly 3,000 registered foals Wiescamp produced, 132 were by Skipper W, 13 of which became AQHA champions. http://www.foundationhorses.com/skipperwped.htm
Wiescamp took as much care with his stock as Rembrandt did with his drawings, with the same timelessly artistic results. According to his citation in the AQHA Hall of Fame, Wiescamp believed that 60 to 80 percent of a foal’s qualities came from its mother, but “when Wiescamp finally produced a stud with all the correct components, no offer would induce him to part with the animal. It had taken nature too long to come up with the right mix.” It quotes Wiescamp as breeding for speed and intelligence, and such points as powerful jaws, a deep heart girth and a “rear end like an Irish washerwoman.”
http://www.aqha.com/horse/museum/hof/henryjwiescamp.html
Doss said that the horse is special because, aside from its wonderful attitude, he’s a great halter horse. “Yet he’s still flat-kneed, and moves from underneath and behind. He doesn’t move like a halter horse even though he looks like one,” Doss said. Their goal is to produce good-looking horses that ride well. “We’re still breeding all-around horses, because people can’t always afford three different horses for each class,” he added.
Doss, 52, has been raising and breeding Paints and Quarter Horses for 27 years. He grew up in Seattle and began riding at 13 when he’d saved enough money to buy his first horse. His wife, Donna, got her start in a 4-H program after her dad brought home an unbroken pony he’d gotten free to their Maple Valley, WA, home.
Donna Doss is a committed barrel racer on her small (14,3) and fine-boned Quarter Horse mare she calls Boundary. “She looks more like a thoroughbred,” said Doss, “but she wins.” Doss bred her to Skips Contention and the resulting red roan filly looks a lot like her dad. “Her dad’s features came through strong,” said Doss, “giving her a big hip and a gorgeous front end.” The well-balanced filly, named MVP Miss Contentiality, has already won money in halter futurities, and is evidence of Skips Contention’s ability to put out cookie-cutter babies.
“When Michael stopped at Youngker’s after the AQHA Worlds in Oklahoma City, they showed him 30 or so yearlings, and he picked out Skips Contention’s three foals on the first try. They’re that distinctive,” said Donna Doss, adding that the primary points he gives his babies are a “clean, high attached neck, a nice V in front and a real full deep attached hip.”
She kidded that Skips Contention is so docile they’re thinking of putting out a book, “101 Things Not to do with your Stallion (that we did anyway),” such as leaving him ground tied in their barn’s aisleway while leading other horses by him. “Don’t say that, people will think we’re nuts,” she said with a laugh, “but really, he’s such a willing and gentle guy, almost like a gelding, but he puts out these wonderful babies.”
Michael and Donna both work in Omak, about an hour and 20 minutes drive southwest from their ranch, a distance that has reluctantly made them put the place up for sale. “We’re just too far from our horses while working,” she said. The ranch is at 4,000 feet and has 30 acres in hay and, she added, “lots of game and wildlife.”
Breeding fee is by private treaty. Cooled-shipped semen is available. First shipping will be free if reservations are made before the end of 2002. Michael and Donna Doss may be contacted at the ranch, (509) 485-2212, or on her cell, (509) 322-3506. Their e-mail address is mvpaints@hotmail.com , and website is www.mountainviewpaints-qh.com .
Contact:
Michael and Donna Doss
Phone: (509) 485-2212
Cell: (509) 322-3506.
Email: mvpaints@hotmail.com
Website: www.mountainviewpaints-qh.com
