Rare Nokota Horses Have Made Their Way to Missouri

Horses have always found their way into the hearts of many. Some ranchers call it a sickness; others refer to the statuesque creatures as their greatest love. Jim Smith, 60, of Festus, Missouri, said that he grew up riding horses on his family farm and dreamed of owning a horse ranch one day. Now that he is a retired construction laborer he owns a ranch 40 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri, where he and his brother-in-law, Jim Faries, raise their breed of choice. The two men have been accumulating a wild and rare horse breed named the Nokota. The Nokotas are from southwestern North Dakota, an area known as the Badlands.

Brothers Leo and Frank Kuntz of Linton, North Dakota, are credited with saving the breed from extinction. This breed ran wild for hundreds of years until the 1940's when the Badlands were partially enclosed to become the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Many of the Nokota were inadvertently enclosed in the boundary fence. The Kuntzes bought a few of these horses in a 1978 park service round up which was an attempt to rid the park of the wild horses. They immediately recognized that these horses were a distinctive breed. The Kuntzes were cross-country horse racers and found the horses' great endurance and speed suited them for the Great American Horse Race circuit. This race was featured in the movie "Hidalgo."

Smith said he learned of the breed when he and his son visited Alaska and saw a reenactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn that included Sitting Bull's horse, a Nokota. So three years ago he bought his first Nokota.

"They gentle down really easily and quick," Smith said. "They are really intelligent and are good riding horses and have such a good disposition."

Smith explained that he would have never guessed that the breed would be so sociable because "they were wild as a deer when we got them."

"I am at my ranch nearly every day and when they see you coming they will swarm you because they want you to pet them," he said.

An Illinois rancher who sold Smith and Faries a few Nokotas said that he believes this need for human contact comes from when the Indian ponies lived at camp among their Native American counterparts.

Many Nokota enthusiasts believe the breed to be descendents of Sitting Bull's war ponies, as reported in Horizons Magazine of North Dakota. The article by Patti Maguire Armstrong states that the proof lies with historical records and vintage photographs. In 1883, seven years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Marquis de Mores bought 250 horses from traders at Fort Buford, where Sitting Bull had surrendered to the Army in 1881. Many equestrians ignored these horses at that time because they were considered unattractive because of their bald, wide face. With the horses' agility and gift at being able to live on little sustenance, they suited the Badlands perfectly. The article reports that the French nobleman's plans to breed the horses on a large scale with Sioux mares never materialized and the wild horses lived out many years on the northern plains until the organization of the Roosevelt park.

Smith said he owns 10 Nokotas now and bought six of them directly from the Kuntz brothers in North Dakota. The Kuntzes have had to sell off some of the horses in order to finance the wild Nakota herds that roam on their 3,000-acre ranch.
There are two types of Nakota horses: traditional, which is a pure bred Indian pony and the ranch type, which has been bred with a ranch-bread horse. There are believed to be only about 300 pure bred horses living, most of which reside on the Kuntz ranch. The Kuntz's Nakota Horse Conservancy, accessed at www.teamnakota.com, states that there are less than 1,000 Nokotas in existence, which is considered "precarious." The sale of young stock not required for the preservation of the bloodlines is critical to the conservancy's funding, states the Web site.

The Nokotas come in striking colors such as the blue roan, which is a rare color for horses, but is the most common color found in the Nokotas. True blacks are also common and the other colors types are: sorrels, grays, blue-grays, red roans, chestnut, bay, palomino and frame overos. The natural gate of a Nokota, Smith said, is what is called an Indian gate and is "somewhere between a gallop and a walk."

All of Smith's Nokotas are tame but he rides two of the horses. Both are three-year-olds and the blue roan is named "Speckle Hawk" and the sorrel is "Running Wolf." Smith said it is customary to give Nokotas an Indian name.

Smith has a cousin who raises registered paint horses. He said that childhood fantasy of being horse ranchers has come true for both of them but with a twist.

"When we were kids, all we thought about was owning a horse ranch and now we got the horses and are too old to ride them," he laughed.

For more information on this unique horse breed contact Smith and Faries with J&J Nokota at 475-3906 or 314-775-5511.