Painted Lasan was, in some ways, a living contradiction.
Bred to be a Quarter Horse, he was born a bald-faced, stocking-legged Paint. As laid back and easy to be around as any children’s mount, he was a fierce competitor in the show ring. Initially passed over by many as a breeding animal, he went on to become one of the breed’s most influential foundation sires.

What was not contradictory about “Lasan” was the fact that he was from the onset a horse of tremendous potential—potential that was recognized and fully developed by a pair of Paint Horse pioneers.
The result was one of the great success stories of the breed.

By the early 1960s, Ralph and Dorothy Russell of McKinney, Texas, were two of North Texas’ better-known horse trainers and exhibitors.

A third-generation Texan born in McKinney in 1919, Ralph started his own dairy business at the age of 10 and began breaking and training horses for the public when he was 12.

Dorothy, 13 years Ralph’s junior, had likewise been reared in a McKinney horse environment and had trained and shown Appaloosas from the time she was a teen.

Married in 1952, Ralph and Dorothy proceeded to make a name for themselves in Quarter Horse circles with Bay Bandit (QH), a top halter stallion and a double-bred descendant of Zantanon.

In 1961, the Russells ventured for the first time into a breed they felt showed tremendous promise.

“We bought our first Paint Horse—a yearling black and white tobiano stallion named Smokey Echols—from ‘Daddy’ Hodge of Decatur, Texas,” Ralph says. “We liked the colt because he was Zantanon-bred, just like Bay Bandit. We gave Daddy $1,000 for him, which was a lot of money at the time.

This is an excerpt from More than Color: Paint Horse Legends. To order the 224-page book, which includes 35 full-color and 200 black and white photos of outstanding Paint Horses, visit http://www.apha.com/store, or call toll-free (877) 460-6275.