May 2019- Announcing the new junior stallion for Gab Creek Farm foaled May 24, 2019. (Gab Creek Golden Vaquero x Gab Creek Golden Halo) This is the last line bred Primavera foal from Gab Creek Farm. Future efforts will focus on offering Stallion Service (Primavera Brio, Gab Creek Golden Vaquero, and this as yet unregistered colt). The dam of this new colt is 16.1 h.....she gets that from her maternal grandfather, Green Bay Ragtime....so, he should break 15 h at a minimum.

October 10, 2016- Simeon Springer (Gab Creek Golden Vaquero x Gab Creek Gay Mashanta) at age two (remember Hutch is 6"4")


June 21, 2016- Here are two good examples of the get of PKR Primavera Brio. Out of two different mares. But the Brio stamp is obvious. The first clip is Pisgah's Melody Rose (PKR Primavera Brio x Meadowlark Mayday) a foundation bred horse. The second clip is Gab Creek Golden Vaquero (PKR Primavera Brio X LBF Gay Enchantment) a foundation, line bred Primavera. The rider in both clips is Henry Fleming who is a superb trainer and takes a few outside horses each year (www.harmonycross.com). Hope you enjoy these!

August 3, 2015- After 7 weeks in Intensive Care at the University of Georgia's Large Animal Vet Clinic, Will James spent his first night at Gab Creek Farm last night. Hutch has his hands full with continued care, but the prognosis is positive.

July 11, 2015- For those who saw pictures on Facebook of a very pregnant Morgan mare named Nancy, who was due on 17 June, she did in fact deliver but a bit early on 8 June at 2:30 a.m. It was a difficult birth as the foal had both front legs "contracted" like a closed pocket knife. It was inutero not congenital. It was a miracle she delivered and there was nothing I could do to help her. The foal had a suck reflex but I could only extend the legs to a 45 degree angle, so there was no way he could stand and nurse. "Will James" has been at UGA Teaching hospital ever since.



June 2015- The 2008 dark chestnut Brio daughter Pisgahs Melody Rose (out of ML Meadowlark May Day) owned by Henry Fleming. Ruth Shaw reports: "She is simply a marvelous mare, and everyone who meets her wants to own her". Ruth is on the full Lambert, Quietude Mandolin, who is now ten.


October 2014- At two months it is already evident that Simeon Springer has the potential to be much like his grandsire. Another picture of him at age 2 months can be found at the bottom of Vaquero's page.


This is Gab Creek Simeon Springer, colt, foaled Aug 13, 2014, (Gab Creek Golden Vaquero x Gab Creek Gay Mashanta). He is ¾ his grandfather, PKR Primavera Brio, as he is by a Brio son out of Brio's full sister. He is three months old now and more pics to follow soon. Simeon Springer was a black man of character I knew as a child.

Comes Traveler and his master ( Lee ),
. . . Such horses are
The jewels of the horseman’s hands and thighs,
They go by the word and hardly need the rein.
They bred such horses in Virginia then,
Horses that were remembered after death
And buried not so far from Christian ground . . .
---Stephen Vincent Benet

Brio is buried about a quarter mile from my mother. He will certainly be remembered…. as the horse of my lifetime….and maybe that of several others. He left nearly thirty offspring and as of his death there is a son and two grand get in Australia.




Brio's first granddaughter in Australia was foaled December 8, 2012. Sired by Wirraway's Trademark (PKR Primavera Brio x Fox Brush Custom Design), the buckskin filly is out of a palomino 1/2 Morgan mare, Boomtown Texas. The Aussies prize their part breds as the Arab folks here do Half-Arabs. Boomtown Texas is an accomplished performance mare in her own right- she was the 2010 High Point Champion for Morgan Versatility! (here's her link)


"Becky" (PKR Primavera Brio x Longstreet Serenata) is progressing nicely as a jumper with Melissa Starr. Melissa reports: "She has incredible natural talent with jumping and is starting to really get comfortable with her feet (she's suppling up and getting pretty good at lateral work). We're planning on heading down to Ocala in February with Imti (my trainer) to train with him (he sets up camp down there for the entire month of February)." Additional videos of Melissa and Becky are available on YouTube here and here.

March 2012- Pictured with Mary Ann Schafer is the Brio son, "Briki", in Australia who is now 15.1+ at 4 years of age. This is the same horse you can see at the archives tab coming off the trailer as a foal after his trans Pacific flight more than three years ago. Mary Ann, who owned his dam, "Dream" is down under again on her third visit. John says the colt is 'Brio in a different color....just look at that big eye'.


The following is the lead in for a feature article for the March 2012 issue of The Morgan Horse Magazine that will detail John's 40 day adventure in six remote regions of the western states in August-September 2011:

My sister is fond of saying: "if there isn't a near death experience involved, John is not interested." On this 40 day loop through Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, I rode out a true run-a-way, incited by a large buffalo bull in Nebraska. I met my shadow really hard when a large Angus bull jumped out of a patch of weeds up on the Paint Rock in Wyoming (a flashback for the horse to the buffalo I am sure). In the Teton Wilderness under Yellowstone a sow grizzly and her triplets ran the horses out of camp. I was armed with a plastic water filter. Traveling alone at 12,000 feet on the alpine spine of Rocky Mountain National Park, I experienced severe weather and near hypothermia. At Valle Vidal, NM, I survived a wreck when the colt I was ponying through a narrow gate in a stock pen set back hard. And I walked away from a prairie dog induced horse fall where my leg was pinned under the horse. I came through all that, in my opinion because of the saneness and toughness of two Morgan horses.



Saturday Jan 29, 2011, Gab Creek Farm hosted an Ed Dabney clinic and a trail ride on the occasion of John's Birthday. A perfect weather day for late January. See the video clips on the new Facebook page for Gab Creek Farm. (top picture- Soldier and John; bottom picture, John and Soldier and Melissa Starr and Gab Creek Golden Halo, aka "Becky")


Gab Creek Golden Halo aka "Becky" (PKR Primavera Brio x Longstreet Serenata) with her owner Melissa Starr at their first ever Dressage Show, Saturday, Oct 23, 2010, at Chicopee Woods in Gainesville, GA. Melissa just started to really "ride" Becky in May and is thrilled with the results (3d and 4th in the two Intro Level Tests). Melissa says "She also had such a lovely, calm, and willing attitude all day. What a nice girl!"

Centaur Fence Testimonial


Merry Christmas from "the land down under" from Wirraway's Trademark (aka Briki), the son of PKR Primavera Brio out of a Funquest Erick daughter (aka Riki....ala, "Briki"). Briki was shipped to Australia with his mom as a foal, went 14h at 12 months and is only 21 months in this photo (foaled Mar 24, 2008). Mary Ann Schafer who is just back from visiting him reports: "He also hasn't gone thru an uneven growth spurt, hasn't been hind end tall or anything, he grows evenly front and rear. What I love best is the soft eye. Kind and intelligent and a hunk!" This colt is already creating quite a buzz down under.


It is always good to receive positive feed back on a horse John started.

"I rode with Georgia Ladies Aside in the Old Soldier's Day Parade in Alpharetta yesterday on Becky and it went tremendously well. She amazes me over and over again at what an amazing horse she is. There were only 3 of us in our group (both of the other horses are veteran parade horses- both of which rode side saddle in the inauguration parade this year). The parade was HUGE (approx. 100 entries - we were #84)! She took in all of the sites very well with minimal spooking (mostly at the noisy motorcycles and bicycles - they're just not right!). Out of all of the parade entries, there was only one entry that shot off guns and 2 with animals (us and a pair of camels 2 spots back from us pulling a wagon). And of course, where did they put the 15 "sons of the Confederate" with their guns they shot off every time there was a big crowd? You got it, right in front of us. They gave us no warning the first time they fired them off and they were LOUD. Romeo, one of the veteran horses, spun around and tried to take off, meanwhile Becky just flinched and got progressively better as the parade went (once she understood they weren't going to hurt her). She was awesome! You'd think she was a veteran parade horse!

So anyway, it was great. We spent almost 2 hours in the line up waiting for it to start and then the parade route itself was almost an hour long. Was really big and was in honor of all soldiers who have fought in any wars. Was great to see them all out there in their dress uniforms along the parade route. They would salute us as we went by. Huge turnout and was just a blast. Was great to hear all of the little girls along the way screaming for the horses too!

Here's to a great start of hopefully many more fun parades with Becky!"

-Melissa Starr, Alpharetta, GA


Fall 2009: Nashboro Belanna Gold has a new home! Congratulations to Ginger Krause!! Ginger writes, "I am having such a wonderful time getting to know her better, and though I admire her beauty, she has such a sweetness about her and the spark of individuality despite her maturity. She is wonderful to ride. She stands so well for grooming and my fooling with her, I just lay the lead rope over the fence and there she stays until I ask her to move! what a delight! I take every opportunity to scratch her neck and ears before, during and after I put on her halter or bridle and she really seems to appreciate the special care. I put fuzzy covers on her halter and bridle and that seems to relax her that she does not feel the leather and webbing right up against her. I call her my little angel. Thank you again for letting me have the opportunity to have her with me."