By Chuck Cadle
©Voice, May 2007

©Kim Abney

I knew that I would have a lot to learn about the Tennessee Walking Horse when I joined the staff of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association^SM last month. Much of the information that I have read has been industry related or internal in nature. As I was rummaging through old files, I noticed an article on Allan F-1. I started reading the article and the more I read the more emotional I became. The article first reminded me of the Biblical story of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph, who was greatly loved by his father but despised by his brothers, was sold into slavery for many years before being recognized as a prominent leader. I then remembered the story of Herman Keiser. Having just watched the Masters Golf Tournament, I recalled that Herman Keiser was an unknown golfer that won the 1946 tournament against all odds.

Such was the fate of a young, promising, black colt sired by the acclaimed pacing stallion Allandorf, and sold by the side of his noted dam, Maggie Marshall. “History of humans and horses has few parallels of the life story woven around Allan F-1,” stated Ben A. Green in his book “Biography of the Tennessee Walking Horse.”

Here is the history as recorded by Shelbyville’s W.J. McGill:
Allan F-1 was the designation given to Black Allan by the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ Association^SM when it began its Registry in 1935. He was so noted because of his recognition as the “greatest contribution to the breed” among all known stallions. His lineage consisted of Allandorf, Onward, George Wilkes F-54, and Hambletonian. His dam was Maggie Marshall and her lineage consisted of Bradford’s Telegraph, Black Hawk, and Sherman Morgan.

One of Maggie Marshall’s colts, named Elyria was foaled in 1882 and proved to be a great trotter, with a record of 2:25, very fast for those days of high-wheeled sulkies.
• Elyria’s owner, George Ely, was so pleased with his fast trotter that he traveled to Lexington, KY, and bought Maggie with Black Allen at her side. Ely had hopes of owning another fast trotter in this colt.
• The colt was a trotting horse that refused to trot; he would only pace. After several years, Ely gave up on the black colt and sold him in a sale in Lexington, KY in 1891.
• John P. Mankin, of Murfreesboro, TN, purchased the horse for $335.
• Lacking speed, Allan was relegated to stud but had little to attract any attention.
• Neglected, his talents hidden to the world, Allan became a “wandering horse.” Once being sold for a black filly, a Jersey cow and a $20 bill.
• For the next twelve years, it was all down hill for Black Allan. Even his impressive bloodlines could not prevent his fading into obscurity.
• One of his later owners, J.A. McCulloch, used him to tease the mares that were to be bred to his jacks to produce mules. Thus Allan—the horse with no reputation—became known as ‘The Old Teaser,’ and evidently was thought good for nothing else. It seems that Allan had fallen to the lowest level of a stallion’s life.
• Then history reveals that James R. Brantley, a knowledgeable horseman from Coffee County, in 1903 bought the horse from McCulloch for one hundred and ten dollars in a package deal.

Allan stood at Brantley’s farm from 1903 to 1909. Word spread throughout Middle Tennessee of the good colts with natural walking gaits being foaled by mares bred to Allan. He became a king with a popular court, breeding mares from all the great lines. During that time, he was bred to the great mare, Gertrude, producing a colt that would become one of the most noted sires in the history of the Tennessee Walking Horse breed. He was Roan Allen, later to be designated as Roan Allen F-38.

• Black Allan was sold one final time in March 1910, several months before his death, in a transaction between two close friends, Brantley and Albert Dement of Wartrace, TN.

During the next seven months just prior to his death at age 24, he serviced 111 mares—indeed a phenomenal feat for such an aged stallion.

The impact of Allan F-1, the chosen foundation sire of the Tennessee Walking Horse, was virtually unknown until more than a quarter of a century after his death. But the prepotency passed on to several generations of his progeny, which was responsible for his selection as the foundation sire by the Executive Committee of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ Association in 1935.

If you didn’t know the history of Allan F-1, I hope you enjoyed this information on the father of our signature gait.