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(This is a copy of an article by Margaret Lindalsy Warden, as appeared in the April, 1966 issue of Western Horseman Magazine. )

It was a big horse that lay covered in the hallway of the barn at Harlinsdale Farm, Franklin, Tenn., the afternoon of November 7, 1965.  Indeed, he was a big horse in every way - in stature, name, fame, and posterity.

Midnight Sun, a young 25, had become a legend years before his death that Indian summer afternoon.    On his record, he was the big horse of the Tennessee Walking Horse breed.   He was the first stallion to become world champion of his kind.  That was in 1945 and 1946 at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration at Shelbyville, Tennessee.   Then he sired horses that were grand champions there seven times; grand-sired the supreme winner five times;  and was the great-grandsire of one year's champion. On only four occasions since 1949,  have horses not descended from Midnight Sun, in a straight male line, been world champions of this breed.

From being a humble, back-country type known in a few southern states, the Walking Horse started going places after the registry society was formed in 1935.  It seemed that nearly everybody was reading about the Tennessee Walking Horse, and wanted to see this distinctive "new" breed in action.  Great singers, actors, athletes, and horses are "box office", and the big, black, storybook stallion was prominent among the performers to sell the breed to the public.

Horses are not a big money crop in the Volunteer State. but in the last 30 years, the Tennessee Walking Horse has brought in a lot of cash and numerous lookers, and Midnight Sun was high among those responsible.

The big horse was cast in the heroic mold. When he finally matured, he averaged 1,350 pounds and appeared much taller than the "just under 16 hands" that he measured. He was distinctly large for a Walking horse, a robust but not tall breed. His home was his stall. He was never turned out in a paddock, but exercised daily under saddle between 30 minutes and an hour. The day before his death from colic, he was ridden at the walk and running walk about 30 minutes. The Tennessee Walking Horse may be thought of as a Cinderella breed, and Midnight Sun as an ugly duckling that matured into a swan.

It was a farmer, the late Samuel M. Ramsey, at Viola, in the Tennessee hills west of Chattanooga and near McMinnville, who bred Ramsey's Rena, a bay mare of about 15.2 hands, with Wilson's Allen, a chestnut, at nearby Pelham. This was a couple of months before the latter's death from pneumonia on August 22, 1939.   Rena died young after producing just 3 foals.   Wilson's Allen was by Roan Allen, by Allen, from Birdie Messick by Allen, the Standardbred No. 1 foundation sire of the Tennessee Walking Horse.   Rena was about 90% Standardbred.   She was by Dement's Allen by Hunter's Allen, by Allen F-1, and her dam was by Bell Buckle, a registered trotter of Bow Bells and Wedgewood blood.   The Registry gives the next dam as by John Covington's Hal, and the next as by "Galleston".   This was a trotter, but not an American Standardbred. Old-timers in the Woodbury area who remember him say that the name was Galson.   He was an imported black German Coach stallion, "nearly 17 hands and 1,500 pounds", owned by a stock company, and had cost $2,600.  (English, German and French coach horses were imported to the U.S. periodically to produce heavyweight hunters and carriage horses, or farm horses and mule mares, but the English Cleveland Bay is the only one hanging on today.)  German coach horses were a brief experiment in middle Tennessee from about 1903-1915. Galston is the only one with any known descendants.   He contributed size, color and stride to a prolific champion that has put his name far back in many a pedigree.

The history-maker's pedigree contains out-crosses that have probably added much vigor. Instead of Roan Allen in both lines, he had Hunter's Allen on the dam's side and some of the stoutest trotting blood of his ancestors' day.

Midnight Sun's sire, Wilson's Allen, was on a pedestal when he died, for among his get was Strolling Jim, Grand Champion of the first Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration in 1939.

John A. Hendrixon of Manchester bred three of the last crop of Wilson's Allen and hastened to get 6 others as sucklings.  He paid $500 for the black colt, but buyers passed him by.  They liked the smooth, early maturing ones such as H-Boy.  There was a scramble to get him.  The Harlins were among the ones who lost out.

When the slow maturing black colt was a two year old, Hendrixon trucked him and several mares to Shelbyville and offered them for sale on a lot near the Celebration grounds.  He was still too thin and awkward to show what he could do, and Alex Harlin again declined to buy him.  Who could have predicted that the gawky colt would, three years later, be supreme champion of the breed, a few hundred yards from the scene of his rejection, and then proudly owned by those who had repeatedly rejected him?

On any stage, a star performer needs and deserves an attractive name. "Joe Lewis Wilson" did nothing for the future champion. It was Bill Ashley of Franklin who suggested Midnight Sun soon after the horse arrived at Harlinsdale. "The noonday sun is the brightest and strongest thing we know and this is the blackest and strongest horse" said this imaginative admirer.

When a person dies, it is customary to take the point of view that his or her history is complete, but this cannot be so if the subject is a stallion that sired approximately 100 foals a year for 20 years, and whose sons and grandsons, and female offspring too, have proved themselves consistently to be winning producers of World Grand Champions.

**Please note:  All photos that are not specifically accredited otherwise, are courtesy of Dr. Bob Womack, author of "Echo of Hoofbeats."   If you have a story or photos of Midnight Sun that you would like added to this page, please forward them to Walkers West.

Jim Hayes 
Franklin, TN