Blanny Avalon Hagenah inherited a love of horses from her grandparents who had a horse ranch in California. She spent a lot of time in the saddle learning horsemanship, showed several of their horses and helped keep ranch breeding records for the mares and foals.

      During high school and while receiving a teaching degree at the University of Arizona, Blanny worked as a camp counselor and riding instructor at Teton Valley Ranch in Wyoming and as the horsemanship director at Pinon Valley Ranch in Colorado. She was a riding instructor at an Appaloosa barn in Washington state and opened “Morning Mist Farm” where she coached many successful youth and non-pro riders in both the competitive “A” and “B” circuit shows.

      It was in the Pacific Northwest that Blanny became enamored with the Appaloosa breed, purchased her first Appaloosa mares, showed them to multiple halter and performance championships, and started breeding Appaloosa foals. Returning to Arizona, Blanny took a number of her best mares and their offspring and added two children to the mix. She and her children continued showing and breeding and enlisted Steve Cruse to successfully campaign several of the foals. Blanny outcrossed her mares only to National and World Champion Appaloosa stallions with performance bloodlines. What she wanted in her thoughtfully planned program was to produce Appaloosas with conformation, disposition, athletic ability, talent, proven bloodlines, and COLOR.

      Blanny started her breeding program in earnest with the establishment of “Avalon Appaloosas” on a pretty ranch in the rolling hills outside of Monterey, California. Blanny hired talented horseman Tom Swan as Ranch Manager and his wife, Crystal, as Operations Manager. Blanny began outcrossing her mares to Amy and Nick Kinsh’s “Sunbeach Honkytonk”, Char-o-lot Ranch’s “The Hunter”, and Lori and Tim Larsen’s “Undertack”. She then enlisted the aid of winning trainer Christy King to campaign many of the foals and added National, World, and Medallion wins to the ranch trophy case.

      In March of 2005 an exceptional foal was born at  Avalon Appaloosas. Sired by “Sunbeach Honkytonk” and out of “Sirtenly Sirprised” (a Sir Wrangler daughter), a stunning black colt with a huge blanket, white-tipped ears, lightening marks on all four legs, and a huge star, Honkytonk Wrangler (LP/LP) made his entrance into the Appaloosa world. His first foal crops produced two reserve World and National ApHC champions and one of his colts was imported into Switzerland. His foals proved to be smart and talented as well as 100% COLORED. Inquiries came in for frozen semen and “Wrangler” was collected and made available for breeding in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Africa. Wrangler currently has approximately a dozen foals outside of the United States.

      After two decades in California Avalon Appaloosas moved to a beautiful breeding facility in Berthoud, Colorado close to the Colorado State University Equine Reproduction Lab and outstanding veterinary care by veterinarians Dr. JD LeClair and Dr. Pat McCue. The broodmare band was expanded to include TB and AQHA mares as well as grullas, duns, buckskins, palominos and fewspots.

      In 2023 Honkytonk Wrangler’s handsome fewspot colt, Neon Wrangler (EE a a LP/LP) out of “Maid By Tack”, replaced his sire after Wrangler’s death in 2022. This striking young stallion sires black based foals and is a 100% color producer. Colored foals fill our stalls and turnouts and are sold to homes across the USA, Canada, Alaska, and Mexico. They are smart, willing, athletic, conformationally correct, and would look amazing in your barn.