Whoa! A Zorse Is a Horse of Course, of Course--but It’s a Zebra as Well

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. —  A new breed of steed has arrived in horse country. White Cloud, stocking-legged foal of a quarter horse, sports racing stripes.

Sired with the sperm of a Grant’s zebra and foaled by a registered mare, White Cloud and others like him promise to be “the horses of the future,” said owner Diane Richards.

Make that the zorses of the future.

When he’s old enough to ride, 5-month-old White Cloud and future “zorses” will combine the speed and savvy of zebras with the friendliness of horses, Richards hopes.

“Zebras have been running from lions for a long time, and they are real fast,” she said. They’re also smart, and they can jump.

“You have to have 6-foot fences,” said Richards, who began the crossbreeding project three years ago in the rolling ranchland east of this San Bernardino Mountains resort.

Richards and a few other zorse breeders hope to cash in on a flourishing market for exotic animals, as evidenced by ads for all sorts of species and cross-species in specialty publications.

But few people have enough patience to make friends with a zebra. Skittish and intractable, they have defied domestication.

Richards’ zebras, Cyclone, 7, and Valentino, 5, can be ridden like mules.

“I don’t think any mule around can compare to what we can do with these guys,” said Diana Starkey, who helps care for the stock. “They’re a step ahead of you, so you better make friends with them. They’re strong.”

Mostly, Richards feels her way with the animals.

“Handle and handle and handle them,” she said. “It’s not for a novice. You have to imprint as soon as they come out.”

Since most zebras won’t let humans even approach, sperm collection for artificial insemination can be tricky, even with “tame” zebras.

For one thing, the mood must be right. Soothing music is piped into the barn Valentino shares with White Cloud and a mare pony. Richards leaves the lights on.

Valentino is so used to Richards, she is able to trick him when he mounts the mare, diverting his sperm into an artificial vagina. For safety’s sake, two veterinarians always help, Richards said.

She charges a $1,500 stud fee, live foal guaranteed. Orders come from as far away as France, Richards said.

Artificial insemination costs the same as the natural way, but bigger, more versatile zorses are possible with the artificial method.

“Because zebras are hard to handle, if you can’t artificially inseminate, you’re stuck with pony-sized animals to breed them with,” Richards said. Valentino, or at least his sperm, can sire mixes of Arabians, quarter horses and even big draft horses.

“Now we’re going to get the big beauties that you’ve never seen before,” Richards said.

White Cloud promises to be a bigger beauty, at least, than his zebra sire Casper, who lives on a Northern California ranch. White Cloud has the white stockings and long legs of his dam and the muscular zebra hindquarters of his sire.

Like zebra colts in the wild, his coat is still striped with dark and lighter brown, natural camouflage that will turn black-white as he ages.

Horses and zebras have been bred over the years, although the results have been little more than pony-sized curiosities, said Randy Rieches, an equine expert at San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Zorses are infertile like mules, crosses between horses and donkeys. Though they may be striped like zebras, they don’t get species status.

“The definition of a species is that animals within the species can successfully interbreed,” said Dr. Dirk Vanderwall, an equine reproduction specialist at Colorado State University.

A difference in the number of each species’ chromosomes causes infertility, Vanderwall said.