The Lion King
15.2 hand, HOMOZYGOUS* Legendary Gypsy Horse stallion

We cannot offer breedings to Lion King now, but will keep his page up here as reference for the many breeders and owners who have offspring from him.  We will continue to breed our best mares to him from the limited amount of frozen semen we have.  We will not offer it for sale, so please do not ask.

Black Forest Shires and Gypsy Horses is incredibly proud to introduce to the USA a  living legend known as "The Lion King".  "The Lion King" is one of the most famous and most popular gypsy stallions alive today!  We are thrilled to announce that after months of negotiations, that this phenomenal horse is ours, and will be standing at stud here in Colorado!  This is one of the most well-known and respected gypsy horses over in England and Ireland, not because he's an awesome example of a gypsy cob with amazing conformation and gypsy horse type and more hair than ever seen on a horse, but because he is legendary for REPRODUCING this in his offspring.  THIS is how Lion King got his phenomenal reputation, by showing what he leaves on the ground!  This is the true mark of any good breeding horse.  A gypsy calls a horse that doesn't leave his type in his foals, "Greedy", and there are SO many "greedy" stallions out there.  Lion King has earned his reputation as a generous horse, he stamps his type on each of his offspring like clockwork! 

NOTE: 
To our clients with bookings to the Lion King...  We will be offering services from his son, Legacy to fulfill your needs.  If you haven't heard from us yet, Please call. 
See Legacy for more information.

Pictures of The Lion King, taken in May, 2005.  He's done well in Colorado, and loves his work!
For all of those people "nagging" for some new shots, here are a couple Jeff snapped of him a few weeks ago.  Lion King had not had a bath, or a proper brush-out, but he looked pretty clean so Jeff snapped some shots. 
If you look close, you can see his abundant mustache on his upper lip! 
 

And our favorite shot, a little sunbathing?  No, just a bit of rolling caught in the middle!  Ahhh, feels SO good!

Information on "The Lion King" from the breeders page.

In 2003, our friend "Jim" had purchased one of the most amazing stallions we have ever had the privilege to meet. 

He is called "The Lion King", and he is a 15.2 hand HOMOZYGOUS stallion who is the absolute top breeding, big stallion alive today.  All of the gypsy lads are crazy about him, and clamoring to get their mares bred to this amazing horse.  Not because he's homozygous (they didn't know that, I suspected it so I did the test on him myself!), but because of two things.  First, he is simply the heaviest (in feather) horse that has ever lived (yes, that includes horses like "The Road Sweeper", "The Old Black Horse", "The Lob", and all of those), and second, he is KNOWN to produce amazing stock.  He's as proven as proven gets.  The fact that he only produces color no matter what he's bred to doesn't hurt things, but he's top because he's a proven "getter" of great stock!  This horse and his stock have been SO guarded and so in-demand for the past 5 years, and we are THRILLED to finally be able to offer horses of his breeding for sale, and to be able to have this living legend for ourselves at home in Colorado.

The Lion King is a son of the phenomenal mare called the "PO Mare" who is one of the most famous mares anywhere.  She's produced amazing stock over the years, with this awesome horse being the 'top dog'.  The sire of The Lion King had a very short career, as he died in an accident as a 2 year old, after breeding only a  few mares.  This makes "the mix" that created this horse something unique, that can never be recreated.  He is truly one of a kind.  Rumors like to say that The Lion King was bred in Ireland.  This is not true.  His sire and dam resided in England, and were bred in England.  Lion King's mother was sold to an Irish breeder when she was near to foaling and therefore he hit the ground in Ireland.  Gypsy breeders do not consider that "being bred" somewhere, the breeder that put the mare to the stallion is considered to be the "breeder" of an animal, and where it happens to be foaled is irrelevant!  Lion King went back to England as a yearling (to the same person who sold his mother in foal to Ireland), and has lived his whole life there, with that same man, until our friend "Jim" acquired him in 2003, after which he flew to the USA.

Another note of interest about this horse, his name is "The Lion King".  He has a name, and everyone knows it.  It's not many gypsy stallions that have names, and names that are known everywhere, but this guy is one of those elite few!   He's a living legend. 

"The Lion King".  Believe it or not, he's not even cleaned out in this picture!  Only the TOP layer of his feather was brushed up, but the under-layers of his feather were still in dreads!  I can hardly imagine him properly cleaned up!  AND, you can see his amazing body and great size as well.  WOWZA to the 10th degree!

 
A few weeks later.  Completely dirty, just out in the field, but SO amazing.  I have never seen anything like this boy! 

A few more pictures from the first time I met "The Lion King"

A phenomenal neck, an incredibly short back, and wonderful
legs under all that hair are traits that put this stallion on top!

LK's mane was in bad shape last year from his eating thru a wire fence, but it's come back in thick, full and LONG this season.  We will get new pictures of him when he gets to Colorado and gets settled in.  His forelock is still down below his nose, as it didn't get pulled out with the fence.  In a few more months the rest of his mane will be back to it's original gorgeous state!

A few offspring of "The Lion King"
These are just a few examples of the foals that have made Lion King a legend among gypsies. 
 

This 4 year old Lion King mare mare (heavy in foal in my picture) was all the rage in the fall of 2005's horse fairs.  She was bred in England, taken to Ireland for a bit, and sold for big money at an Irish horse fair.  A few weeks later, she made it back to England and sold several more times in succession, each gypsy breeding "bidding profit" on her (that is what you do when someone has just purchased a horse that you want, you "bid them profit", and when the profit gets good enough, the horse sells, before it's ever even gone to a new home).  Sometimes a horse can change hands 4-5 times in an hour with this system, it works well for gypsies!  The man that ended up with this mare "on the day" ended up giving over £30,000 pounds (about $55,000 dollars) for her that day.  She was bred by the man who owned The Lion King for most of his life, and he intended to keep her, but the bidding got too good for him to refuse when the Irish boys came around a few weeks before!
My pictures weren't great on her, I did what I could with the madness around.  When she first came out of the horsebox it was chaos around her, everyone wanting to get a glimpse of the fair-topper.  I waited til the commotion died down, and was able to get a few shots when "the boys" were done trying to buy her (they didn't succeed on that day, the man that had ended up with her wouldn't take any reasonable profit).  Incidentally, on that day, I got several bids to buy The Lion King to send back to the UK!  I didn't entertain them at all, as I didn't want the temptation of "serious profit" to make me do something foolish! 
 

This is a 2 year old colt from The Lion King, who sold in England in the fall of 2003 for £55,000 (British Pounds), which was worth the equivalent of $98,000 US Dollars by that current exchange rate!!!  I think this colt is the spitting image of his dad, and so did the buyer!
 

This awesome yearling filly is big and homozygous like her sire! 
 

Another filly from LK.  Sold for BIG money at a horse fair in the spring.  This filly is TWO!  Wowza.
She also looks to be homozygous. 

Timone - Yearling colt from LK.  WOWZAAAAAA!  Another one who looks just like his dad, with the incredibly short back that LK is so famous for. 

OMG this filly stops my heart!  She's a 2 year old in this picture, one of the best there is.  She's homozygous as well!  Imagine her clean and polished!  I can't fault this one, short back, awesome legs, incredibly heavy feather, beautiful neck, good color and a gorgeous head.  This one is the whole package indeed.  This is one of the many of this type that made Lion King the Legendary stallion that he is.  It's not his "type" (although awesome) that made Lion King one of the best stallions that has ever lived, it's the fact that he shares his incredible type with his offspring.  Many of the best looking stallions around are, what "the boys" call "Greedy".  This means that they don't share their astonishing attributes.  Lion King does indeed, "spread the wealth", and this has made him a Legend. 
 

This filly turned up at a horse fair last fall, and I followed her around all day as I thought she was "the bees knees".  One of my friends razzed me a bit thinking that I was after her because of her bloodline, and I felt silly, because I didn't know who she was.  I couldn't believe it when he told me that she was a Lion King daughter, and that her owner had just asked "the boys"  £38,000 pounds - (about $68,000 dollars by today's exchange rate) for the filly.  I hear they did sell it in the end for not much less than that! 

"Simba" - USA born colt by the wonderful mare called "The Gypsy Queen" (in Ohio).  This guy is SUCH a nice, heavy, well-built colt with great color too!  Simba was conceived on the first batch of chilled semen ever shipped from Lion King!  He gets most mares on the first shipment!

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And dozens more of the best horses in the world! 

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NEW - Janurary, 2007.  Fun tid-bit - Much to our surprise, BFSGH has become somewhat of a legend overseas, for being the people who own The Lion King.  This horse was well known and legendary before he left England, but since he has been gone, and his previous owner has let go of a few of his best broodmares and stallions from The Lion King, his name has reached iconic proportions.  There is not a fair Christine or Jeff attend where people don't come up just to shake our hands at being the people to own this horse, and we refuse "bids" on him every time we are out and about.  We even get phone calls (sometimes in the middle of the night, unfortunately, because of the time difference), from people overseas who want to verify that we have the horse, or to make an offer on him.  It never ceases to amaze us.  We are so pleased to be able to own a stallion that every gypsy man who breeds horses in England and Ireland knows and would love to own!  We have never met his equal. 
 

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