In 1519 the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes sailed to the North American continent to find his fame and fortune. Along with his entourage of conquistadors, he brought horses to help his men travel across a new world in search of riches. He left behind a profound legacy�the bloodstock that would provide the foundation for a variety of unique, distinct, American-bred horses. According to the Spanish historian Diaz del Castillo who traveled with the expedition, one of the 16 war horses that carried Cortes and his men was a sorrel and white horse with spots on its belly. That spotted horse bred with native American mustangs and laid the foundation for what is today the American Paint Horse breed.

By the early 1800s, the western plains were generously populated by free-ranging herds of horses, and those herds included the peculiar spotted horse. Because of their color and performance, flashy, spotted horses soon became a favorite mount of the American Indian. The Comanche Indians, considered by many authorities to be the finest horsemen on the Plains, favored loud-colored horses and had many among their immense herds. Evidence of this favoritism is exhibited by drawings of spotted horses found on the painted buffalo robes that served as records for the Comanches.

Throughout the 1800s and late into the 1900s, these spotted horses were called by a variety of names: pinto, paint, skewbald, piebald. In the late 1950s, a group dedicated to preserving the spotted horse was organized�the Pinto Horse Association. In 1962, another group of spotted horse enthusiasts organized an Association, but this group was dedicated to preserving both color and stock-type conformation�the American Paint Stock Horse Association (APSHA).

This group thought the varied, distinct coat patterns of the American Paint were appealing. However, being knowledgeable devotees of Western stock-type horses, they insisted that stock-type conformation had to be the first criteria for establishing a registry. Founder Rebecca Tyler Lockhart remembers how the Association began.