The quintessential model of the American versatile family horse
SEYMOUR, MO. – Chris Nerland was born in Iowa in 1954. His family moved to South Dakota and purchased a dairy farm, which he collectively owns with his siblings. Nerland graduated high school in 1972 and joined the Navy one year later. Nerland was introduced to his future wife, Susan, through his sister a the couple married in 1977.
“When I married Susan, I married her horses,” Nerland says. While he was no stranger to equines, as his mother raised draft horses, his wife was a fan of Morgans and had raised them since 1959, when South Dakota University dispersed of their Morgan herd in favor of Quarter Horses. Nerland reminisced of his mother’s love for horses as she was raised in a family that bred draft horses. She gifted him a half Morgan filly at the age of 13, which he trained himself. “Morgan horses have the common sense of a Quarter horse and are almost as pretty as an Arabian,” says Nerland…