two stallions brought to the United States and given to US president Ulysses S. Grant by the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1878. The first horse was a gray Barb named Linden Tree, foaled in 1874. The second was a desertbred Arabian, also gray, named Leopard, foaled in 1873. The two stallions reached Virginia in 1879, after their voyage from Turkey. Upon reaching Virginia, they spent 14 years in the breeding herds of Randolph Huntington, a noted breeder of trotting and roadster horses. In 1896, Randolph leased Leopard and Linden Tree to a friend of Grant's, named General Colby, who used the stallions to breed a number of mares on his ranch in Nebraska. These breedings were successful at producing high-quality ranch horses, and a few years later several ranches in Colorado collaborated to buy a group of horses, including one stallion, from the Colby Ranch. All of the mares were sired by one of the two imported sires, and the stallion, a few-spot leopard Appaloosa, was a grandson of Leopard on both sides of his pedigree. The influence of Linden Tree and Leopard on American horse breeding was such that they are now listed in the studbooks for the Arabian Horse Association and the Jockey Club (which registers Thoroughbreds), both major breed associations in the United States. 20th century The Colorado ranchers used the horses purchased from Colby to improve their existing ranch stock, and the progeny of these crossings became the Colorado Ranger Horse. Although leopard coloration was not originally an aim of the breeding program, many of the resulting horses bore spotted coat patterns, and breeders began to include the patterning as one of their goals. Two other stallions also became influential foundation sires of the breed. One was a Colorado-born leopard-spot colt named Max, foaled in 1918. The second was a Barb stallion named Spotte, imported from North Africa in 1918 by the owner of the W.R. Thompson Cattle Company as a wedding gift for his daughter. This stallion provided another important infusion of Barb blood, which had been diluted in the breed since Linden Tree had been imported from Turkey. Mike Ruby, a horseman from the Colorado High Plains, became interested in the breed and acquired Max and Patches, a son of the original Colby Ranch stallion. During his time breeding Colorado Ranger horses, he kept complete records of every horse that he bred,