Henry and Evelyn Sandlas

     

Jane's father, Henry, passed away in 1989, but her mother, Evelyn, at age 89, still helps make decisions while Jane and Al and Bryan run the ranch. So Evelyn has time to recap the ranch history:

    

 "Our breeding program began in 1960, without much focus- just a love for the Arabian horse. The program evolved over the years. When Jane was 16, she started looking for a mare to breed, just to raise a foal. We'd had several other breeds of horses and had admired Arabians, but never had one until we found a three-year-old Half-Arabian mare. Our whole family was so impressed with her that we decided we needed a purebred. From there it's a happy progression. When we purchased Anchor Hill Haid from the Atkinsons, he turned us in the direction of Egyptian-bred horses. Haid remained with us for all his 29 years.

     

"Soon our five acres outside Denver looked a little small, so we purchased 450 acres in Conifer, Colorado, where we lived until 1972, when we moved to Montana. Then in 1979, on the advice of Bob and Joanne Thorndike, we set out to find a straight Egyptian colt to use on our Haid daughters. Consequently, we found RG Al Mone at Rafter G Arabians, who proved to be our magic wand with Egyptian horses.

    

 "Our goal has become creating more wonderful horses just like Mone--beautiful, extremely athletic and good family horses who willingly do anything asked of them. We've added other stallions, to carry on this goal with our Mone daughters, who are adding their own special links to the immortal chain. And the Mone sons are bearing the torch to our highest expectations.

    

 "Colored Half-Arabians were always part of the Ravenwood picture. We still maintain lines to our *Witez II son and our part-Arabs, so that we also produce buckskin, palamino, and spotted foals of high percentage Arabian blood. These include a Percheron mare for sport horse cross, a National Show Horse stallion, and a Pintarabian program, along with our major focus of straight Egyptians, including a subset of Sheykh Obeyds. The Mone descendants and Sonimoniet RSI frequently beget black foals of straight Egyptian and related pedigrees. Jane always said Mone made rainbow foals. They are in good company within our colorful spectrum.

   

  "Without a doubt, the wonderful horses are our greatest reward. Each spring we have more new 'miracles.' It's always thrilling to be there at the birth of each foal, to guess its future and watch it grow and develop, then find its very own special person to bring it to fulfillment. We could write a book about those special people."

     

Al & Jane & Bryan Bohn