Mel’s Appaloosas

You can find clothes of all colors and patterns at the big shopping center in the tiny village of Gällstad, situated south of Ulricehamn. A couple of kilometers from there, in the middle of the beautiful Swedish agricultural landscape, is Torbjörn Andersson and Anneli Werelius’ ranch. Here you can witness Appaloosas with color and patterns, and so much more.

“It was a mere coincidence that we decided to raise Appaloosas,” says Anneli, who started her career as a horsewoman in the 1970s on her family’s farm outside of Stockholm. From then on, different kinds of horses crossed her path; she’s ridden most disciplines and has trained racehorses.

She was 17 and an exchange student in Germany when she first came into contact with the Appaloosa breed. “It was their personality that fascinated and interested me,” says Anneli.

Torbjörn reveals with a laugh that his debut as a horseman was at the trotting track where he and his friends had gone to gamble. “When Anneli came into the picture, I had the idea that I was going to breed racehorses,” he says.

Together they started the trading company Stall Mel HB. Anneli got her trainer’s license and the company bought its first trotting horses. But they gradually left trotters in favor of Appaloosas and Quarter Horses. At that time—the late ’90s—there were many Quarter Horses in Sweden but few Appaloosas: less than 30 were listed in the register.

The Internet led them to Qu’Apelle Appaloosas in Canada. One of their 40 mares for sale on the web, “Dollar 99,” completely captured Anneli´s heart. “I fell madly in love with her,” Anneli says.

Full-text version printed in the October 2008 issue of Appaloosa Journal.

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