Alice and Bruce Murray
In 1974 Bruce and Alice Murray bought their first Morgan, a friendly filly named Adanac Lightning, and decided to develop a small hobby farm with 2 or 3 more Morgans. That small hobby farm grew and is now 52 acres in the Northumberland hills. Since the birth of Ian in 1982 there are 3 Murrays and the 2 or 3 Morgans have multiplied.
When we decided to develop a breeding program, we evaluated the horses we had on several points, including attitude, disposition, and overall usefulness. This led us towards the older bloodlines, which in turn led us to Ironbrook Sun Hawk, who was our senior stallion for 18 years.
We have been fortunate to have within our program Ironbrook Sun Hawk, a Flyhawk grandson whose showing credentials came with him from the United States, along with a reputation for producing athletic working horses. He joined our first mare Adanac Lightning, who earned 2 Justin Morgan awards as a Western Pleasure horse, together with CMHC and OMHC Hi-Point awards in multiple divisions, and was overall a strong competitor through the l980's, as well as producing a steady procession of foals. We have retained 2 of these in our breeding herd.
In the early eighties, we raised a colt, who by the age of four, had developed into an excellent English Pleasure and Pleasure Driving horse, earning Justin Morgan awards in both divisions. Northline Rainbird combines a people-loving disposition with great athletic ability, and seems to pass these traits on to his offspring.
