They called him Elvis, even though his official name was Abrams, after the battle tank. He was rugged and strong and attacked hills with gusto. More than that, he was patient and reliable, a horse you could trust.
He was diffident in his youth, but gained confidence as he matured, becoming the premier ambassador of the Point Reyes National Seashore’s Morgan Horse Ranch. The most glittering entry on his equine resume was an appearance at the 2016 Rose Parade in Los Angeles, where he represented the National Park Service as part of its centennial
celebration.
Los Reyes “Elvis” Abrams died on New Year’s Day at the age of 23, after a painful episode of colic, an acute abdominal affliction sometimes fatal for horses. Park rangers held a memorial for him last month, joined by about two dozen members of the public who gathered next to the meadow that Elvis called home.
“He just had this big, goofy spirit about him,” said Sierra Frisbie, a park ranger who spoke at the memorial. “We’ve been lucky to have such a once-in-a-lifetime horse with us for so long.”
At 1,000 pounds, Elvis was a powerful chestnut gelding with his distinctive mane parted down the middle. (Most manes fall to one side.) He was born on July 2, 1999, the last horse conceived as part of the ranch’s breeding program that began in 1970. He is survived by four other Morgans at the ranch: Honcho, 28; Mira, 20; and Gentry and Knighthawk, both 8 years old.
In addition to his star turn at the Rose Parade, Elvis was a regular at the Western Weekend parade in Point Reyes Station and, last year, he rode in Petaluma’s Butter and Egg Days parade. He was easygoing, and great with kids on field trips to the park. Even with a busload of schoolchildren petting him, he could take a snooze.
Elvis was the go-to horse for the ranch’s public outreach events, said Bonnie Phillips, who has worked as a ranger at the park for three years. “He was the star of the show,” she said.
Nevertheless, he remained humble. “He was a pretty low-key, mellow guy,” Ms. Frisbie said. “He didn’t have a big ego.”
Horses have a pecking order, jockeying with one another to show who’s boss. Elvis didn’t care. “He got his hay when he got his hay,” Ms. Frisbie said. “He couldn’t be bothered with trying to be anything but who he was.”
Elvis had an especially close relationship with Phil Straub, who managed the horse ranch from 2012 until 2018. Mr. Straub had joined the United States Marines at age 20 and served two tours in Iraq. He fought in the Battle of Fallujah, a six-week, U.S.-led engagement with door-to-door combat and intensive street fighting. It was the bloodiest U.S. engagement since the Vietnam War.
After returning home to California, Mr. Straub struggled with PTSD. He has often said that Elvis saved his life. “He gave me a project,” he said. “He was like a junior Marine who didn’t know how to do his job, and I had just enough confidence to build his up. Horses are like a mirror. They show you your weaknesses and they show you your strengths. He really got me through a dark time.”
Mr. Straub rode him on trail after trail in the 70,000-acre park. “I taught him how to be out on his own, just one horse, one rider. He liked being out on the coastline, running along the beach,” he said.
At first, Elvis was hesitant to go in the water. Slowly but surely, he overcame his fears. He would trot over when Mr. Straub whistled, even if he was all the way across a meadow and out of sight.
“Elvis, he was a character, and he had a good sense of humor,” Mr. Straub said. “He really liked dunking his head in the water trough, all the way under. He’d blow bubbles.”
To prepare Elvis for the Rose Parade, Mr. Straub rode him through downtown San Francisco, getting him accustomed to the hustle and bustle of city streets. When the big day came, they rode alongside Jon Jarvis, then the director of the National Park Service, who had saddled up on Honcho. “It was pretty darn awesome,” Mr. Straub said.
All the horses bred at the ranch have the prefix “Los Reyes” before their name. Joan Zelensky, Elvis’s breeder, originally intended to name him “El Rey,” Spanish for “king.”
“He was the king of kings,” Ms. Zelensky said. “And who’s the King?”
Elvis.
Ms. Zelensky has a lock of hair from Elvis’s mane. She plans to give it to Mr. Straub.
When its breeding operation was running, the ranch supplied Morgans to national park units across the nation, even to Hawaii. Rangers would visit Point Reyes to train, and members of the public came to learn about horsemanship.
The operation was phased out because other parks eventually began breeding their own Morgans. But rangers still ride the horses while patrolling the park, maintaining trails, performing search and rescue operations and conducting annual counts of tule elk and other wildlife.
Morgans are considered the first pure American horse breed. Developed by a Vermont singing teacher in 1795, they are prized for their strength and endurance and were a favorite of the U.S. Cavalry during the Civil War. A badly bloodied Morgan was reputed to be the sole survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn.
On New Year’s Day, after a tearful ceremony, the rangers laid him to rest beneath his favorite oak tree, at the far corner of a meadow behind the stables. “It’s a nice peaceful spot out there,” Ms. Frisbie said.
She finished her tribute to Elvis by reading “Somewhere,” a poem by Stanley Harrison: “Somewhere in time’s own space/ There must be some sweet, pastured place./ Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow/ Some paradise where horses go,/ For by the love that guides my pen/ I know great horses live again.”