A red coated mountie on a big black horse was the vision of Stuart Taylor Wood. His Great Great Grandfather was the 12th President of the U.S., Zachary Taylor and his father was an assistant commissioner of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, Zachary Taylor Wood.
Throughout his distinguished 38 year career with the RCMP, Stuart Taylor Wood worked to preserve and commemorate the history and traditions of the Force. He would see to the establishment of the first RCMP Museum in 1933/34.
At the Coronation of King George the 6th, he was so impressed by the sight of the scarlet clad Lifeguards of The Household Cavalry on uniform black horses that he resolved that the RCMP should also be as distinctively mounted.
The following year he became Commissioner of the Force and in 1939 ordered that all of the horses acquired by the Force now be black.
There weren’t enough uniform black horses available for sale to the Force, it was decided they would have to raise their own.
The Fort Walsh ranch developed a breeding program that produced the most desirable large uniform black horses. The program was quite a success. The Fort Walsh Remount Ranch provided black horses for the mandatory recruit equestrian training at the RCMP training centre at "Depot" in Regina,
At the 1953 coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for the first time the RCMP contingent featured all black horses, thus realizing the dream that Stuart Taylor Wood first had at the coronation of Her Majesty's father some 16 years earlier.
