About Us


Cross 5 Ranch is owned and operated by Glenn Lang and Natalie “Nat” Nelson-Lang. We are small breeders of registered AQHA & APHA halter horses. Focusing on development of a balanced athlete that is competitive in the halter ring, with emphasis on form to function to insure our horses ride, and remain sound.
Glenn is a man of many talents, currently working for a rodeo stock contractor, a driver and diesel mechanic for a hay company, and a breeder of APHA horses since 1970. He is a retired horse trainer that specialized in APHA youth students and a retired farrier. He also was an accomplished bull rider and working cowboy. "The Rainbow Warriors" pictured left to right, Wendy Bockman, Robin Mitchell-Forrest, Natalie "Nat" Nelson and Milynda Milam took on AQHA at the AQHA Convention in March of 2000 to try to get the rule changed. Their mission was to plea for the removal of Rule 227(j) at that time and disallow the Double Dilutes into the association for registry. What they learned was that convincing the AQHA that accusa- tions of health issues were false and simply wives tales was going to take a lot of time, hard work and many people for support. An endeavor that lasted seven years. Click here for more		Glenn Lang working calves on the back pens of a rodeo on Blue Eyed Paradise. The cremello stallion that inspired Nat to tackle the AQHA on a controversial rule change.
		Nat has been breeding horses since 1990 and showing halter horses since 1994. Her first stallion was Paradise Folly, a buckskin grandson of Impressive and Skipper W. She is an avid student of equine color genetics and a self proclaimed “pedigree- aholic”. Nat also enjoys trail riding and has competed in AERC limited distance rides. In her rookie year she was the Southwest Region Limited Distance Reserve Champion accumulating 325 miles in 14 rides. One of Nat’s greatest accomplishments was organizing the movement to allow double dilute horses to be registered with the AQHA.
Why won’t you see us breeding foundation bred horses. The main reason our program revolves around two of the most influential thoroughbred stallions of the stock horse breeds, Three Bars and Azure Te. None of our horses would qualify for any of the foundation registries, and we wouldn’t have it any other way! We feel when you cut out the thoroughbred you also cut out the stamina and speed needed to get the job done. Not to mention the refinement and balance a lot of foundation bred quarter horses lack.
The Three Bars influence is felt in every discipline in the quarter horse from racing to cutting, to western pleasure to halter. Three Bars is still the reigning All Time Leading Sire of AQHA Supreme Champions and was one of the first four to be inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame. A major accomplishment within its self, AQHA selected the first four inductees from many influential and successful horses of the bred, for one of those to be a thoroughbred, well that is a huge honor!	This photo show the exquisite conformation of Three Bars
Impressive possessed the same exquisite conformation of Three Bars		Three Bars is the major reason we like Impressive bred horses. Impressive traces to Three Bars three times, and was an the first AQHA World Champion Aged Halter Stallion and an influential sire of halter horses. A lot of folks stay clear of Impressive lines due to HYPP. We proudly own, breed, raise and show ONLY HYPP N/N horses!
Azure Te's offspring are known for their speed, versatility, conforma- tion and good minds. Azure Te ranked very high on the lists for top sires, derby and maturity horses, leading sire of money earners, leading sire for All American Futurity finalists, and an all time leading broodmare money earners. He sired 17 crops, 1070 foals, 839 starters, 580 winners, 46 stakes winners, 50 stakes placers, 140 stakes finalists, 623 ROM, 53 Superior Race Awards, 6 World Championships, 2 World Champions. One of Azure Te’s sons		Azure Te an accomplished race horse in his own right. Earning $199,022 in 26 lifetime starts
we love is Te 'N Te . This influential stallion was out of Villa by Leon Bars by Three Bars. With only three foal crops, Te 'N Te died at the age of seven. Te 'N Te was the first quarter horse show stallion to be syndicated in 1976.
Te 'N Te was one of the greats as an individual and as a sire. With only 3 foal crops he died at the age of seven. Te 'N Te was the first quarter horse show stallion to be syndicated in 1976. He is pictured with Jerry Wells at the shank.
Spanish Joy may have been little, but she had a HUGE production record! track. Out of those 11 foals there were 2 AQHA Supreme Champions, 5 AQHA Champions, and 6 Perform- ance ROM earners. Spanish Joy had 5 offspring that qualified to earn Halter ROMs in today’s award system (back then halter ROMs were not awarded). Her get earned a combined total of 294 halter and performance points. One of our favorite sons of Spanish Joy is Goldseeker Bars an AQHA Supreme Champion sired by Three Bars. Georgie Shata is another influential mare. She is the dam of ABRA’s first Supreme Champion Stallion, Sonnys OO Buck; and four world champions in multiple associations. Two halter world champions and two western		While there are many influential stallions in the industry, there are very few influential mares. This is due to the difference of foals stallions can sire and mares can produce. Spanish Joy was an AQHA All Time Leading Dam and is still to this day the All Time Leading Dam of AQHA Supreme Champions. Spanish Joy was a 1954 palomino mare that earned $532 on the track with 1 win, 1 second and 1 third out 12 starts with a 75 speed index. She earned an AQHA Race ROM. She had 11 foals with 11 starters on the track, 8 Race ROM earners, 1 Superior Race Rom with combin- ed earnings of $20,943 on the
		Goldseeker Bars an AQHA Supreme Champion
pleasure world champions. She is the dam of 12 AQHA foals and 2 APHA foals, with 6 performers earning 238 points combined in 3 associations; AQHA, IBHA and PBHA. Beginning in 2004 we established our tobiano breeding program, to develop tobiano halter horses that meet our standards. The tobiano color pattern within the APHA has a common phenotype that lacks the competitiveness for the halter ring. This is strongly due to the over breeding of this pattern to achieve a homozygous condition with total disregard of a pleasing balance of the individual. Black is another condition that can be homozygous, and a main reason good quality black and black based horses are rare. Whenever there is a homozygous color condition, there will always be uneducated breeders of color, that have the lack of experience or knowledge of proper conformation, balance, eye appeal and pedigrees. We are not one of those breeders.
Many tobianos exhibit a unique conformation type (above). Breeding a homozygous Tobiano without the Tobiano phenotype is extremely complicated.
The first step to our program was to recognize what was lacking in tobiano horses to bring them up to our standards. The typical phenotype of a tobiano horse is a course head, lack of length in the neck, week hipped, poor leg conformation, poor muscle definition, and lack of size. This phenotype is common in all tobianos of all breeds. With that being said it has been proven that a different phenotype can be achieved with selective breeding such as with Gypsy Vanners and Paintabians that breed true to type and have the tobiano color pattern. To make our task even more difficult in our case there is also a lack of recognizable halter pedigrees for most tobiano halter horses.
		Gypsy Vanners (pictured left) and Pintabians (above) breed true, even in the homozygous condition.
The next step was to find breeding stock that could be a steeping stone towards creating our desired phenotype. Our first tobiano mare we added to our program was Karrows Shazmaia. A palomino tobiano with a chiseled head with a big expressive eyes, lots of body, and a great hip. By Sonnys High Life by Sonnys Nightshade out of the great producing mare Georgie Shasta.
“Shaz” was bred to one of our quarter horse stallions, A Sign Of Securitee by Sonnys Securitee out of St Tardy Sun Seeker (Tardy Impressive x Seekers Sunshine by Goldseeker Bars) and produced our second addition, Delayed Securitees in 2005. The cross incorporates our line breeding emphasis of two great mares Georgie Shasta and Spanish Joy. Karrow Shazmania, one of the only two APHA offspring of Georgie Shasta. She is not your average tobiano. (sold)		A Sign Of Securitee sired by Sonnys Securitee (Sonny Go Te by Te 'N Te) and out St Tardy Sun Seeker a descendent of Spanish Joy. (sold) Delayed Securitees as a yearling.
The only thing Karrows Shazmania and Delayed Securitees lack is size; which will come in time with selective breeding. Which we have a plan! We both knew it would be a long process, but achievable. The process would of been shortened if we were able to do it on a larger scale, but being small breeders we are limited financially. So as we achieve certain steps of the process we sale off or remove the generation that produces it. If we are doing things right each generation should be an improvement of the generation before it. So check our sale pages, there are some nice horses to be had! We also have retained breeding programs available on our good mares - just email us for details.
Faded Tribute by Tributes Mister out of a daughter of Georgie Shasta (sold). Three generations, Karrows Shazmania (left), Delayed Securitees (right) and Cardinal Sin (center), by Faded Tribute Cardinal Sin available on a retained breeding contract - email us for details		Delayed Securitees was bred to Faded Tribute in 2008. Faded Tribute is a son of Tributes Mister (who traces to Te 'N Te and Impressive) and out of IBHA World Champion daughter of Georgie Shasta. Out of that cross we received the most sunning filly, the only thing she is lacking is the tobiano color pattern! She was born on Superbowl Sunday 2009, when the Arizona Cardinals played controversial game against Pittsburg Stealers and lost. Hence her name Cardinal Sin; it's a sin the Cardinals lost and a sin that she's SOLID! You can read more abut her name at this link Sinner's Story We are going to try and hold onto Sinner and bred her to Oblivion, which will give us three crosses to Georgie Shasta. We added to our program in 2006, Classy Tribute a 16.1 hand tovero daughter of Tributes Mister, and Surprise Tradition a granddaughter of Noble Tradition. Classy Tribute foaled a minimal overo filly for us in 2008 and tobiano foal in 2010. Surprise Tradition gave us two solids before giving us a tobiano filly sired by Oblivion. A stallion that we bred out of Karrows Shazmania, sired by Oblivious. This was our first tobiano to tobiano cross so hair was pulled and sent to UC Davis for tobiano testing. The results came back homozygous!
Classy Tribute (sold) with her 2010 filly Obliviously Dottted - heterozygous		Surprise Tradition (for sale) with her 2011 filly Oblivious Bombshell - homozygous Pictured at 11 days of age
With obtaining our first homozygous filly we are now in phase III of our process. Phase I was getting the best possible tobiano mare and bred to non-tobiano stallions with recognizable halter pedigrees. We chose sons of AQHA and APHA World/Reserve World Champions. Phase II - breeding resulting tobiano offspring to one another or to select tobianos. Phase III will be our next step, breeding our homozygous fillies to the best possible AQHA stallions. Of course we are still in the process of phase II, as we still have to wait for Oblivious Bombshell to grow up. This year we will be breeding Oblivion to Delayed Securitees with hopes of a homozygous tobiano in 2012. This will be a maternal cross, both are offspring of Karrows Shazmania.
Seek N Find our 2008 AQHA silver grulla mare, Nat Nelson-Lang up Ranch Sorting .				Beginning in 2010 we started adding black based AQHA mares into our program. With the intent to put the same type of selective breeding we have into our tobiano program. In 2010 we added a beautiful silver grulla filly from Tennessee, and a blue roan filly from Bath, Maine! Plus one more blue roan mare in 2011 from Minnesota. We have searched far and wide to black based horses that meet our requirements. The grulla mare, Seek N Find is Impressive and Azure Te bred with a cross to Spanish Joy. A true find! Sound familiar?


Above N Beyond, 2008 AQHA blue roan mare that tested homozygous for the black gene. Not your average roan.			Nevada Blue 2006 AQHA blue roan mare. She is halter bred and HYPP N/N. Possibly homozygous for the black gene. Will be tested in the near future.
We had a hard time finding blue roan mares without the common coarseness associated with the color. This is due to the line breeding to Blue Valentine, crossed on Joe Hancock horses. In order to get a roan you must have a roan parent. One of the most popular lines for roans today is via Blue Valentine.
Compare the difference of Blue Valentine (above) and Impressive Vince (right). Our roans come from the lines of Robert Redford, Impressive Vince, Shi Bar Skip, and Conclusive Lee. With no crosses to Blue Valentine. We prefer to line bred on desirable attributes, such as balance, structural correctness, beautiful heads and eye appeal, temperament, athleticism, then color being the last factor.			Unfortunately, many breeders of roans use are not familiar with the rules of line breeding. One of the most fundamental rules is "like to like creates like." Coarse to coarse will create coarse. But not all roans come from that particular line.

As you can see we've put a lot of work and thought into our breeding program. We will also continue to breed double registered AQHA/APHA horses and overo paint horses along side our tobiano program. All good things come to those who wait. . . . as long as they keep working at it! So if you ever a need horse, that is bred to be a balanced athlete that is competitive in the halter ring, with emphasis on form to function to insure they ride, and remain sound BEFORE the color is ever considered - come see us first! You won't be disappointed, because quality is difficult to define but easily recognized!