Readers of this blog have probably guessed that Lippitt Morman is one of my very favorite real horses from history.
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That's partly because he was the inspiration for the first Hagen-Renaker model horse figurine I ever knew about: the Hagen-Renaker "Lippet" Morgan stallion.
The real Lippitt Morman was a chestnut Morgan stallion foaled in 1939, bred by the legendary Robert Lippitt Knight. The Family Search website (link below) tells us that name "Lippitt" was the registered prefix of Robert Lippitt Knight, of Providence, Rhode Island. Knight owned the Green Mountain Stock Farm in Randolph, Vermont, not far from the farm where Justin Morgan lived. Knight was a major breeder of "old type Morgans" from 1927 until 1962.
The stallion's name was a combination of the names of his sire, Mansfield, and his dam, Lippitt Kate Moro. Knight sold him to a Canadian, W.A. LeBoeuf, in 1943, and in 1946 they became famous for winning the Hundred Mile Trail Ride in Vermont.
LeBoeuf sold Lippitt Morman to California Morgan breeder Roland Hill in 1947, and shortly thereafter Hill sold the chestnut stallion to his friend, horse rancher Merle Little, who lived not far from Hagen-Renaker and was a friend of the Renaker family, and of artist Maureen Love.
At Little's El Rancho Poco, near what is now the intersection of the 210 Freeway and Mountain Avenue in Monrovia, California, Lippitt Morman was a multi-champion show horse, parade horse (in the Tournament of Roses and other Southern California events), and sire.
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Artist Maureen Love made many visits to El Rancho Poco during the 1950s, carrying her art supplies and sitting in the pasture sketching the horses. Several of the horses there inspired her designs of horse figurines for Hagen-Renaker.
The Hagen-Renaker "Lippet" was first issued in Spring 1959 through Spring 1974 in matte chestnut and matte palomino, then again from Fall 1983 to Spring 1986 in matte and gloss dark bay/brown.
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Given how famous the name "Lippitt" was in Morgan horse circles, I had long wondered why the Hagen-Renaker factory issued the figurine with a sticker spelling his name "Lippet" !
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I'd always figured someone at the H-R factory wasn't familiar with Morgan horse names and spelled "Lippitt" incorrectly.
But since I inherited Merle Little's papers and photographs, I've come to the conclusion that the spelling error was due, at least in part, to the fact that spelling was not Merle's best subject in school.
Merle saved the sales agreement letter he received when he bought Lippitt Morman from Roland Hills, and he misspelled his own horse's name on the envelope.
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It is also possible that, because Robert Lippitt Knight had registered the name "Lippitt," the folks at Hagen-Renaker erred on the side of caution and used the misspelled sticker name for their amazing Morgan stallion figurine.
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Lippitt Morman died at El Rancho Poco on October 10, 1962, but he lives on through Maureen Love's art. And regardless of how the factory's name spelling came about, the Hagen-Renaker Morgan stallion "Lippet" has long been a favorite of model horse collectors.
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More on Lippitt Morman and Merle Little:
https://californiahorsehistory.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-last-ranch-in-monrovia-horseman.html
https://modelhorsehistory.blogspot.com/2018/05/happy-birthday-lippitt-morman.html
Here's the Family Search bio of Robert Lippitt Knight:
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L7QX-BSJ/robert-lippitt-knight-sr-1883-1962
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