Warrabel is a relatively young stud, situated at Warwick on the Southern Downs in Queensland and owned by Peter Moreland and Rhonda Menzies-Moreland.

The seeds for Warrabel Morgan's were planted in 2009 with the purchase of our first mare, ‘Illoura Serendipity’. Rhonda’s hope had been to find a Morgan that was under saddle and ready to go out, but these horses were hard to find.

A number of years previously, Rhonda attended a riding clinic which provided her with the opportunity to meet two riders with Morgans. One horse was a part-bred Morgan and the other a pure bred. This ‘serendipitous moment’ was what would eventually lead us to purchase an 18 month old black filly who would steal our hearts. Illoura Serendipity had been waiting for Rhonda to come along.

Since then we have developed a love and appreciation of the Morgan breed and their potential as such good mounts and so, made the decision to establish our stud and give more people the opportunity to experience a Morgan Horse.

The nature of the Morgan horse is one of the most important aspects of the breed and this remains at the forefront of the choices we make when considering our breeding stock.

Warrabel’s breeding criteria has a focus on producing horses with good temperament and trainability, accompanied by good conformation, to allow them to be as successful as possible in a variety of disciplines.

Serendipity showed successfully at Breed classes as a young horse, followed by English Dressage and was Rhonda’s trusted mount while gaining her Trail Boss accreditation with ATHRA. Serendipity has since provided us with two beautiful colt foals. Warrabel Kingsmeade, a stunning black, sired by DWP Hot Gossip (dec) and Warrabel Rienzi, a smokey black, sired by our palomino stallion, Haymeron Park Merlin Hawk. Both have her sensible nature and willingness to learn.

Merlin has attended many breed shows and Morgan Horse demonstrations as well as trail rides and is currently being introduced to Western Dressage. Due to the limited size of our property and the logistics of keeping and showing a stallion, often single handed, we made the decision to collect semen for freezing and have Merlin gelded. This has made life easier for everyone and way more enjoyable for Merlin.

As first time breeders, many of the experiences we have had, and decisions we have had to make, have been both challenging and exciting. We have had wonderful support from our local vets in conjunction with the expertise of the Equivet Breeding Centre. The Morgan community have given us great support and encouragement.

From the beginning of the search to find our first Morgan, to the decision to establish our now developing stud, “it has been an amazing journey of unexpected pleasures and a lot of personal growth” .

Warabel is a small, family owned stud located on the Southern Downs and we began our journey with Morgan's in 2010.