The adventurous-looking gypsy vanner horse possesses all the allure of a romance novel, as well as incredible strength. Interestingly, its existence in the United States and Canada owes to a chance encounter between a lone horse and a pair of horse lovers in a field in England. In 1995, Dennis and Cindy Thompson, of Ocala, Florida, were driving through the English countryside on a business trip when Cindy spotted a handsome black-and-white steed in a distant field. “We walked up to the fence and the horse came running over to us, and we instantly fell in love,” Dennis recalled to Horse Journals. The stallion was a “colored cob,” purposefully bred by the Romani people, or gypsies, of Great Britain and Ireland after the Second World War to pull their caravans. These hardy horses could endure life on the road and were even-tempered enough to be handled by anyone, including children. …