Gunrock

Gunrock
Sire	Rock Sand
Grandsire	Sainfoin
Dam	Gunfire
Damsire	Hastings
Sex	Stallion
Foaled	1914
Country	United States
Colour	Chestnut
Breeder	Clarence Mackay[1]
Owner	Herbert Pratt[1] August Belmont Jr.[1] U.S. Army Remount Service[1]

Gunrock is the official mascot of the UC Davis Aggies, the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Davis, and was based on Gunrock (1914–1932), an American Thoroughbred stallion, and the son of English Triple Crown winner Rock Sand.^[2] He was related to the American Thoroughbred racehorse Man O' War (1917–1947), who was out of Mahubah (1910–1931), bay Thoroughbred mare by Rock Sand out of Merry Token. Gunrock was bred by Clarence Mackay, and likely born in Kentucky in 1914. He had an unsuccessful racing career as a 2-year-old, and was retired to stud by age 6 in 1920.

In 1921, Gunrock was donated by his owner, American financier and horse racing investor August Belmont Jr., to the U.S. Army Remount Service, and was brought to the campus of University of California, Davis, which was breeding horses for the Cavalry at the time. Gunrock covered a total of 476 mares during his career at stud, some owned by the university, and the rest from varied farms across northern California.^[1][3] Gunrock's progeny also included Thoroughbred racehorses, including the successful racing mare Sugar Pie (1928) out of Tooters (1918), among others. He also has descendants registered as Holsteiners and Irish Sport Horses.^[4]

In 1924, Gunrock was adopted as the official mascot of the men's basketball team, and the stallion accompanied the team to games and rallies. Later, a traditional mascot was created, and named "Gunrock" by the students. That mascot persisted into the 1970s, when he was replaced by "Ollie the Mustang". However, Ollie did not last long, as a period of confusion about the school's mascot and nickname set in, lasting into the first decade of the 21st century.

In 2003, the school's official mascot was officially identified as a Mustang, and the name "Gunrock" returned after 93% of the UC Davis student body voted to return to the original name.^[1]

In 2022, the students of UC Davis voted to replace Gunrock the Mustang with a dairy cow after the "#Cow4Mascot" and "#AggieMOOvement" social media campaign, organized by Mick Hashimoto, a third-year applied statistics and economics double major at the university.^[5][6] However, while the vote was 73% in favor of replacement, only 3,468 out of over 31,000 undergraduate students in the UC Davis student body voted.^[7] Hashimoto claimed that that students voted to oust Gunrock the Mustang in 1993, but that the school administration and then-Chancellor Theodore L. Hullar rejected the decision.^[3] However, UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May and the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA) rejected the mascot change proposal, declaring that the school would not be moving forward with it.^[6]