Breeding and how important do you think it is

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moocow

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As the title says, just having a chat with someone about this and they wont touch anything without full breeding history. My mare, photos in gallery, has no recorded breeding at all. I have no idea what she is but suspect TBxID. Just wondering how important people felt breeding is or more to the point knowing what the breeding is. Obviously if you know the breeding you have an idea of potential or not as the case may be but the FEHL insists on full recorded breeding so hence the conversation.

interested in your views.
 
Breeding is important, but IMO conformation and competition record are more important.

Thing is, the breeding will give you a good idea of the likelihood of good performance and/or conformation, so IMO everything is inextricably linked.

Also it totally depends on what the horse's job is.
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Yeah but it only shows what potential could be there rather that looking at the horse itself at face value. Like you said conformation and record. You can have a very well bred horse that just doesn't have the ability i.e you can have two intelligent parents but that doesn't mean they will spawn the next einstein!
 
My Genie isn't registered, but is out doing excellently at local level showing beating welsh cobs that show at county. All it means is that we cannot show at county level, although I must admit I wish she was registered. Not knowing breeding wouldn't put me off of buying a horse unless I specifically needed to know.
 
This is true, but breeding horses is a lottery - if you know the parentage /lines of the horses you are breeding then you will be shortening the odds.

A horse could be awesome on face value but could have sire/grandsire/greatgrandsire all with an issue that is hereditary, (that has perhaps missed a generation).
If you know this then you don't breed from it. If you don't know this then the likelihood is you will breed something with the same fault as the rest of the line...

Of course there are exceptions, but breeding gives you a bit more information, which is always a good thing.
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I suppose it is to discourage any aul' thing been put in foal and that is a good thing of course but it doesn't seem fair when you are on the other side of it.
 
From a buyers or a breeders point of view I do understand but still think that when you own the horse already and maybe its a gelding so wont be bred its harsh.

Sorry I am terrible at explaining what I mean on this one!!!!

I mean the restriction on competition cos a horse doesn't have breeding recorded.
 
I own a branded British Warmblood, she is lovely but I am missing any breeding papers on her which is one hell of a shame as I would dearly love to put her in foal in a few years.

I did buy her knowing she was minus her papers but she has the brand mark and that made it ok for the snob side of my head (blushes lol), the dealer sold her to me after finding the mare in a huge mess at a different yard one winter and sold her to me 7 weeks later. Anna was in such bad condition when the dealer bought her they could only put a pic of her head on Horse Quest. I was really unsure if she would pass her 5* vetting but she flew through luckily and I gained a wonderfull mare for very little money.

She is now doing really well over a year on, she looks amazing and is everything I hoped for (I must update sig to show her now, as the pic of her was one the dealer sent to me after 7 weeks of being fed right and having some TLC off them but she is still lacking weight and muscle in that pic).

So I dont think breeding is a must but it would be nicer to have my mares papers than not, if anyone can understand my middle of the night ramblings lol!
 
If the horse was born after 2000 it is most likely as she is branded there is another passport about about ,the person who applied for the second passport may have committed an offence. As to pedigree breeding if you look at modern sports horse records apart from eventing you will see that from the Mexico olympics most of the horses come from pedigree breeding studbooks.
 
I like the saying "good breeding is the icing on the cake." Like was said earlier conformation and performance are what matters, I've known some butt ugly heinz57's that are fantastic and well bred horses who well.... will make happy hacks at best from a performace stand point. The advantage of known good breeding though is probs more for resale as they're less likly to "fall through the cracks"
 
To me conformation and attitude are the most important features. Breeding is nice but it's not the end of the world if it's not recorded. I had a lovely pony mare with no papers who I bred from and she produced the most stunning colt. I think there is a lot of snobbery involved with this issue.

I bought a youngster last year, and after conformation and temperement boxes were ticked I then looked at his breeding (which is actually very good!). So I suppose not having recorded breeding wouldn't put me off a horse.

I hope that with the advent of microchipping foals, people will be able to trace their horses breeding quite easily.
 
The trouble that the major international studbooks go to to ensure the quality of the horses they breed as well as the accurate details of all the progeny not just the sucessful ones. In Germany they record the placings of all horses in a class and there are approx 70,000 horse shows a year. The stats will differentiate between a novice rider on a horse and a horse produced by a professional yard and ridden by a top rider as all riders pass exams for each level they can compete at. Money winning is not a useful guide as if a top rider wins on a horse at a major show it will get a good prize and a rider many win a class of the same level at a less well supported show and get very little. The number of competing horses produced by a stallion,the number of graded sons and daughters are all recorded with accuracy. As an example Stakkato has 140 progeny competing at Grade and above and have 4221 places he has 244 competing progeny winning 229240 euros. The dressage horse De Niro has 1160 competing progeny winning 306612 euros 434 dressage,58 jumping,11 eventing and 11 driving when NED produces accurate figures like this we will get somewhere.
 
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