Breeding; Priorities

[PapaFrita]

I've been wondering about this, and I suppose it depends a bit what you're aiming to get, but how important are the following when you're breeding;
Correct conformation (I would imagine this is top of the list!)
Pedigree (presumably more important if you're breeding to sell)
Performance record (as above)
Temperament
Colour?

Other (it's early here and I've just got up!)

Thanks

 

[sallyf]

This is an interesting topic particularly as for the first time in a number of years i am looking for an outcross for one of my own mares.
First and foremost for me i have got to like the look of the stallion in old fashion terms he has got to fill the eye.
Conformation and movement to suit the particular mare.
Trying to build on what you have already and improve without trying to go overboard.
Going to extremes to improve rarely works i tend to look to cement the good points that i have already .
Pedigree is important to me as im always looking to improve in that department whether it is to sell or keep it may end up as your next broodmare.
Performance ,i would take a chance on a young stallion that was unproven if he was from a good family and ticked all the boxes.
Temperament is very important to me , i have no problem with sharpness as long as there is no basic malice.
This is something that many people misjudge in stallions.
A stallion can have a sharpness about him that gives him the X factor but not be trying to kick you.
Colour is a factor if i have a mare that could throw chestnut just because they can be more difficult to sell.
I actually love chestnuts and have never had a bad one.

 

[DAHH]

I think you could answer your query differently for each and every mare and stallion.

Conformation is very important but I do think that minor faults can,hopefully, be bread out. For example I would happily use a stallion who is longish in the back with a compact mare.

If the breeding of the mare is not too great then I think it is very important that she has proven herself in competition. For example, my mare with the most 'average' of bloodlines has won more money than all my other mares put together. She has such a brilliant jump that it makes up for her lack of pedigree. On the other hand I have another mare who has never done a competition in her life but has excellent breeding.
Both produce very pleasing foals.

With regard to the stallion, I think the most important thing is breeding and that he is suitable for your mare. I use young stallions who have shown good ability in their first year or so of competition but who have the best pedigree possible.

In my experience temperament comes from the mare and is virtualy impossible to breed out. I find that my 'hot' mares breed 'hot' foals regardless of sire. However, I never use a 'hot' stallion with one of these mares.

I would say colour is the least important. I think this thing a lot of brits have about chestnut mares is wrong. As with sallyf, I too have never had a bad one.

I have come to the conclusion that breeding is 10% knowledge and 90% blind luck. So no matter how much research you do, in the end you never know what is going to come out!

 

[Damien]

Progeny - have to add that one........

I like to see what he has produced from a wide variety of mares and identify the strengths and weaknesses that he has passed on to his foals irrespective of the mare he has been bred to, the KWPN collect and publish this data so that's a help.

Access to data, the more I can find out about a stallion the happier I feel, so tend to dismiss many stallions if I can't find out much about him: competition results, progeny, ancestry accomanied by as much photographic and video data as possible too. The Internet is certainly making that easier to access.

The majority of our breeding program is Dutch so pay very close attention to Pedigree, the mare line: what has the mare line produced? what predicates does the mare line have?

Following this philosphy the more predicates the stallion has on the dam line and on the sires sires damline and throughout the pedigree for that matter, the happier I feel. Of course when genes from other studbooks are introduced the research becomes more taxing.

If the stallions pedigree has numerous Prestatie Predicates in the damlines then I know that the horses in that pedigree have consistantly produced a good number of horses that have reached a high level in sport so the more the better.

Conformation I'm not yet wholeheartedly convinced about selecting a stallion to compliment a mares suitability / compatibility to improve on the mares conformation weaknesses of her progeny but prefer to start off with a good mare that doesn't need too much that needs fixing to start with, I geuss I prefer to look at the wider picture, the conformation and strengths of previous generations and the strengths in the foals and progeny that the sire has produced to date and most importantly what those horses in his pedigree have acheived in competition. Will happily overlook a conformation weakness if I can put a tick on everything else. Of course will happily break this general selection process if I decide to use a young stallion.

Line breeding, which lines are repeated in the pedigree, the further back I can go, the better and will often choose a stallion with bloodlines higher in a stallions pedigree that are also found further back to double/triple/quadruple on those genes, but guess you have to be selective on which genes you do that with as some stallions are known for producing certain undesirable conformation traits.

Fashion, marketability and sellabilty, commerical choices including selective colour breeding do most definitely play a role in our program but with the basic rules of selective sport horse breeding in place it doesn't matter what colour the foal is, bay, black, chestnutsplodgey etc, if the pedigree and the quality of the foal is in place they will be marketable anyway.

Temperament, thats a hard one, foals are all so different and feel that how we deal with each foal determines how he/she will react in the future more so that the inate characteristics that they are born with. Placing the more challenging foals in the right homes is however critical which then closes our market so I guess we do have to be careful but rarely will I base my decision on hearing that a stallion is "hot or difficult" and usually for every one person that reports a difficult foal there will be five or so more who say that theres is wonderfull calm and collected.

With all that said I might completely change my mind about it all in a naother few years time!

 

[Tia]

Pedigree is most important to me.....however temperament and conformation are just as important. There are many horses available for use with the pedigree lines I have, and I wouldn't consider breeding a horse without these lines, which therefore brings back the temperament and conformation.

I guess by definition, the bloodlines already come with performance records, which is why I choose these lines.

Personally, colour is not at all important to me if the foal is going to be retained, however mine generally aren't, therefore colour is very important to my buyers. Sad but true!

 

[vicijp]

Correct conformation - Matters to a certain extent, more so when matching stallion to mare. Although my 'correct' is a bit different to standard.
Pedigree - Very important in the mare, good sire line important in the stallion.
Performance record - Very important, no point in breeding crap to crap and getting crap. Important to match the record, ie; a sprinter on a stayer a good horse does not make!
Colour - Couldnt give a toss.
Temperament - Couldnt give a toss, attitude is good. Nasty temperaments are made to a certain extent, and can be contained if done right from birth.

 

[volatis]

I dont think I could rank the criteria. For example I do spend a lot of time researching pedigrees, particuarly with my Trakehners as there is a lot more emphasis on the mare line in Trakehners. But I would never use a stallion with the right pedigree if he didnt have the conformation to suit the mare, or the right movement or the right attitude. Like sally I dont mind horses that are a bit sharp if they have heart and want to work for you. I do like an athletic horse and rate that highly on my criteria. Strangely colour isnt such a big consideration as I dont care if I use a chestnut or a grey or a bay. I do like to add tobiano to the program if I see a good coloured stallion that will suit one of my mares, but I would never rule a stallion out for being a particular colour.

I do rate performance, but will take a risk on a young stallion if his pedigree backs up him as a individual. I love to see what a stallion stamps in his stock and that is often the deciding factor for me

 

[henryhorn]

We don't send our mares away anymore but when we did I would always go and look at the stallion out of his box and standing still.
For me they have to have a "look at me" quality before all else and then basically good conformation.
I wouldn't breed from anything with a piggy eye, long back or obvious faults.
next comes temperament above performance, because it's no good having a superstar if it's damned near impossible to ride, so trainablity is high too.
There has to be a sort of athleticism I find hard to describe, but sort of light on their feet when they move is the best I can think of. I prefer lines that are known to be good jumpers..
I do take bloodlines into account, for instance some horses are known to be bad tempered by certain lines so that would rule some out.
Colour apart from spotties I'm not that bothered, I actually like chesnuts which many people hate (I recall an ad in H and H saying, "No vulgar chesnuts thank you !" in a wanted ad!"
Over the years I must have chosen perhaps 10 different stallions, some produced horses that were not as good as expected considering their pedigrees and price, others quite average stallions produced really super horses.
Having kept to our own bloodline with mares for a long time, it was really interesting to see how the stock turned out from the same mares sent to different stallions.. (we have some who are ex full sisters by the same stallion)
I also want to see the end result before I use a stallion; a decent one stamps his own "look" about them, for instance at an event this year a fab horse trotted past me, and just attracted me by it's way of going and presence.
I looked in the programme and blow me, it was by the same bloodline as my own horses.. On talking to the rider later she agreed that bloodline famous Id x TB one) produced super looking but sometimes damned sharp horses!!!
So viewing the foals and older stock if possible is also important to me.
Is this the point however when I own up to years ago choosing Nemorino from a black and white ad in the local paper because I fell in love with his stunning head..

the resulting filly was beautiful, but sooooooo lively...big mistake..

 

[alleycat]

Really interesting post. I only have a couple of mares and don't breed every year, and in a commercial setting might have to think quite differently, with 'fashion' and 'saleability' and 'precocity' and 'return on stud fee / prices at auction' playing a big part in my choices; but as it is I can please myself, as long as I can afford to go ahead and I'm prepared to live with the consequences, and researching possible stallions is my winter hobby. This year will be the first year I use AI, so there are plenty of options.

I would say that I'm thorough, logical and consistant in considering possible stallions and make my choices on correct conformation and performance credentials; that colour doesn't matter unduly and I don't let the pettiness of registration considerations affect my decisions. However, when I examine what I really do, I'm afraid in saying this I'd be lying.

Conformation; it matters a lot to me, but I sometimes (often) find my opinions at odds with other peoples'. I have a sort of blueprint of The Perfect Horse in my head, which is tweakable dependant on use, size and breed; in the same way that a dress pattern can be made in size 8 or size 20, tall or petite, thick heavy wool or thin cotton, but is still basically the same design. This blueprint for me is essentially based on what is starting to be called an "old-fashioned" thoroughbred. My pony had this same look in the pony edition, and on the other hand my favourite Irish Draught was the same, but bigger and chunkier. The "sameness" is in the leg and shoulder angles and proportions, the set of the head and neck to some extent and the length of the back, plus correctness of bone and joints. So, as a background to every stallion selection I make, I'm unconsciously making a comparison to this model. I don't think I'm alone in this, and I suspect every country has its 'blueprint' which colours its breeder's thinking. For example, French horses of all sorts of breeds have a certain "look" to me, and a lot of German thoroughbreds look like little Hannoverians- etc. Something Opie once said about Brits always going for the warmbloods which look most like TBs, seems to support this.

Now this has always stood me in good stead, because the TB, a breed honed by performance, is a good blueprint- but we are now seeing horses produced for quite different 'extreme' sports, and I find it very hard to take this on board; I have real doubts about extreme dressage conformation (front end up) and I may as well admit it- would not be able to make an unbiased choice as the type of animal required is so different to what I'm used to.

I find myself putting more & more emphasis on action as it becomes more accessible through video, and I'm learning about this all the time. I would want a horse to be able to cover the ground and be going somewhere, and I'm starting to appreciate and look for this quality of suppleness and fluency, which is what I think people mean by athleticism.

Pedigree; I would tend to start at the wrong end, seeing a nice horse and working back to find out where its qualities came from. I love poring over pedigrees- but they are a limited tool, I think, especially where they are not accompanied by detailed information. However, I hate those pedigrees that miss out the mares; its like a sort of acknowledgement of mass production, and as a breeder, the thought of my beautiful mares being sidelined like that makes my blood boil.

Performance; whilst its good to know the stallion can perform
through his having actually done it, I would take a gamble on a horse that just hasn't had the opportunity. Campaigning a stallion in high level competition is beyond the means of most small studs; this doesn't mean the horse is bad; it just means that you're gambling on his being good. If I had a gut feeling about him I'd use him anyway.

That gut feeling; I think thats where I usually start; I see a nice youngster, or a horse performing well and I wonder how its bred; or I see the stallion himself, or a photo or video, and I think- "Wow, look at that!" and I begin mentally matching him up to mares of my acquaintance... This can be a really useful, intuitive thing, or totally misleading. I would always follow up a gut feeling, but I'd always check it out carefully. I think other people do this too, again sometimes unconsciously. Remember Demonstrator's first stud photo? - in H & H, I think; I read somewhere that someone sent him their top mare on the strength of that photo, in which he looked the perfect horse; the perfect model of a warmblood of that time. I believe that that one picture got his career off to a flying start, although it was not the true measure of the horse, who had virtues but was not perfect, any more than any horse is.

Offspring. Obviously the best way to measure what a stallion will produce, if you can find this information. A stallion's offspring has more than once put me off a horse whom I previously liked, as they all shared the same fault, and encouraged me to use a horse about whom I had doubts, as they lacked his faults and shared the same good qualities, though out of very different mares. In fact, if I had to choose between seeing the foals and seeing the stallion, I'd see the foals.

Temperament; really tricky. I don't mind sharp, but I cannot cope with sullen. I like animals that are interested in humans and want to be friends, and I'd consider using an Arab to get this wonderful quality; they have it in abundance.

I'm afraid colour does matter to me. I didn't realise this until I shortlisted half a dozen good, more-or-less affordable TB stallions- and found that 4 of them were grey.... (like my old mare, see..). Again, I think more people are affected by aesthetics than realise it or would admit it. And why not? Horses after all, are beautiful.

 

[PrincessDana]

Top of my list would be conformation and how suitable he is for a certain mare. Next would be pedigree. I'd look for something that compliments my mare well, for example, if my mare has mostly dressage lines then i would look at a dressage stallion with good lines and preferably the stallion would be a proven producer of dressage horses. Hopefully he'd be pretty marketable too as you never know what might happen, something you have bred for yourself might need to find a new home in a hurry and i think having a "big name" sire helps.

Colour doesn't really come into for me, although i dont know if i'd use a coloured stallion?? I'm scared of getting something with horrible markings...but i do love coloured horses, just dont think i'd breed one for myself, i'd rather just buy one.