Highland x TB as a hunter - yr thoughts please

Faracat said:
Shagyas are wonderful, but they are tall. If you want an old style arab, then Iranian Asils are predominantly old style desert horses, though some do have a bit of dish.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d8/12/1e/d8121ebbd210f436e9c63327e25afebb.jpg

Of course the Crabbets are still fabulous horses.
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A friend of mine breeds Arabs (in a tiny way) and she has a Russian mare who I like a lot, also a Crabbet. Bred to do what they should be doing! I am not keen on that Iranian one in the pic.
 
Yes, the desert type is a different beast, but they really are tough. When you look at old photos of the Blunt's desert bred horses, they have that same look.

LadyAnneBlunt_and_Kasida.jpg
 
Wow! Let's bash the CB's eh? It must be wonderful to sit in your ivory towers preaching about the virtues of your chosen horses. I own a pure and he is by far one of the best horses I've owned, he's not going to take me to Grand Prix but then again I couldn't care less, my main objective in life is to have fun and enjoy. I am sick and tired of the holier than thou brigade who sit behind keyboards extolling the virtues of their 'perfect' lives when in actual fact it's all a fantasy. So a CB isn't for you, who cares?! As my mother always told me, if you've got nothing nice to say then keep yer big trap shut. Each to their own, it's horses for courses, I'd never own a TB again, a WB, a cob or any other breed other than a CB because unlike many, my horse is part of my family, he's not a dispensable item that once past his usefulness becomes expendable. He will be with me to the end and I'm in no hurry with him. So my advice would be in future to recommend your preferences without judging or condemning others choices.
Rant over!
 
vichyb said:
Wow! Let's bash the CB's eh? It must be wonderful to sit in your ivory towers preaching about the virtues of your chosen horses. I own a pure and he is by far one of the best horses I've owned, he's not going to take me to Grand Prix but then again I couldn't care less, my main objective in life is to have fun and enjoy. I am sick and tired of the holier than thou brigade who sit behind keyboards extolling the virtues of their 'perfect' lives when in actual fact it's all a fantasy. So a CB isn't for you, who cares?! As my mother always told me, if you've got nothing nice to say then keep yer big trap shut. Each to their own, it's horses for courses, I'd never own a TB again, a WB, a cob or any other breed other than a CB because unlike many, my horse is part of my family, he's not a dispensable item that once past his usefulness becomes expendable. He will be with me to the end and I'm in no hurry with him. So my advice would be in future to recommend your preferences without judging or condemning others choices.
Rant over!
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We don't need to like the same things ,it's a good job we all don't .
This is a forum it's about opinions if you struggle with that I suggest perhaps you find something which amuses you more .
 
Who mentioned their perfect life!?
vichyb you seem to have taken this quite personally against your horse!? It isn't, it is a wider discussion of the virtues, or not, of the breed. I think you will also find that many/most/all people posting on this thread also keep their horses for life, not just while they are useful, I don't know where you have gotten any other impression from on this thread?

If people only ever said nice things/backed up others nothing would ever get challenged however important it was that it would be challenged. The internet would also be a very quiet place. Like GS I would suggest that if you don't like people expressing opinions and would prefer people to only do fawning then perhaps this isn't the right place for you :p.

I still maintain that all things are usually rare for a reason and this is still a man-made breed not a species so I can't really understand the woe that has been posted about the situation previously.
 
Now, why had no one suggested a TB x Suffolk?!? I think they are pretty rare too and utterly gorgeous. I've had more contact with Ardennes (more mixed quality) than Suffolks despite not living far from the county... That seems sad! (Because, I like riding orange horses, albeit usually crabbet-sized ones)
 
ThursdayNext said:
Now, why had no one suggested a TB x Suffolk?!? I think they are pretty rare too and utterly gorgeous. I've had more contact with Ardennes (more mixed quality) than Suffolks despite not living far from the county... That seems sad! (Because, I like riding orange horses, albeit usually crabbet-sized ones)
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Agree with above. Living in Suffolk country, Hollesley Bay Colony used to breed some of their Suffolk mares to TB's and even a trakehner. They got some lovely crosses but were rarely sold outside the system. The next cross back to a TB produced one of the best Hunter broodmares, Panali.
 
I went to Twemlows stallion open day last month and have to say out of all the stallions on view the CB looked the toughest and the most correct. I've never saw a CB in the flesh before and really quite liked him. He had good quality bone and excellent feet, something the more modern types can lack. Breeding for soundness, if I'd had to pick one on the day it would have been the CB.
 
ThursdayNext said:
Now, why had no one suggested a TB x Suffolk?!? I think they are pretty rare too and utterly gorgeous. I've had more contact with Ardennes (more mixed quality) than Suffolks despite not living far from the county... That seems sad! (Because, I like riding orange horses, albeit usually crabbet-sized ones)
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It's a very good cross particularly in the 1/4 Suffolk 3/4 TB form they are rare because the Suffolk mares are so rare .
 
I assumed it was a sheer lack of numbers issue that it would be frowned upon to be using mares to cross out to TBs?
 
ester said:
Who mentioned their perfect life!?

I still maintain that all things are usually rare for a reason and this is still a man-made breed not a species so I can't really understand the woe that has been posted about the situation previously.
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The reasons are various and nothing to do with the quality of the CB

The 1stWW - many never came back
Hunter breeding - many CB mares were crossed with TBs to breed hunters which meant fewer and fewer pure CB mares
Marketing - namely of Coloured cobs, warmbloods and Irish bred horses.. all of whom have been ahead of the curve and I think suplanted the CB
As the numbers of CBs declined fewer and fewer are seen competing.. think about the stats of competition at high level and the amount of "wastage" in warmblood breeding programmes the odds become very stacked against a rare breed.

Re my earlier comment about excellence of horsemanship.. I am old school the use of force and lack of tact in modern (competition) riding is exactly what makes the CB "harder" for modern riders .. trained with tact and correctly schooled and without the must get ribbons mentality CBs and their crosses make excellent hacks, hunters, riding club and competition horses.. sadly I think modern horsemanship lacks this tact and patience largely.. (this is generalisation obviously). As stated when I saw Michael Jung rollkur Sam it was to force Sam into submission this is exactly what would cause a CB or a CB cross to fight back and "go wrong". Above all you have to respect the CB's brains..

So sadly as I see it the decliine of the CB goes hand in hand with the decline in our horsemanship.
 
Zuzan said:
The reasons are various and nothing to do with the quality of the CB

The 1stWW - many never came back
Hunter breeding - many CB mares were crossed with TBs to breed hunters which meant fewer and fewer pure CB mares
Marketing - namely of Coloured cobs, warmbloods and Irish bred horses.. all of whom have been ahead of the curve and I think suplanted the CB
As the numbers of CBs declined fewer and fewer are seen competing.. think about the stats of competition at high level and the amount of "wastage" in warmblood breeding programmes the odds become very stacked against a rare breed.

Re my earlier comment about excellence of horsemanship.. I am old school the use of force and lack of tact in modern (competition) riding is exactly what makes the CB "harder" for modern riders .. trained with tact and correctly schooled and without the must get ribbons mentality CBs and their crosses make excellent hacks, hunters, riding club and competition horses.. sadly I think modern horsemanship lacks this tact and patience largely.. (this is generalisation obviously). As stated when I saw Michael Jung rollkur Sam it was to force Sam into submission this is exactly what would cause a CB or a CB cross to fight back and "go wrong". Above all you have to respect the CB's brains..

So sadly as I see it the decliine of the CB goes hand in hand with the decline in our horsemanship.
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This.

The first pure bred CB filly I bred was labelled by French riders as lazy. My French trainer who spent 20 years in the UK and is a BHS AI disagrees. He taught me new techniques which do not regard 'force'. As for her 3 year old full sister, this is the filly on this yard HE would take home if he could. She has it all conformation, light paces a fabulous temperament. There are photos of this one on H&H FB page, when she was a foal, I didn't do FB then but was told there were 3,00 views. Both her parents QA by CBHS and her dam a champion filly foal as a yearling at Hexham rare breeds show.

Zuzan your comments on fighting are just as true of my Shagya Arabs. Since our professional SJ stopped changing her bit, putting on draw reins and a too tight flash - our 6 year old has jumped 7 clear rounds and is currently 34th place out of 600 horses in the SJ championships.
 
If you tried to force any of my Irish Draughts to do anything they didn't want to do, you would soon learn the errors of your ways. There are no breeds that react well to dominance - maybe in the short term, you get "learned submission" but in the long term, it never works.
 
My daughter had a Highland x TB, we bought him as an unbroken 5yr old from his breeder (they also had the Highland Stallion who they used to hunt) he was only 14.2hh and had been left as he wasn't big enough for his owner. He was quite simply the best pony ever. He was a brilliant hunter, evented, show jumped, did dressage. He was more like a TB than a Highland though. He was no weight carrier, everyone thought he was a Connie. He went on to another PC/Hunting home. I bought him because I liked him. It's better to look for a type of horse more than a specific breed in most cases, another Highland x TB might not have been anything like him.
 
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