How important is the Dams performance?

N

Navalgem

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Going off the first letters in my new mares damline, her dam, grand dam etc, there's about 5/6 years between them, surely that suggests these mares had little or no performance record themselves. So I was wondering how important a dams performance is? Or does it not matter when they have good breeding?
 
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Going off the first letters in my new mares damline, her dam, grand dam etc, there's about 5/6 years between them, surely that suggests these mares had little or no performance record themselves. So I was wondering how important a dams performance is? Or does it not matter when they have good breeding?

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You cannot go by years between them, you need to look between all that. Also just because you have known stallions this is not the main thing that true breeders are looking for nowadays...they are wanting to know what each of the dam's have done through the lines, and whether these lines have produced any International horses.

I can find no information on the dam of your mare, Seminka.

Nadiminka (the grand dam) herself a Keur mare which means that she did a Mare Performance Test in Holland. I cannot find any other information on her.

Hadiminka (great grand dam) is a Preferent Sport Elite mare. To gain "Preferent" she has to have produced a minimum of 3 "Ster" mares - in fact she produced 2 x Ster mares, 1 x Keur mare and 1 x Elite mare . She got her sport predicate in dressage, which means she has competed up to Advanced Medium level. She is also an Elite mare which means that not only has she done her Mare Performance Test, but she has also had successful and clean x-rays.

Aminka (great great grand dam) is a Ster Sport Jumping mare and jumped up to National level in Holland. She is also half sister to two Dutch International Showjumpers (these are not necessarily well-known jumpers, but are successful at this level).

Viola B (great great great grand dam). She is a Preferent & Prestatie mare, which again means she has produced a minimum of 3 x "Ster" and also a minimum 3 x 1.30m jumpers. Since she has produced several 1.30m showjumpers, national jumpers and International jumpers I think it is safe to say that she is very prepotent in her breeding.
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ROFL............NG.......do you feel a wee bit embarrassed.......just a ikle little bit.....
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Lol, nah not at all, I'm new to this and you've just given me loads of info I didn't know, I saw the Keur etc on her pedigree but had no idea what they all mean/entail etc....! I know I have a lack of knowledge but everyones gotta start somewhere, I will learn, and I may as well start with a good mare than a bad/mediocre one, Minx was the best I could afford!

I didn't think that having known stallions was all that important, but finding info on stallions is easy, mares a little more difficult lol. I wasn't just referring to my mare either, the whole general idea of it, is it as important for the mare to have a good record as it is for the stallions? (hope that makes sense)

How did u find that info if you dont mind me asking? Google? I tried but drew blanks.
 
Personally, very. If a mare hasnt proven herself, to be competitive, consistent etc I would be wary of breeding from her. Only circumstances that would change my mind were a very well bred mare, with performance in and around the same lines which shows you the "potential" and it was an early decision to take her out of the loop and become a broodmare, or through unfortunate injury whic has set aside competitive career
 
NG we have all had to start with the best we could afford, it would be great if we could all go and spend tens of thousands on the horse of our dreams...but that is something a lot of us will never have the pleasure of doing.

I was only winding you up because I took your post to read that you thought your mare did not have that great a pedigree, when in fact she does..

A good port of call on any horse is track down the breeder, these will be on the mares papers you should have received. What is the background to the mare, with her being 5, who has she been with etc?? These are all ports of calls to find out more information on her, and like I say write to the breeder, as their details will be on the pedigree papers.

As mares contribute almost more to a foal than the stallion does, YES mares are very important, and if you are looking for a mare to be your "foundation" mare for breeding then you are correct, you can only buy the best you can afford at the time...and then you improve on what you have. Plus it costs the same to keep a good horse as it does a poor one.

My and my OH study much about horse bloodlines in Europe and have many many books and reference points. I need to make it part of my business to know these things, so we are always doing a lot of research into bloodlines, which include mares...
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Personally, very. If a mare hasnt proven herself, to be competitive, consistent etc I would be wary of breeding from her. Only circumstances that would change my mind were a very well bred mare, with performance in and around the same lines which shows you the "potential" and it was an early decision to take her out of the loop and become a broodmare, or through unfortunate injury whic has set aside competitive career

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Have to disagree here. If the mare has a good grading mark, good pedigree and has done a saddle test there is little left to prove, especially if she has produced progeny that have performed well under saddle themselves (as the mares descobed in this thread have). Actually I would probably go a little further and say hat some competition mares are successful because they have fairly masculine characteristics and can be really difficult to get in foal or produce foals as good as they are from them (this is true in both WB and TB breeding). Altough I am probably her no 1 fan *as a dressage horse* I certainly wonder how good a broodmare Matinee will be in the long run for instance and although Ratina Z did produce an international sj stallion son when she was covered at 2 years old I don't believe that she produced much of note after she was retired from her competitive career and certainly nothing 1/2 way as good as she was. Dollar Girl was the same.

If people think of breeding from a mare of unknown breeding just becase she has a good competition pedigree then to me that is even worse as you have no idea what the result will be.

I do not disapprove of competing mares in any way, its just that the very top competiton mares often lack the characteristics that a top broodmare needs (except for being naturally Alpha mares of course:-).
 
I've heard this said too: though only with reference to truly outstanding mares that out-perform the colts.

I wondered if it was a "Women should know their place" kind of comment, and that it was just the relatively small number of foals and therefore chances a mare has to reproduce herself that caused the phenomenon; after all, look at all Saddlers Wells' offspring; if you picked half a dozen at random, how many would be as good as him? None?

But do you think there is more to it than this? Do top sportsmares have the wrong body shape to give room for a foal, or something like that?
 
Having seen this mare, every day since she arrived, she is very short, has good front lets and feet, her hind legs are a tad straight but overall, a very striking mare, her neck is a little thick in the throat, but well set on and good length of rein, as for performance as others have said, its what a mare produces that is the most important thing, and all the way through this mares pedigree as rightly pointed out by Anastasia, are motherlines that have been successfull, and i think anybody would be pleased to have her as one of there broodmares, Shutterfly was one of the stallions you were considering NG so that fits in with your own thinking, perhaps you understand it better than you think. As for mares performance my own mare has already produced an international SJ before she was broken,she herself competed to Foxhunter with us, then retired to stud, as we decided from then on in it would start to get expensive, we now have 2 babies off her so we shall see whether she can produce the goods on a regular basis
 
Ciss - sorry I didnt say that breeding from a "just" a competitive mare, I also meant decent bloodlines. I too would be vary of breeding from an unknown, with a competition record. Its too much of an unknown, esp if you are breeding for a certain type, you dont know what existed previously, the mare could be a "one off".

How many mares that pass their grading, come from bad lines? I would guess its not many, which is why I said if selected at an early age to be a broodmare its no issue to me, however if they are competed to a level, then I would like to see a competition record, a track record of soundness etc. A lot of quality broodmares are on the show hunter circuit, and dont even go under saddle, they normally have great qualities though - type, conformation, breeding etc which are very desirable for obvious reasons

If a mare doesnt want to be a broodmare or have the character, then unfortunately there isnt much you can do, and nor would i persevere, the only other option would be to look at ET
 
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How did u find that info if you dont mind me asking? Google? I tried but drew blanks.

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I think A will have used http://www.paardenfokken.nl/find.php . Its quite good although it is dependent on people filling in their own horses info so its not a complete KWPN database.

Just a thought but have you contacted the KWPN about her? They will be able to tell you if she has been to a grading (keuring), what her marks were, and they might even be able to give you a printout of her breeding values which will give you an estimate of her what characterisics she is likely to pass on to her foalies.
 
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