I never rant but I am now.............!

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We profess to animal welfare - hate the idea of eating horse meat

and then blindly go on supporting the FACTORY FARMING of horses in holland and germany !!

WHAT DO people think happens to all those 'spare' foals bred by PS and his ilk - they get eaten.

and yet people here will still carry on buying from abroad 'cos it has 'made in germany ' tattoed on it's arse instead of buying a sounder, not overfaced, not inbred, quality BRITISH competition horse

H&H are a disgrace as our national horse magazine for publishing an article that sticks a knife firmly in the back of british breeders

"holland breeds better sports horses" = RUBBISH RUBBISH RUBBISH RUBBISH

WHERE is SportsHorse GB, BHHS, etc - will they be given equal space in next weeks H&H to provide a rebuttal to this stupid and damaging article

NB - this article has been published JUST when people in the UK may be considering using a UK BRITISH BRED stallion on their mare

yep H&H - why not put a few more british breeders out of business..........after all - we're probably people who take your magazine by subscription and pay your bloody wages !!!

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Totally bloody well said!!!! ESPECIALY this

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NB - this article has been published JUST when people in the UK may be considering using a UK BRITISH BRED stallion on their mare

yep H&H - why not put a few more british breeders out of business..........after all - we're probably people who take your magazine by subscription and pay your bloody wages !!!

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WHAT DO people think happens to all those 'spare' foals bred by PS and his ilk - they get eaten...

...would that be after the mares have spend months or years in a stall so their urine can be used for the medical hormone industry?
 
Post hasn't come yet
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so haven't got my copy yet
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bet the postman won't come cos of the snow!
 
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Well yes, and no...
We don't all want to breed the next Olympic horse, in fact some of us with mares of interminate breeding might want to consider breeding from them because they are competent RC types with nice natures...should we be barred from access to the better stallions on these grounds?..breeding should always be about improvement or maintaining a specific pure breed (or both)

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I quite agree with you but my comment was meant (but I didn't explain it well as is usual for me!
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) to say that we shouldn't be breeding from mares that are BAD specimems of the species which is sometimes happening now; well it always has. Just because a mare has come to the end of her working life which she has done competently even though she hasn't set any records is not a reason to breed from her UNLESS her conformation is of good quality and her temperment good. It is people breeding from downright ugly mares with very poor conformation/temperment, I have a problem with whatever class of stallion they use especially if the foal is due to come on the market; why compound the chance of breeding the ugliest thing on four legs - it might get a sympathy vote but it also stands the chance of being cast on the shelf of never ending sales as people don't want to be saddled with a freak. I'd hate to be responsible for bringing something like that into the world.
And that's where your comment of breeding for improvemnt comes in.........it just is not worth breeding from an 'improper' (for want of a word) type of mare; you should breed from your best, not from your worst IMO. If the mare is not correct, then please don't breed from her.
 
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...would that be after the mares have spend months or years in a stall so their urine can be used for the medical hormone industry?



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Does that happen on the continent?
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I had no idea, I thought it was a North American practice. It should be being stopped, not expanded.
 
I see what you are saying. have considered breeding from my mare 2-3 years down the line, she is a nice type..it comes down to money too. AI is soooo cheap from good proven European stallions that I am seriously considering it, it would save trailing around the country looking for an equivilant quality TB type stallion at a reasonable price in the UK.

Maybe the British industry needs to tune in to how the europeans are marketing their product
 
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...would that be after the mares have spend months or years in a stall so their urine can be used for the medical hormone industry?



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Does that happen on the continent?
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I had no idea, I thought it was a North American practice. It should be being stopped, not expanded.

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Errr yes, the very producer discussed in this thread, with mares kept in what was previously known as eastern europe
 
That is shocking and disheartening. A shame that someone who actually knows about horses, as opposed to being a pharmaceutical company employee, should endorse such a barbaric procedure and actually profit from it. It is bad enough trying to buy ethically produced meat, now we have to worry about how horses are produced too.
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I see what you are saying. have considered breeding from my mare 2-3 years down the line, she is a nice type..it comes down to money too. AI is soooo cheap from good proven European stallions that I am seriously considering it, it would save trailing around the country looking for an equivilant quality TB type stallion at a reasonable price in the UK.

Maybe the British industry needs to tune in to how the europeans are marketing their product

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Now that, unfortunately, is where we have fallen behind for years; I think we all still like to be thought of as individuals, not part of the crowd; don't know whether that's good or bad though, not qualified to say! Whatever colour government we have, they have never taken the horse industry seriously in spite of all the money it gives the economy which is where the other countries have a huge advantage. We could do so much better with some government encouragement but I don't think we'll ever get it so it still comes down to paddling our own canoes.
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I've just read the whole article and yes i totally agree what a load of rubbish. Yes there are cr*p stallions out there, but don't you think if people were educated not to use rubbish mares/stallions then are breeding would be better, instead of blaming people for keeping a stallion?!
I don't see the problem with keeping a horse entire if it has good temp/confo/comp record.
 
It all boils down to rip off Britain doesnt it.
Studs in this country struggle to make ends meat , we dont get the subsidies etc the europeans get .
They get paid a fee for each foal bred.
The cost of advertising your stallions is unbelievable and you have to try and weigh it up against how many mares you get.
A small ad in H and H has just cost us over £500 and that is only a 1/4 page so hardly hard sell
You have to be able to balance the books at the end of the day.
People will use a foreign stallion from a video which will be taken to the stallions best points but then feel they have to travel to see an English stallion.
Dont people realise that these videos are not going to show up any faults which these horses will have.
The continental breeders are quite happy to let some things go if a stallion produces a certain hock shoulder action.
So they are not neccesarily perfect.
 
Sallyf, I have never doubted that equally good or better stallions are available in the UK, in fact if the TB stallion at my local stud hadn't retired I would have used him without a second thought (King among Kings..made nice sprinters and sport horses too).

The successful ones are those who make their product visible and available, so DVD's might be filmed selectively, but we can at least see the horse moving without having to travel, and form some kind of conclusion from that. When I am searching for my 15.2-16hh medium weight stallion a couple of years down the line, this is one of the things that will influence me
 
what a thoughtless piece of writing!!!

i agree british breeding at the moment is not as good as german/dutch in some ways.

BUT thats JUST as much to do with the MARES we breed as the stallions we put them to.stallions arent miricle workers.

loads of people are breeding lame mares with no diagnosis or something thought to be heriditary, or possibly even worse mares of an unridable nature due to temperment issues.

Howvere we are improving and the british tend to breed in totally different ways-we do far less line breeding/interbreeding and produce fewer horses.in breeding i feel is an extremely risky buisness and detrimental to the lines.

there is alot of surplus stock in europe that doesnt cut the grade and can end up very badly done to-whereas here we tend to have alot more people who like a horse for lesuire and take these horses on.
that is how the improve their stock though-produce enough and you are bound to get a few good ones-which are then bred thus hopefully passing on its good genes down the line.


and i do know of a lot of backyard breeders who seem to like to breed any old mare
(even better if she is coloured because of the market demand for them-if people bought more responsibly, these sorts of very poor quality foals would not be produced-by which i am not refering to hacking/rb horses before anyone gets offended but ones of very bad temperment or conformation- because there would be much less demand for a cheap 'fashionably coloured' horse)
to a not outstanding in any way sire
(competiion, temperment,conformation-not just about producing competition horses, im also taking about producing happy hackers of sound mind!)
and flog them. which they wouldnt do if there was no demand for them.

the coloured craze has seen some lovely quality sires produced
but also one heck of a lot of very very poor ones valued ONLY for the coloured gene.
the consumer market also is part of the problem.

to say coloured horses are no good is plain silly.a horse is a horse no matter what colour.if it has a great temperment, can jump GP and is nicely made then that is what it is regardless of colour.
of course that horse may NOT make an excellent sire-you need a horse that has those qualities AND passes them on consistantly.
hence why i think it is a great idea for stud books such as KWPn which grade the stallion several times during its life and assess how it stamps its stock!its not good breeding to a horse who is brilliant himself but just doesnt pass it on.
i feel our breeding societies should prehaps take a stand point which is similar to this as i think it would go a very long way to impoving standards-also prehaps it would make breeding more expensive and more selective prehaps as people with very average mares(including temperment) would be less likely to send them to a more expensive stallion.
even horses such as RC and hacking horses would be graded on suitability and producing stock well stamped, thus helping produce quality horses for lesuire.
there would always be the backyard breeding though but prehaps it would help decrease it.

to say we only need one of each type is very silly
not all stallions mix well with all mares to produce what is wanted.genetics dont see that only one type is needed and produced, it is not predictable. a smaller gene pool is not very desirable.look how it affects dogs!

her comments as written were very incorrect to say we do not produce good horses.im sure europians produce alot of medicore horses too.
i believe our UK and irish bred horses are one of the best for eventing lines...?

the stallions need competion records/proven at the required activity, gradings,conformation AND temperment in my opinion and PASS it onto their stock to be able to be used as breeding stock
(although obviously he has to have a season of foals to show this!)

and stud should turn away any mare than have poor conformation,temperment or inheritable faults.
they should think more about repuation and less about money.
after all when someone says that horse is by so and so and the horse is badly made,biting everyone etc they are immediatly going to condem the stallion and not put much thought into the dam.

thats just my opinion, its beena very interesting post.
 
I don't know anything about breeding horses but, being in business myself, I know how much red tape/expense etc the government imposes on us so I can see that British breeders are probably facing "unfair" competition from Holland and Germany. Their breeding programmes certainly seem better organised and better publicised. I think that one of the other main problems - like someone else has said - is that other European countries seem proud of their horses whereas, over here, we have to contend with the "horses shouldn't be on the bl**dy roads" and "all horse owners are stuck up toffs" brigade. Horses are not seem as a business by most people in this county but rather as a luxury and, as such, unaffordable by the majority. Not true, obviously, as many of us work hard and go without things ourselves in order to keep our horses.

I wish this attitude would change but I can't see how such a change could be brought about without govenment intervention and I am afraid that I don't trust politicians of any persuasion to do anything that worthwhile!

Finally, I think an article like this (haven't had my copy of H& H yet so not actually read) will make a lot of people even more anti Warmblood and this saddens me too - as the proud owner of a KWPN with a tattoo on his ar£e! The reason I am a proud owner of a Dutch horse though isn't because he is Dutch or because of his particular breeding - he is just the right horse for me and I hate people looking at him and spotting what my OH call's his "logo" (brand - get it?) and thinking that I just chose him because he was expensive and flashy. In fact, I think I doubly worry about this because I am not even a good rider so some people have muttered that I should not even have him and this makes my self confidence plummet.
 
Give me a good old bay any day!
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Nah, colour is the last thing I'd think about when buying a horse. My mum only ever wants Chestnuts or roans or bays though. Even appearance doesn't matter, as long as the conformation is ok. I get attatched to ugly horses
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