Is the mare more important than the stallion?

[Oscar]

I often see a lot of ordinary borderline cr@p mares being used as brood mares (in the UK!). But how important is the dam line?

I have heard from a good breeder that if you look at the mare, you will see what your foal will look like at 5!

For me it is more than 50% as the foal is on the mare for 6months or so and must therefore inherit a lot of her habits (good or bad) and traits. It's not enough in my opinion to just use a good stallion, I think the mare has to have a lot to offer, a good competition record, good breeding, good confo and a good temperament so the foal has rideability! A pretty foal is no good to anyone if it's a nut job.

What do others think? Do we still have a lot to learn from our European neighbours?

 

[no_no_nanette]

I often see a lot of ordinary borderline cr@p mares being used as brood mares (in the UK!). But how important is the dam line?

I have heard from a good breeder that if you look at the mare, you will see what your foal will look like at 5!

For me it is more than 50% as the foal is on the mare for 6months or so and must therefore inherit a lot of her habits (good or bad) and traits. It's not enough in my opinion to just use a good stallion, I think the mare has to have a lot to offer, a good competition record, good breeding, good confo and a good temperament so the foal has rideability! A pretty foal is no good to anyone if it's a nut job.

What do others think? Do we still have a lot to learn from our European neighbours?

Henk Minderman of the AES Studbook gave a recent talk where he absolutely endorsed this point of view, and like you was giving more than 50% of the credit to the mare, her pedigree, temperament, and the importance of a competition record proving that she had the stamina and skill to work at a particular level ..... That's if you are looking to breed a sport horse that will make the top levels, of course. If you are looking to breed a sane, sound all-rounder for the leisure market then some criteria will be different. But the importance of the mare doesn't diminish. Its only too easy I think to fall into the trap of spending shedloads of money on a top name or the moment's fashionable stallion when he can only hope to make a certain small % improvement over a mediocre mare. Henk started his talk by saying "You must ask yourself why you are breeding, and who for?"

 

[Spring Feather]

Temperament-wise and nutritionally the mare definitely has greater influence over the foal. Conformation-wise, I'm on the fence to be honest. I have one mare who consistently throws foals who are her to a tee. They look like her, their conformation is identical, their pleasant natures are just like hers (to die for!). She has one weakness in that she has a beautiful face but a rather plain head. Every foal she has ever had has her head. Every foal has her movement and regardless of colour differences anyone would be able to identify her foals as hers.

At the other extreme I have a mare who throws nothing of herself except colour. Her foals do not look like her, they almost always greatly resemble the conformation make-up of whichever stallion she is bred to. Her foals couldn't be more different to her. Even their personalities are different.

Out of all the mares though I would agree it is more usual for my foals to resemble their mothers more than their sires.

 

[magic104]

We consider the mare so important, yet you try & find info on them. Only the racing industry provides info/performance on the dam line. Whenever there are write ups on competition horses the emphasis is on the sire, NOT the dam. I would say the mare is at least 60% of the make-up.

 

[Alec Swan]

HorseyLad,

it may help you to google Preci Spark Stud. The owner is the highly respected Vin Jones. Read the opening lines of his introduction. They may help you reach a decision.

I think that if you have an unsuitable mare, then you can put her to the best(?) stallion available, and you will greatly reduce the chances of success.

Reverse the emphasis, and take a first class proven mare, then I would think that the stallion becomes less of a contributing factor.

For me, the mare is the most important part of the equation, without question. First class stallions are easily sought. First class mares aren't.

Alec.

 

[Touchwood]

Henk Minderman of the AES Studbook gave a recent talk where he absolutely endorsed this point of view, and like you was giving more than 50% of the credit to the mare, her pedigree, temperament, and the importance of a competition record proving that she had the stamina and skill to work at a particular level ..... That's if you are looking to breed a sport horse that will make the top levels, of course. If you are looking to breed a sane, sound all-rounder for the leisure market then some criteria will be different. But the importance of the mare doesn't diminish. Its only too easy I think to fall into the trap of spending shedloads of money on a top name or the moment's fashionable stallion when he can only hope to make a certain small % improvement over a mediocre mare. Henk started his talk by saying "You must ask yourself why you are breeding, and who for?"

Agree completely with the point made here.....BUT....if Henk thinks this, why on earth does the AES not grade mares?? It is the biggest fundamental flaw in this studbook IMHO.

 

[tristar]

assuming that the mare is 50 per cent minimum of any foal, ask the question, is she as good as the stallion? this is my criteria for deciding to breed from a mare and stallion and just as importantly do they complement each other? in my opinion the idea of improving faults should not enter into it, they should have no faults of any significance to start with.

 

[magic104]

assuming that the mare is 50 per cent minimum of any foal, ask the question, is she as good as the stallion? this is my criteria for deciding to breed from a mare and stallion and just as importantly do they complement each other? in my opinion the idea of improving faults should not enter into it, they should have no faults of any significance to start with.

Aah unlike the following!
Breeding mistakes that made equine stars

Julie Harding

March 30, 2005

Eventing magazine brings you a selection of its favourite notable event horses that have been bred by accident, rather than design

Karen Dixon's great campaigner Get Smart was hardly deliberately bred to event, being out of a 13.2hh pony called Samantha. Get Smart also had a lucky escape early in life when a farmer bought him from the local meat sales. As a further twist to his amazing story, Get Smart's breeder, Ray Parkin, remained a mystery up until a few years ago, when he was traced by Karen Dixon.

Viceroy II, the Bunn's eventing stallion who won Blenheim last season with Pippa Funnell (pictured), was conceived when VIP, the first million dollar show jumper, somehow escaped from his stable at Hickstead and jumped a post and rail fence into a field with four mares. Two months later, the only full Thoroughbred, Sweet Sage, didn't come into season, and the rest, as they say, is history.


Be Fair, who gave Lucinda Green her first Badminton win and a gold medal at the 1975 European Championships, was by Sheila Willcox's Burghley winner Fair And Square, who, as an uncut youngster, jumped out of his field and covered a mare called Happy Reunion.


Popadom, who won Burghley in 1967 with Lorna Clarke, was a skewbald cob born to a coloured mother who once pulled a dray. When he was purchased with his mother as a foal at foot for £40, Popadom's new owner, Jennifer Harrison, had thwarted Chipperfields Circus' attempts to buy him. While his mother may have been common, there was quality on his father's side — his paternal grandsire was the racing sire Hyperion — but how the mare and stallion got together is anybody's guess.


Diana Mason's 15hh Tramella was out of a Welsh pony mare. Hardly eventing material at first sight, size proved no handicap for the game Tramella when she was a member of the gold medal winning team at the Basle Europeans and finished third at Badminton in 1954.


Davey, the horse who gave Andrew Hoy the first of his two Burghley wins in 1979, was bred on a cattle station in south west Queensland. His second owner, a dairy farmer called Dave, used him to round up his cows before he sold Davey on to a more competitive home.


Done To Order defied the odds when he completed Burghley with Piggy French. The diminutive 15.2hh dun is out of a Connemara mare and was bought off a bog by owner Libby Ellis as a two-year-old, although even Libby never dreamed that he would make an event horse, let alone such a successful one.


Another Pippa Funnell ride, the coloured Bits And Pieces who took her back to the big time, was out of a foster pony mare at the Irish National Stud. To give top National Hunt sire Lord Gayle a 'boost' after he lost interest in covering, he was allowed to have his way with the 14.2hh coloured Red Pender. "I have a picture of her. She is stocky, fat and very coloured," says Sarah Jewson, owner of Bits And Pieces.


The 15.1hh Patris Filius, Olivia Haddow's ride at last year's Young Rider Europeans, was bred by gypsys by a coloured cob stallion out of an unlicensed racing mare. The gypsys sold him through Abergavenny Market and he must surely be the only advanced event horse in the country able to pull a cart.


Angus Smales' British team pony Cornsay Sam was born to the 28-year-old JA show jumping pony Carrols Bisto Lady. Sam's sire, Horton Spring, a 15hh palomino who is half Connemara and half Arab, was used on the ageing mare because he happened to be on the yard at the time. He was gelded afterwards and so has no other offspring and he, like Cornsay Sam, was also evented at one time by Angus.


Joseph Daborn's advanced horse Monarch Motivator is another one-off. By Monarch's Pass, who was, in turn, by Just A Monarch, Monarch's Pass was gelded shortly after his mating with the Grade B show jumper November Dell.


Benson, the horse who earned Stuart Stevens his Union Flag in the 1970s, was home bred, the result of a mating between an Anglo Arab colt and a Thoroughbred/Irish Draught mare. When Benson, who was part of the gold medal winning British team at the 1970 World Championships, was born, the Stevens family concluded that the two had somehow got together during the move to their new farm.


Pasha, the horse on whom Richard Walker won Badminton in 1969 aged 18, was by an Arab stallion and out of a Suffolk Punch/Thoroughbred mare. He was purchased by the Walker family for a young Richard for next to nothing because he had a reputation for going potty in the hunting field. Clearly eventing was much more to his liking.


Kitty Boggis' star of the future, The Gingerbread Man V, a one-day winner in 2004, was conceived when the two-year-old colt Barronstown jumped into a field with a mare. The mare died when The Gingerbread Man was just a few months old and Kitty believes this traumatic start has left the 11-year-old gelding "a bit quirky. He either goes well or has a blip".


•This breeding feature was first published in Eventing magazine (February 2005

 

[henryhorn]

I don't think you can put one above the other re importance.
When we started breeding we bought a few mares including one from a friend who had bred an International SJ and was known to have a good "eye" for horses.
She had bred three foals already out of the mare and we bred two.
All had been by different stallions yet all had the same traits, bolshy, liked bucking, had a real streak of not wanting to please. One of our geldings out of her was a super jumper but even professional SJ said he was too hot headed to be successful.
After the second horse turned out the same we sold her on.
So that mare passed on her traits and temperament regardless of which stallion she went to.
Our current stallion is utterly trainable and is very laid back about new things, without exception all his youngsters also cope well in the same way, yet some of the mares are hot headed but his temperament wins out over theirs.
Your description of "cr*p mares " I find difficult, in what way, conformation, temperament or bloodlines?
Since that bad mare we have never used another without knowing a lot more about it especially temperament, so I would say that is as important as any bloodline.
Some conformational faults I avoid such as bad or small feet, huge upper bodies etc, but others don't worry me such as dishing as I know the stallion can eradicate them.
Your comment about foals learning from their dams made me smile, we had a digger working in the fields today and one group of geldings were led into the next field through a barely open gate following one horse. It's no co-incidence if ever there is an opportunity for mischief it's his dam that is first to find it..
My real worry with views such as yours is that we are breeding generations of perfect horses, and it's unrealistic to only use mares with your criteria. Not everybody wants of needs a superstar and there is an enormous market for nice all rounders who suit the average adult rider.
Think about it, how many people at this minute will be looking through the ads for a horse that will take them round Badminton or to the Olympics?
And how many want a nice sane, sound, willing and sweet natured talented all rounder..
We should be breeding for both markets not just one.....

 

[tristar]

agree with henry horn, it's a fact that more people ride for pleasure than compete seriously and that's why temperement is so important, or the willingness of the horse to submit to training and deliver good rideable paces, and have the nerve to face the outside world, i would never use a nervous horse to breed from, mare or stallion, some stallions are very potent and can one can pick out their youngstock at a glance, but then some mares are sired by such stallions who can stamp their stock through their daughters who are subsequently bred from, i have great a grandaughter of right flare she has his outstanding movement and closely resembles many horses i saw sired directly by him who were like peas in a pod.

 

[Oscar]

Oh sorry no I'm not saying we must breed purely Olympic standard horses - but every horse should have the best possible chance, so therefore we should aim for temperament, good conformation, good feet etc. Be it a gypsy cob, Arab or WB etc.

As the saying goes "it costs as much to keep a bad-un as a good-un"!!

I just wonder why people use Mares that are perhaps retired from lameness or have been an insurance write off, if the mare has something wrong or a weakness then I wouldnt risk using her and risking the foal inheriting the same faults.