SHB (GB v AES

I don't nec have a preferance, B was SHB registered when I bought her and I had her graded with them and H's sire is SHB graded, so he has full papers with them. Not sure who I'll go with for the next one, as G. Ringo is not SHB........... though I probably will go with them
 
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My foal is registered with AES ... can you explain why SHB is preferable?

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You could write a thesis on the plus and minuses of both -- and BWBS -- as all three are WBFSH mother stud books based in the UK but in short

If you want to breed/market a horse as a showjumper then probably AES is porbably AES doesn't hold mare gradings so AES-papered animals can have registration and grading problems when presented to other WBFSH full mmber stud books. OTOH, stallion grading does include some element of performance assessment but only by competition results and stallions who fail the grading are given regsitered status and are still able to regsiter progeny with the studbook.

If you want to breed/market a horse as an eventer then SHBGB is probably best but as it is a sports horse rather than warmblood studbook its breed base is too wide for its horses to be automically overstamped or eligible for grading by mainstream warmblood studbooks without consoderable investigation of the pedigree of the horse concerned. Also very few stallions without competition record are approved so tends to be a little 'behind the fashion' in its bloodlines.

If you want to breed/market your horse as a dressage horse then probably BWBS is best (if the horse is not eligible for BHHS or TBF papers) but again transferability to other wb stud books fro grading purposes is difficult, this time mainly becuase there is no performance-linked element in the grading of stallions and there is no automatic requirement for young stallions to compete to prove their talnt, this being the only way to performance test in any mother studbook in the UK.

SSH is an associate (rather than full) member of the WBFSH but this doesnt affect its acceptability to other WBFSH members. What causes the problem here is the fact that Listed stallions (those scoring less than even that required of Registered stallion status, see AES above) sr also allowed to issue papers on their foals provide they turn up to grading and pass the vet. This causes major credibility problesm with other studbooks.

Animals regsitered with foreign studbooks coming to this country to grade mares and brand /issue papers on the foals (eg KWPN, Oldenburg, Westfalian, ZfDP, ECHA) haveto go abroad for any performance testing element (apart from the ridden mare test in some cases) and if born in this country and origianlly registered with (ie given passports by) these forgeign studbooks, then they cannot take part in some competitions/assessments (eg BEF Futuirty) unless overstamped by AES, BHHS, BWBS, SHBGB, SSH, TBF or (if a ony) SPSS as otjerwise their results cannot be uploaded onto the National Equine Database successfully.

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And can I change if necessary/get passport overstamped?

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You cannot change your passport but most of them will overstamp passports issued by another one. OTOH, that does not automatically mean that the animal concerned will be eligible for grading into the top studbook )or even any studbook) so you need to check on that before writing out the cheque!
 
I'd like to respond to Ciss' post from the perspective of a breeder that has had stallions bred by me, and/or bred by someone else but owned by me, approved by 10 different studbooks including the AES. In total these stallions have received 15 approvals while under my ownership, including 4 AES approvals.

Like the Irish Horse Board's system for approving sport horse stallions, the AES does not accept 70/100 day tests: it requires the stallion to prove himself in open competition.

Four outcomes are possible at an AES grading: Not Graded (for those that the inspectors believe are not worthy of being put into the approval process), Registered (typically for young stallions not yet under saddle or with a limited performance record that are showing very good potential -- the stallion cannot stand at public stud and only 10 foals owned by the stallion owner can be registered), Licensed (typically for a young stallion under saddle that is showing very good promise -- can stand at public stud and is limited to 30 foals), and Approved (for stallions showing real potential for upper level sport plus very good results in open competition, including in stallion competitions).

Stallions that "fail" the inspection are not "Registered". For example, the AES conducted inspections in Ireland a couple fo years ago and very few stallions were graded (Registered, Licensed, or Approved). There were many stallions that were totally turned away.
 
Thanks Tom and Ciss, really helpful although seems a bit of a minefield and VERY complicated!!

Went on to your website, Tom, and found all the articles on breeding really fascinating - went away to look at my mares breeding! She's a typical ISH, with a dam who was based with a small breeder and farmer in SW Ireland, and wasn't competed herself - but who has bred a national champion Show Hunter (Advance Party) and an eventer currently being competed by Mark Kyle..... I'll have to do further research on her granddam and great granddam. My foal's sire is Caretino Glory, standing at Brendon Stud, Glorieuze/Cor de la Bryere lines; and going back to studbooks is an Approved stallion with AES, and BSJA silver stallion.

We're very pleased with the foal so far, seems a really nice type with great paces - really covers the ground - in spite of quite a few people warning me against using a WB stallion on an ISH mare.... I'm realising how very much there is to learn about this breeding thing!!
 
rufusbluemoon, Sounds like your mare is becoming a good producer. Do research her damline--it may be worth the time and effort.

The individuals who warned you not to cross a warmblood with an ISH mare are either individuals with no knowledge or individuals with a hidden agenda/conflict of interest.

If Ireland were not using warmblood stallions it would no longer be ranked in the ten 10 studbooks for showjumping. Of course one must select the warmblood sire carefully, just as one would have to select a TB (or any other type of stallion) carefully.
 
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Thanks Tom and Ciss, really helpful although seems a bit of a minefield and VERY complicated!!

Went on to your website, Tom, and found all the articles on breeding really fascinating - went away to look at my mares breeding! She's a typical ISH, with a dam who was based with a small breeder and farmer in SW Ireland, and wasn't competed herself - but who has bred a national champion Show Hunter (Advance Party) and an eventer currently being competed by Mark Kyle..... I'll have to do further research on her granddam and great granddam. My foal's sire is Caretino Glory, standing at Brendon Stud, Glorieuze/Cor de la Bryere lines; and going back to studbooks is an Approved stallion with AES, and BSJA silver stallion.

We're very pleased with the foal so far, seems a really nice type with great paces - really covers the ground - in spite of quite a few people warning me against using a WB stallion on an ISH mare.... I'm realising how very much there is to learn about this breeding thing!!

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I did it the other way around and used an ID stallion on my WB mare !! my foal is fantastic xx
 
Thats one of the reasons I want to tear my hair out when you hear judges in the showing world moaning about warmbloods and praising Irish horses. Half of the idiots don't realise the amount of warmblood blood now being used in Ireland. Why there is this myth against warmbloods from the 'old school' I don't know but it drives me potty (and makes me laugh when they put a WB or WBx 1st and think it's a good old Irish Hunter or TB)
 
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The individuals who warned you not to cross a warmblood with an ISH mare are either individuals with no knowledge or individuals with a hidden agenda/conflict of interest.

If Ireland were not using warmblood stallions it would no longer be ranked in the ten 10 studbooks for showjumping. Of course one must select the warmblood sire carefully, just as one would have to select a TB (or any other type of stallion) carefully.

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I think it is a combination of huge originan vested interest and just plain predjudice. I remmber when Furisto was first sent over (he used to belong to a friend of mine). He was probably the first wb to stand in Ireland and getting any sort of recognisable papers for his offspring was almost impossible. Even when Henk lived there for several years (and ran the AES from there as a UK studbook!) wbs were still pretty much anathema to the 'establishment' and it was really the importation of Cavalier Royale -- and his very skillful use and promotion -- that made the Irish authorities accept what the Irsih breeders already knew, which was that in order to keep their international rankings and market they had to move with the times and introduce stallions with a performance pedigree more tailored to modern sport.

Of course, when such organisations are run by people who think that you can't hunt a warmblood becuase it lacks courage (when in fact it is their lack of ability as a rider that is the reason the horse doesn't go well across country with them) then progress is very slow. This could well be the case with many so-called sports horse (and certainly hunter) judges here, as it certainly was in Ireland until economic forces (and lucrative EU funding enabling the purchase of *top class* warmblood stallions and the development of state-of-the-art breeding facilities) kicked such attitudes into touch.

We are still waiting for this kind of revolution in some (too many) quarters here.
 
I'm not sure that its all prejudice, though. Whilst some people have clearly been successfully blending Irish & WB for years (VERY successfully- look at the Gustavii Stud which someone recommended on another post) there does seem to be a knack to it; some of the Irish / Warmblood horses that you see do tend (to my admittedly inexperienced eye) to have a "sparepart"-ish look; even some that are well bred with 2 good parents; crosses that ought to have worked. I don't know what it is; just a coarseness sometimes; maybe a heavy shoulder and iffy forelegs, or the front end and the back end not matching. So in making such a cross what would you look out for in the individuals concerned? Do you need a particular type of warmblood?
 
Very good observation.

The reality is that many Irish mares used for breeding would be better served for Sunday dinner in France: unathletic, too heavy, "coarse". It is a good description that I often use.

In general most Irish mares need a very athletic stallion with "blood" in genotype, phenotype, and mode of athletic expression. Many of the yokes brought to Ireland do not fit the bill.

But the same can be said for many ISH and even TB sires. There is no guarantee that a TB sire will improve the qualities one is looking for, including the exterior qualities.

Cavalier himself was not a good looking horse. One of his former owners told me that the family never put a single mare in foal to him "because he was such a plain and ugly yoke." (And this family breeds a lot of successful horses.) He just happened to click with the Irish mare, and although many of them are ugly as sin enough of them can jump that he became a successful sire.
 
"... and although many of them are ugly as sin enough of them can jump that he became a successful sire" brings to mind the old saying "handsome is as handsome does"! Whilst it's nice to have attractive looking horses, in terms of jumping good appearance is of course a bonus not a requirement. In my opinion, very few horses are actually ugly (same can't be said for humans!) but if they perform, and conformation is ok, there is no good reason not to breed from them. The important thing is to try and match stallions and mares so that their strongest points complement one another.
 
I agree with you except you are taking jumping ability as a given -- "but if they perform", in your words. If they are not good looking (confonformation included in this assessment) and cannot jump then that is a different story.
 
Hi to all I have been a lurker for a long time & love to read this forum.
This thread has made me sneak out for one post
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Having grown up in the North of Ireland I would agree with Tom about why WBS were not initailly crossed with Irish mares. It was not all prejudice because 20 years ago when I was there many breeders were aiming for a 3/4 or 7/8ths bred type(the modern WB??) of horse. Crossing the Irish mare, who usually has a dose of ID, with the WB could not guarantee this. Also I disagree with Ciss that WBS did not go hunting because the Irish couldn't ride them across country -that is an amusing thought
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. Do people remember a lot of the WBS that were arriving 20/30 years ago - many were heavy types that couldn't go the length of themselves never mind go XC.
Also on the point about ISH having WBS sire & still being called ISH that is just the same as WBS having Lauries Crusader as a sire and being called WB. That is the way it is now and that is an okay thing IMHO. But you wouldn't say LC was the saviour of WBs likewise you wouldn't say one WB stallion was the saviour of the ISH.

I do think it is also a shame to put Irish mares down in quite the way Tom has
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- I think its reflects well on them that so many top horses are/were Irish as the mare base in Ireland is/was very small compared with Germany etc. It would interesting to compare number foals bred for sport born in Ireland or GB or Holland & then compare results. Same with the stallions - there are stallions out there covering 1000s of top class mares & they should be getting top class results & then there are some stallions covering 10 or 100s of mares of different quality & they get top class results. I don't know how many mares Cavalier covered but I guess not as any as the big name dressage stallions.
Until we can compare studbooks on proper comparable figures are any of these world rankings showing the real picture
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!

Sorry off topic a bit & a long post. I have been saving it all up
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back to lurking
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firm, thanks for posting!

I don't know if I would go so far as to say that warmbloods were the savior of the Irish sporthorse but look at the data from the WBFSH rankings. The Irish studbook is barely in the top 10, and if you pull out the effects of Cavalier the Irish studbook proobably would not be in the top 15. And remember that the size of the studbook has little effect on these rtanlngs because only results from the top 6 horses are used to produce these rankings. What matters if the distribition of talent in the studbook, not the size of the studbook. The Holsteiner studbook, for example, does much much better than the Irish studbook even though it produces far fewer foals each year.

Even the die-hard proponents of "traditional breeding" are finally beginning to see the light. From this week's Irish Farmers Journal, the writer Michael Slavin reports:

"With five times less horses on the world's top 200 list than we had just 15 years ago, Irish breeding of international show jumpers has reached a new low. Having just four Irish-bred horses currently on this list, we have all but faded out of this quality prestige sector, which includes winners of major Grand Prix events plus Olympic, World and European Championship medals. Also in this elite group are the horses ridden on the leading Samsung Super League squads.

"Back in 1992 we had 22 of our show jumpers on the top 200 list. Now we are down to just four - so during the '90s we were not getting it right. And with little in the way of policy change evident up until now, it appears that we are destined to stay on the bottom rung of the international show jumper ladder for some time to come.

"While we languish with just four in the rankings, the combined stud books of Germany can boast 70, the single stud book of Holland, KWPN, has 47 and the French 30. But here is the real knocker - Belgium, which was all but unheard of as a breeder of elite show jumpers back in 1992, now has 38 of the top 200 list. From hardly featuring at all back then, the Belgian breeders have now climbed to having the third highest total of the top 200 to its credit. As the IHB tries to plot a path for Irish breeders, it would behove them to find out what the Belgians have been doing over the last 15 years.

"In terms of breeding these top jumpers, it appears that we have to abandon the holy grail of "traditional Irish". Worrying about a few disgruntled customers who are annoyed that they can no longer pay small money for a "traditional" jumper is no longer an option. What it appears the Belgians did is select the best mares they had and breed them to the best performance stallions available, no matter where they came from. The gene pool of Irish mares is still strongly "traditional". So we have to be daring, pick the best of them to breed to the best performance sires available in what is now an international, rather than a national, performance sport. We have lost the services of our stars of the past, Cruising and Clover Hill, so we have to make important moves if we are to have the likes of them born in the future.

"The World Top 200 show jumper List
Germany 70
Holland 47
Belgium 38
France 30
Ireland 4

"Our four representatives are:

* Mo Chroi - by Cruising out of a Mister Lord dam (65th place);
* Echo Beach - by Clover Echo out of a Cavalier Royale dam (83rd);
* River Foyle - by Cavalier Royale out of a Cruising dam (124th);
* Bohemio - by Mister Lord out of a Holy Cross dam (184th)."

(end of quoted news story)

Cavalier Royale produced 1016 foals as af 2006.

I am sorry that you are offended by my critique of Irish mares. But the facts speak for themselves. Longing for the good old days will not bring them back.
 
Interesting. I can't help thinking that the rankings quoted above give a skewed picture, at least from the point of view of breeding, rather than national prowess. So many WB showjumping lines seem to have been jumpstarted recently by the introduction of French blood; yet though the French do well, they are beaten here by other nations putting French bloodlines to good use. Maybe, to some extent, the Irish are in the same boat? So many good horses have been exported from Ireland over the years.

This WB/Irish thing interests me from a British point of view because historically so many of our horses have come from Ireland and I think our non-TB broodmare base must still be largely Irish and native, so this country ought to be a natural melting pot for all these bloodlines.

 
Tom I am not longing for the good old days you are misinterpreting me
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I bred my jumping ID cross to Lauriston
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I think it is sad if people in Ireland are no longer choosing stallions by performance as when I was there performance & soundness were high on the list.

I think one of the probs for UK & Ireland is that we never were as focussed or as good at marketing as the other nations and there are too many fragmented fighting interests.
Reading the KWPN magazine they are admirable in the strategies they plan. They say they next market to move into are the eventing market (wake up UK & Ireland) & Asia - where would you see something like that written down in the UK
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If the top 6 horses from each of the studbooks are used it still questions that if one studbook breeds 10000 horses to get those top 6 & another breeds 100 to get its top 6 can you still call it comparable?

1000 foals in lifetime is not bad at all but some young stallions have reached that number by the time they are 4 or 5.
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"If the top 6 horses from each of the studbooks are used it still questions that if one studbook breeds 10000 horses to get those top 6 & another breeds 100 to get its top 6 can you still call it comparable?"

I agree that it is not possible to truly evaluate the quality of each studbook by this method. For example, in Germany, Paul Schockemöhle runs a vast breeding establishment, and so inevitably some of the youngstock will be super, but we don't hear about those that don't make the grade.

Irish and British bred horses are still arguably the best for eventing, even with the introduction of the short format. Long may it continue!

Nowadays, largely I suppose because of AI and frozen semen, there is so much intermingling of the bloodlines, that few representatives of any studbook are "pure-bred".
 
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