Showing ponies Do you need breeding for success?

[Missladypotter]

I was having a bit of a think about showing and ponies recently and I started to think about the show pony and the type. Is it necessary for a pony to have breeding to succeeed at the top?I mean if you have a lovely lead rein type pony with no registered breeding can it do well at showing or how does that work?This all started when I saw a beautiful pony win at my local show in the lead rein and when I looked at the results he had no recorded breeding!I know at local level they probably can but at the very top?Although I often suspect if the pony has no breeding but the owners/rider does they can do well! Haha!

 

[be positive]

It would be very unusual for a show pony type to have no known breeding as most have been purpose bred for many years but it is possible that someone has not bothered to register for some reason, sometimes paperwork get lost and the pony ends up with a generic passport and there is no reason to not show it if it has the right qualities to do the job.

 

[minesadouble]

It can happen though is very ususual, perhaps a little more common in SHPs.
My mum breeds RP LRs and FRs a number of whom have been HOYS ponies.
She breeds from real quality mares, many who have a ridden HOYS record before retiring to the paddocks, she uses top quality stallions on them so it’s hard for a random pony to compete with such purpose bred animals.
I do tend to find that you can see a pony at a local show and think it is real quality but take it out of poor company and put it in a ring full of top class animals and suddenly it doesn’t look quite so impressive.

 

[WelshD]

As above it tends to be more common in SHP classes for an equine to have no recorded breeding especially the lead reins and 122 class which can be a handy niche for an unregistered Welshie.

Where you find most though are in the working hunter pony classes, even some of the ones with prefixed names were given those by the people who sourced and produced the pony and not by people who bred them so the origins of those ponies are mixed and varied

With SP everything is about the breeding, the first thing that comes out of most SP people's mouth when looking at any pony is "how is he/she bred?" I know my pony's pedigree inside out as I am expected to trot it out parrot fashion at random intervals, it promotes a generally 'meh' response - mine has an excellent Welsh B grandparent that would be highly desirable in a section B passport but is less exciting to a SP person for instance - there are names that make them sit up and take notice and those that do not!

That's not to say that a pony with no breeding couldn't make it but I bet even the most hardened and elderly SP person would be able to count any successful ones on one hand

You'd struggle to sell a SP with unrecorded breeding so if buying one as a project I think you'd need to aim at a different discipline, some 'failed' show ponies lead successful lives as dressage, show jumping and racing ponies - that stamp of a pony is very versatile and very underrated

It doesn't mean they can't do ok at showing locally though. Mine is well bred but is like marmite, she has to much white and contains too much section B blood for most judges but holds her own locally

Lastly it could just be that they didn't put down the breeding of the pony on their entry, unless it's mandatory I do not always bother especially at local level as it may seem a bit boastful or I get accused of pot hunting. Sometimes it's an admin or owner error though, some of the entries in the HOYS catalogue have no recorded breeding where I know they have full and well known pedigree

 

[Missladypotter]

Thanks everyone for your replies,I was at a local show recently and I was thinking is there a market for selling show ponies,I mean hunters and ponies.I would be thinking about breaking/bringing on potential show ponies. Looking at your replies it seems more so in the working hunter or show hunter sections.What breed would show hunters be?Part bred welsh I was thinking!?