Why are some people so snobby about breeding

[Hollycat]

Kat has a very good point:

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Also, playing devils advocate, what about those 100's of people that breed a horse "for them" that then doesnt turn out to be the perfect horse they invisage, and then more crap ends up on the market unnecessarily?!!


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Whilst I believe its not really anyone elses business what someone does with their animals (as long as the animals are not beng harmed) I do think it is sad when bad quality horses are produced in this way. No-one goes out to breed a bad foal, but life has a way of messing things up and no-one can guarantee they will own their horse for its life. I know people that have been advised that its ok to breed from broken down mares with conditions such as navicular. I'm not an expert on whether this is hereditory and the real cause may differ between horses, but I personally would NEVER buy a foal from such a mare if it was advertised for sale. Even though the mare is super in all other respects. Its ok to say the foal would just for its breeder, but what if she got hit by a bus? What sort of home would the foal end up in - particularly if she ended up useing an inferior stallion if respectable stallion owners turned the mare away?

As regards papers, if I was buying a riding horse for general hacking and RC level competitions then papers wouldn't mean anything to me - what would mean everything would be a good natured, reliable friend. There will always be a market for horses such as this - they are worth their weight in gold and a sound, good tempered mare with no bad faults can be an excellent candidate to produce a foal just like herself when mated to a nice stallion. Breeders looking to produce an Olympic star from an unpapered mare that has never competed at a high level need to be realistic that professional riders will not be as inclined to be interested in such a foal when they can have one where the bloodlines are known. Doesn't mean to say they will not produce a superstar, but the odds are stacked against them more and more - and they are bad as t is as has alreasy been pointed out!

The good thing about forums like this is that everyone can give their view and at least try and educate and help people that are thinking about breeding from their mares. So at least they can make an informed choice and use a good stallion for the right reasons.

 

[htobago]

Very good points Kat B and Hollycat!

I get particularly worried about all the horses who are supposedly bred 'just for the owner', but end up being sold on...for all the usual gazillion reasons relating to finances/health/work/children/relocation/divorce/etc., etc. that most horses end up being sold on. Life's ups and downs and disasters affect horses people have bred just as much as those they have bought: there is very rarely any guarantee that one can give a horse a home for life, however good one's intentions.

So I do not think that 'I'm only breeding for myself' should be used as an excuse for breeding from poor-quality mares. There are far too many people breeding from mares who have nothing more to recommend them than a nice temperament. While a good temperament is very important - crucial, even - it does not 'cancel out' bad conformation.

And there is only so much even the best stallion can do. There is no guarantee that even a very good stallion will 'correct' conformation faults. A foal is just as likely to inherit its mother's dodgy legs and short neck, for example, as its sire's good limbs and length of rein. If the faults are there in the mare, one has to assume that they are highly likely to be inherited.

I'm not pointing at anyone in particular here - just making a general point.

 

[KatB]

Thanks Hollycat and Htobago for backing up my point!! It is fast becoming my pet hate the sort of indiscriminate breeding people do with their completely unsuitable mares, and in some rarer cases stallions aswell!! Papers dont bother me, and I am being slightly hypocritical owning a horse with no papers and no known breeding, but I chose him because of what he is, and being a gelding breeding bothers me not at all.

I think alot of the onus of breeding nice stock could go to the stallion owners being more selective to who they let their stallion go to, so therefore hopefully creating nice offspring, which can be sold if necessarily easily as is a good general stamp of a horse? But obviously I know when they are trying to run a business this isnt always possible But people who just want to breed "because I love my mare" need to look long and hard before going ahead and doing so.

 

[htobago]

KatB I couldn't agree more. Stallion owners do have a responsibility here, and I don't think that 'trying to run a business' should be used as an excuse for accepting poor-quality mares - mares that are really not good enough to breed from.

I do not accept mares with serious conformation faults to my stallion, even if their faults are in areas where he is particularly strong. There is no guarantee that he (or any stallion) will correct bad conformation faults.

No horse is perfect, of course. So of course I will accept mares with relatively minor faults - a back that is somewhat longer than one might wish, for example, or a shoulder that isn't quite as sloping as the ideal, or a neck set on a little bit low, etc. - particularly if these faults are in areas where my boy passes on his strengths.

But there is a difference between this and accepting mares with either serious faults or a large number of 'minor' faults. I have turned down mares who had no really serious, glaring faults, but who had so many minor flaws and weaknesses that overall I did not think they were of breeding quality.

Does anyone here read the Fugly Horse of the Day website? http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/ It's a campaign against irresponsible breeding - hard-hitting but also very funny and witty!

 

[Damien]

I recall a discussion on a natural horsemanship forum when a group of people were discussing one of our stallions, the list of conformation faults listed was a tad long................

They were looking at a three year old who when he arrived was worm infested, and exceedingly immature, butt high, pot bellied and whos frame had yet to strengthen and lengthen. They could not see the skeltal frame of the horse and how that was going to change with time.

That group of people deemed themselves as "experts" and two years along the line, he has produced some stunning foals, is now graded, and has his first results at affilated competition, has a good work ethic a lovely personality and is certainly not throwing foals with all the so called conformation faults that the commentators so freely passed around.

At the end of the day its peoples opinions regadless of how experienced they deem themselves and having just had two stallions attend a stallion grading I'm still left scratching my head.

One grader expressed that one of the stallions was rectangular in model, the other said he was square, one expressed sickle hocked whilst the other deemed straight of hind leg, one expressed the horses trot pushing and self carrying whilst the other expressed the opposite.. the list of differences went on and on.......... it has left me with little confidence in gradings something I supported so wholeheartedly for such a long time.

When assesing conformation I think we need to look at the balance of the whole horse, a mare that is toed in our out whereby the rest of her is an overall pleasant image should not be cast aside.

Breeding for a particular "model" is a completely different ball game and that is the true challenge for the breeder.

I hasten to add there is no snobbery from my part on breeding from non papered mares one of our first non papered mares produced the most exquisite pony filly and thats what we were aiming for. Her dam was a sweetheart and a lovely correct black and white cob mare with good straight cob action, high kneed and elevated and her filly was better than her, so the stallion did the job of improving on her and isnt that what breeding is all about regardless of paperwork?

 

[htobago]

Interesting points Opie (as always!) and I do know what you mean about the self-appointed 'experts' on some forums!

I don't claim to be any sort of expert - far from it! I know I have a huge amount still to learn, and that is the reason why I feel I am not ready to start breeding any foals of my own. Breeding a foal is such a HUGE responsibility, and I don't want to take this on until I have learnt a lot more.

For the moment, I am happy to let much wiser and more experienced breeders use my stallion, and I spend a lot of time picking their brains and learning from them...and on here learning from people like Opie!

I am really shocked at your bad experience with those grading judges, Opie! You must be feeling very disillusioned. But those judges were clearly debating very subtle faults and qualities in what are obviously high-class horses - not the kind of glaring conformation faults that one sees in the mares some misguided people plan to breed from!

But as you say, this has nothing to do with papers. We have all undoubtedly seen some dreadful horses with full papers and pedigrees, and some lovely ones whose breeding is unknown.

I don't have a problem with people breeding from horses without pedigrees, providing the mare is good enough to justify the extra risk of not knowing her ancestry/genetic make-up. This was clearly the case with your lovely, correct, good-moving cob Opie!!

Even if some judgements about conformation are highly subjective, and mistakes can be made, I can't imagine you ever breeding from a poor-quality mare with serious faults!!

 

[Damien]

Thanks Htobago

am sweetly disillusioned

critisim and don't take it to heart ..

just trundlin along doing my own thing anyway...

I do have to ask myself though what are all those glaring conformation faults that everyone talks about.

A lot of people talk about the correctness of limbs, but limb conformation faults certainly don't always seem to be hereditary, so many foals are born with wonky legs dependant on the way they lie in their dams, sometimes they can be corrected by something as simple as regular trimming, sometimes we see the limbs becoming deformed as the foal goes through a rapid growth spurt, the foal may go over at the knees and the balance of the hoof starts to change and the limbs form dependant on that balance, again trimming and rebalancing are critical to the future development of the horse. Toed in and toed out, they can all to a degree be rectified sometimes not completely. Then we have to ask ourselves if being toed out is a good or a bad thing, one orthapeadic surgeon/vet I sopoke with believes its a good thing and like us humans provides better balance when the hoofs turn out slightly.

And then theres all this talk of feet, which I have still yet to grasp, I'm hoping people will agree with me but a great deal of the wbs seem to be very boxy and upright, but does this not have a great deal to do with the treatment a horse receives from the time its a foal? With all of our foals being in the main WB none seem to end up with boxy feet.

Then we look at the showing world, we see many horses and ponies with very deep seated backs, to the warmblood assessor they would lable it as being roached and a weakness but to the pony world the term well seated would be given.. and in the hunter arena no knee or hock action is desirable, yet to the sport horse breeder the more the better...

We have sickle hocks, yet some of the great sport horses gain a better degree of thrusting power from a limb that is set slightly under the body.. in dressage the sickle hocked horse often has a much greater over reach in the gaits a desirable trait, to what extent the horse remains sound is arguable...

Volatire is said to be straight in his hind leg, Quasimodo Z is said to be sickle.. both have been valuable to the world of sprot horse breeding..

Then theres the length of the back, long, short? surely neither is a conformation fault, these are all lengths given by assessors looking to acheive a particular model.. no?

We have seen the terms short of neck, long of neck.. we see fashions changing all the time, the long legged long necked foal will attract applause at the foal shows, typey and elegant yet when we look at todays jumpers such as Cornet Obelnski he is shorter in both and as foals they may not acheive the premiums that everyone seeks....

As mentioned previously I think it all comes down to overall balance and what we like. In this discussion the OP posted is she good enough to breed from...and judging by the finess of bone and strength of quater I would have said absolutely but choose carefully what you want to breed, show hack, or riding horse, for the show sceneperhaps, by injecting some good arab blood... or a very strong compact TB with a good degree of angle through the hock, strong back and well set head and neck? Perhaps? from a photgraphers point of veiw I bet I could stand the mare up and show her off at her best..

the angle the photos are taken at shows her towards the camera in one photo completely changing her proprtions and creating the illusion of whats termed as "monster head".

It really is horses for courses and believe there is almost always a solution somwhere, perhaps not achievable in the first generation but everyone has to start somewhere and as long as there is improvement in the resulting foal then the first step can be made.

The big problem I guess is when you take two animals with similarly glaring issues and achieve the same result.... but hey ho they may end up being someones perfect dream.

The first step I guess is to criticise our own horses to a maximum, and take it from there. Like many of the posters on here I bred my very first mare for the same reasons as others do, I wanted my own baby to love and nurture as she was such an important part of our family! It was very rewarding and glad I did despite her weaknesses her foals have the same bold inquisitive characters and hopefully will do as well as she did herself be it on a sandy beach or over a big oxer...