Beware [edit]

[fizzyfuzzybuzzy]

For me, it’s not about the wow. I love their work ethic, soundness and funny personality. A lot of the things you see in harness are exaggerated by “training”, same as ASBs. If I felt brave enough to post a photo of myself (maybe I’ll PM you) I would show you my DHH. He is big, tough, gorgeous. He loves to work and never says no, even if he’s scared. His personality is the barn favorite, always wants to know what is going on, play with me and his pasture mates. He was gelded at 8 years old and a kid could handle him.

He never had a ewe neck (I pulled him out of a field 300 lbs underweight, so if he was going to have one, I would have seen it), his head is super cute and proportional for his size. He has a naturally amazing canter with huge step under. I would not consider him an eventing prospect but we do cavaletti with decent form. If I focused on training that aspect he would likely do fine. He does struggle with carrying behind, but I also got him after 6 years of amish buggy horse life and working in an overcheck, pulling himself along on his forehand. Now that we’ve built some good topline and hind end muscle, its way better.

He is a rescue/repurpose, I often wish I had gotten him as an unstarted 2 year old to see the blank slate. He is somewhat spicy but honestly, it’s more PTSD (he worries about stuff easily) and no more than the MAJORITY of WBs I’ve worked with that were purpose bred dressage horses. And #3 and #5 are fairly contradictory. My coach (she trained her horse from 2 yo and just got her last score for her gold medal last year) thinks he has more than enough talent to make FEI. I’m not a big show-er myself but I have high hopes that we can get to 2nd level this year.

In working with him, I’ve found that a lot of that ewe neck/flat croup is posture and not conformation. If raised and started as a sporthorse, that muscle would develop appropriately, as it is now that he is in full dressage work. As mentioned by ASBJumper earlier, looking for that lack of tension and not the extreme movement/conformation is what I plan to do when searching for the next horse.

ETA to my already too long post: I also think part of the problem is that all anyone sees of these horses are the extremes. Check out Varvel Sporthorses or Shooting Star Farm (their stallion Jaleet). They are out there and performing well.

[Scribbler]

@fizzyfuzzybuzzy

For me, it’s not about the wow. I love their work ethic, soundness and funny personality. A lot of the things you see in harness are exaggerated by “training”, same as ASBs. If I felt brave enough to post a photo of myself (maybe I’ll PM you) I would show you my DHH. He is big, tough, gorgeous. He loves to work and never says no, even if he’s scared. His personality is the barn favorite, always wants to know what is going on, play with me and his pasture mates. He was gelded at 8 years old and a kid could handle him.

He never had a ewe neck (I pulled him out of a field 300 lbs underweight, so if he was going to have one, I would have seen it), his head is super cute and proportional for his size. He has a naturally amazing canter with huge step under. I would not consider him an eventing prospect but we do cavaletti with decent form. If I focused on training that aspect he would likely do fine. He does struggle with carrying behind, but I also got him after 6 years of amish buggy horse life and working in an overcheck, pulling himself along on his forehand. Now that we’ve built some good topline and hind end muscle, its way better.

He is a rescue/repurpose, I often wish I had gotten him as an unstarted 2 year old to see the blank slate. He is somewhat spicy but honestly, it’s more PTSD (he worries about stuff easily) and no more than the MAJORITY of WBs I’ve worked with that were purpose bred dressage horses. And #3 and #5 are fairly contradictory. My coach (she trained her horse from 2 yo and just got her last score for her gold medal last year) thinks he has more than enough talent to make FEI. I’m not a big show-er myself but I have high hopes that we can get to 2nd level this year.

In working with him, I’ve found that a lot of that ewe neck/flat croup is posture and not conformation. If raised and started as a sporthorse, that muscle would develop appropriately, as it is now that he is in full dressage work. As mentioned by ASBJumper earlier, looking for that lack of tension and not the extreme movement/conformation is what I plan to do when searching for the next horse.

Virtually every horse can do First Level Dressage. As far as “enough talent to do PSG and above,” you don’t know until you get to Fourth Level

Your rescue story is heart warming and I see why you love him. But I predict he will continue to struggle with collection.

I feel like you are early days in your dressage journey, despite having years of horse experience, which is not an insult. Have you brought a horse along to Fourth or PSG in the past? Have you schooled a lot of lateral, pirouettes, piaffe, passage? Do you have a real sense of how this horse compares to a WB or an Iberian at the same stage of training? Or to any other breed you have brought along?

You might also want to look into resources on functional conformation. In particular it can be hard to distinguish where a neck is tied in versus the inherent curve of the neck versus undermuscling versus incorrect head carriage from training or habit. Very often I see horses in “swan neck” which is both conformation and riding error.

Likewise, a flat croup is a conformational breed standard in some lines of Arab, SB, and harness horse. It’s not going to change.

For comparison, the horses that collect the best in the entire world (in different ways) are the two main cattle working breeds: performance QH and bull fighting Lusitanos. Have a look at their hind ends, not just croup but the length of hip, the angles of hock, the length of femur. That’s where collection comes from.

[DownYonder]

Ah, he sounds like a nice guy! But also sounds like an outlier, as Scribbler so aptly described in the preceding post.

"I had a horse of breed xxx that was fantastic but an outlier.”

And it is very, very difficult to consistently produce outliers because the genotype is generally not strong enough in regards to the desired traits. I guess if you bred one excellent outlier to another excellent outlier, you would have a better chance of getting a nice result, but when both parents come from families that were not ever bred to produce the qualities you want, your chances are greater that you will get a lot of undesirable traits. To me, it makes more sense to stack the deck by using parents whose genotypes are more conducive to producing the qualities I want than to take a chance on using “outliers” to produce those qualities. There is also a lot to be said for using parents whose families have PROVEN to produce desirable qualities through competition success in the chosen field.

[thereadinghorse]

Yeah, but you can wait until the foal is born an bring mare and foal for registration to a “foal show”.

[fizzyfuzzybuzzy]

OK, I’m trying to take ASBJumper’s advice and not get argumentative and combative. I really am. So after this comment I think I need to be done, since I’m not getting anything but frustration from this thread anymore. I TRULY appreciate the commenters who added their experiences - exvet, ASBJumper, bingbingbing, fivestrideline - you all have been super helpful and I have enjoyed our conversation greatly.

But it’s now devolved into talking in circles and judgement. If you only breed proven lines, the genetic pool would be incredibly small to the point of huge health issues in every breed. Do you know how evolution happens? Nature selecting MUTATIONS (read:outliers) that positively impact the species. If you discount those outliers, there will never be change, positive or negative. And you considering my lovely guy an outlier speaks more to you living in a bubble and refusing to leave than my horse. Next time, you stick your neck out and talk about your own horses, your own experiences and your own capabilities than judging a stranger on the internet. You are the reason these conversations don’t happen and progress isn’t made. Congrats!

[Willesdon]

The European WB stud books tend to exclude American breeds such as Standardbred or Saddlebred because the numbers of such horses in Europe are vanishingly small. One reason why many European WB stud books can be a bit dubious about TBs is because TB horse racing is not big business in most European countries. There is one “galloping” racecourse in The Netherlands so the Dutch are not going be producing TBs. Belgium has 150 galloping races each year, mostly won by foreign trained horses. Germany has a disproportionate influence because their small TB breeding industry does produce top European gallopers. Britain, Ireland and France are the big TB nations. The betting public in France probably has more interest in Trotting than Galloping races.

The big question might be why doesn’t America have a major WB registry? Standardbred, Saddlebred, TB, Morgan should have sufficient common genes from their past histories to produce something very useful.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@fizzyfuzzybuzzy

And you considering my lovely guy an outlier speaks more to you living in a bubble and refusing to leave than my horse. Next time, you stick your neck out and talk about your own horses, your own experiences and your own capabilities than judging a stranger on the internet. You are the reason these conversations don’t happen and progress isn’t made. Congrats!

Clearly you are unaware who some of the people are who are taking time to reply to you and talk about breeding.

Several posters on this thread are very experienced and respected breeders. They know what they are talking about.

You started the thread and solicited opinions from others concerning the viability of your idea. You then got feedback. You then got upset with the feedback you received.

Oh well. Good luck with your DHH. He sounds like a nice horse

[fivestrideline]

@Willesdon

The big question might be why doesn’t America have a major WB registry? Standardbred, Saddlebred, TB, Morgan should have sufficient common genes from their past histories to produce something very useful.

I’d hazard a guess - we don’t have the long-standing tradition and baseline, the average American rider doesn’t know or care about bloodlines (dressage riders may know the sire and damsire, but it’s more a “fun fact” than anything), and it’s SO DARN EXPENSIVE to produce a young horse in the US. Way cheaper to import something at 4-5-6 years old, why would they breed?

As others have said here, the places one can maybe turn a profit breeding horses are far off grid and out of reach of most traditional jobs and most competition venues. It’s hard to market a new breed or build a following on the scale that the Europeans have when you’re hauling for 12 hours or more each way. Same for inspections/brandings/etc.

It’s a tough crowd to inspire to care about breeding and producing an “American” WB when it’s so darn expensive most people can’t even get started…

Just my opinion!

[DownYonder]

Oh brother. I complement someone on their horse but try to offer insight about why her breeding philosophy may not work and she gets her panties in a wad. I guess I should have taken the hint from someone else to not engage with this OP, who is clearly looking for a rubber stamp on her plans.

Maybe she should have kept her flame suit zipped up (as she indicated in her first post).

[fizzyfuzzybuzzy]

@Moderator_1 can we close this topic? It’s not allowing me to delete my initial post.

[fizzyfuzzybuzzy]

For pete’s sake and for the last time - IT’S NOT A PLAN!! IT WAS ALL HYPOTHETICAL!!! PLEASE STOP ACTING LIKE I CAME HERE FOR ANYONE’S APPROVAL!!!

[fivestrideline]

Also, OP please take this kindly because I do think the discussion on breeding for the average amateur is interesting. But I hope you can understand that when you say you’d like to start a small breeding program potentially using off-purpose crosses because you love an outlier rescue case that hasn’t proven himself successful at 4th (what level has he shown successfully? Did I miss that?) but you claim he has FEI potential, that it raises some questions.

Posters have been genuinely kind and it’s been a great discussion on the ins and outs of breeding plans and why one may choose to do XYZ! That’s why I really didn’t want to make this comparison, but this is almost word for word the backstory Kate Shearer gives sometimes for why she got into breeding. It’s a bit fresh in the minds of COTH regulars, so I hope you can forgive the topic drift a bit .

It doesn’t sound like you’re headed that way - but it’s a valid thing to discuss when talking about breeding horses for a market that isn’t top dollar. Where do you find the great crosses to do the job? What’s a breeding direction that makes sense and isn’t likely to produce a wild jumble of varying types? At the end of the day every foal is another horse added to an already over-saturated population, so if you’re going to bring new horses into the world, they need to have a future that is attainable!

[fivestrideline]

@fizzyfuzzybuzzy

Asking this earnestly and zipping up a flame suit as we speak. Is there a place for breeding for the common man (lady, more likely) specifically for dressage. Where things like soundness, temperament and low maintenance beats hot, athletic and fragile but with insane movement. With 95% or more of riders never getting to a national competition, never mind an international competition, why does it seem that most purpose-bred dressage horses are too spicy, too hard to sit, etc with the main goal seemingly to get them all to GP.

Plus, if you want something purpose bred you’re going to pay for a horse that potentially will make GP if kept in a professional program. If you can’t afford that, you’re working with an “off-breed” that will struggle because they weren’t bred to do the job.

As a side note, this is all hypothetical and not pointing the finger at anyone. I don’t breed, or even have a mare or stallion to breed or market. Just winter pondering when I don’t want to brave the cold and work my horse.

QFP post 1. Since it may go poof and this is a good topic

[Willesdon]

@fivestrideline There is also the military influence. European nation states were breeding horses for war for several centuries before shifting to sport after WWII - with the exception of Britain. The TB, the ultimate sport horse, developed over centuries with no assistance from any British Government.

In the USA, the Army Remount Programme was very influential in the evolution of what became the AQH, based in the big, open rangelands where raising horses was cheap.

And, thinking a bit more, given this discussion about ammy-friendly breeding, the European WB was an army remount to be ridden by conscripts or it worked as a farm horse to be called up in times of war. Temperament does count in any successful breeding programme.

[fivestrideline]

@Willesdon

There is also the military influence. European nation states were breeding horses for war for several centuries before shifting to sport after WWII - with the exception of Britain. The TB, the ultimate sport horse, developed over centuries with no assistance from any British Government.

In the USA, the Army Remount Programme was very influential in the evolution of what became the AQH, based in the big, open rangelands where raising horses was cheap.

This is a good point! I guess you could say the true “American Warmblood” is the QH, in some ways.

We don’t have a long history of plow and harness horses either (what has survived is the Morgan and the Saddleseat breeds). To be fair, the US doesn’t have a “long history” of anything when comparing it to Europe. We just haven’t existed as long.

[DownYonder]

I am not sure it is conducive to what was an interesting and productive discussion for someone to act like a 3-year old stomping her feet because she doesn’t get her way.

[Scribbler]

@fizzyfuzzybuzzy

Asking this earnestly and zipping up a flame suit as we speak. Is there a place for breeding for the common man (lady, more likely) specifically for dressage. Where things like soundness, temperament and low maintenance beats hot, athletic and fragile but with insane movement. With 95% or more of riders never getting to a national competition, never mind an international competition, why does it seem that most purpose-bred dressage horses are too spicy, too hard to sit, etc with the main goal seemingly to get them all to GP.

Plus, if you want something purpose bred you’re going to pay for a horse that potentially will make GP if kept in a professional program. If you can’t afford that, you’re working with an “off-breed” that will struggle because they weren’t bred to do the job.

As a side note, this is all hypothetical and not pointing the finger at anyone. I don’t breed, or even have a mare or stallion to breed or market. Just winter pondering when I don’t want to brave the cold and work my horse.

You can’t delete a thread. And it’s rather rude to behead a useful thread where people have responded with knowledge and sincerity

[K_VanOlst]

@fivestrideline

(what level has he shown successfully? Did I miss that?)

@fizzyfuzzybuzzy

I’m not a big show-er myself but I have high hopes that we can get to 2nd level this year.

Doesn’t specifically answer to what level he has shown but not at 2nd yet.

[Scribbler]

Our of curiosity I did look up OPs posting history and they’ve started many threads over the years wondering about switching careers, starting a boarding and training barn, moving to a warmer climate, etc. And a prior thread several years back about breeding for dressage. None of which seem to have happened which is fine.

So I can see that this thread may have been more a hypothetical balloon floating kind of post and we all.took it more seriously than the OP wanted.

But people really do get into trouble breeding horses they can’t sell for enough money to recoup costs. It happens all the time though not always blowing up to a level that COTH would notice. As hay and care costs skyrocket it’s more and more risky. I have two cautionary tales in my immediate network neither of which I’m going to put on blast. But both ended up with rehoming unbroken horses in their teens when life changes happened. And horses suffered.

[DownYonder]

@fivestrideline

@Willesdon

There is also the military influence. European nation states were breeding horses for war for several centuries before shifting to sport after WWII - with the exception of Britain. The TB, the ultimate sport horse, developed over centuries with no assistance from any British Government.

In the USA, the Army Remount Programme was very influential in the evolution of what became the AQH, based in the big, open rangelands where raising horses was cheap.

This is a good point! I guess you could say the true “American Warmblood” is the QH, in some ways.

We don’t have a long history of plow and harness horses either (what has survived is the Morgan and the Saddleseat breeds). To be fair, the US doesn’t have a “long history” of anything when comparing it to Europe. We just haven’t existed as long.

I agree that the closest America has come to producing its own version of a “warmblood” is the Quarter Horse. The American Saddlebred could also be considered in that vein, although both of course were developed for different purposes than what we know as “European Warmbloods.”

I am long enough in the tooth to remember when AHSA (the precursor to USEF) was run primarily by and for the Saddlebred folks - when the headquarters was in NYC - and the sport horse disciplines were sort of a step child (so to speak) of the old USET. Then USOC decreed that a sport could have only one governing body and USEF was born, which focuses very much on sport horses for the Olympic disciplines. I also think that the old AHSA focus on Saddlebreds was one of the reasons why the QH folks founded their own organization - they wanted more control of rules and regulations that were more conducive to the growth of their breed and their respective “disciplines” than of show and saddle horses.