I was just visiting with someone and she was telling me about a new horse. She said he is 1/2 warmblood because his mom is Morgan/wb and the sire is draft/wb so 1/4 from each makes half.
Not arguing the math, just curious how this works. Does the 2 quarters equal as much/strong
inherited qualities as a 1/2?
I hope what I am asking makes sense!
Generally, a 1/2 x 1/2 cross is less predictable and with a greater variation in type.
A) I don’t know.
B) What I do know is that DNA inheritance is not precise.
The general public with some general familiarity of DNA tends to expect that half is half, a quarter is 25%, and so on down the line. They like the idea that they can see 25% of this and an eighth of that, and so on, by applying math to the family line.
DNA doesn’t work that way – if it did, all offspring of the same parents would be identical.
What further complicates the question is that in most of the world, and technically in the US also when it comes to registries, “warmbloods” aren’t breeds the way we think of QH or TBs but rather are breeding registries based on “type”. So the 1/4 and 1/4 WB pieces aren’t as straightforward.
If you’re familiar with wines, it’s kinda like “appellation” in which a “Westphalian”, for example, is a horse “type” developed in Westphalia originally from various bloodstock.
But the real answer to your answer is, it depends? Some traits are dominant and will express more readily. And it really depends on the individual horses too…some dams just “stamp” their offspring, so the stallion matters less.
I will say anecdotally that most sport breeders do want at dilute draft blood to 1/4 (and beyond) to maintain the bone, and hopefully calmer personality, while refining for better gaits, finer neck/head, etc. Some traits seem harder to breed out of drafts, like steep shoulder, goose rump, so it’s best to use drafts that already have a more suitable build to begin with.
But there’s always that element of unpredictability.
What I hear is hardest to get with these crosses is the stamina and cardiovascular efficiency of any TB introduced. So that’s why you won’t see (m)any of them in high level eventing, for example, and most of the “pure” WBs in high level sport have a good measure of TB blood.
Ask her what registry he is in. If he’s not registered as a WB, he isn’t really one. The draft and Morgan genetics also pull in different directions from the typical WB type. He might be a nice phenotype or he might not. He might have sport talent or he might not. He’s likely a sturdy lower level horse but I would not expect this cross to be a high level sport horse. But then even WB covers a fair bit of territory and quality and ability. And draft can mean Clydesdale or Percheron or Shire, each of which produce quite different crosses with distinct looks.
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