A DVM mentor of mine used to say, “by Trailer, out of The West.”
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Ha, we say “By Truck, out of The Trailer”
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Kate appears to have some background in Arab world (unclear on this) but no real background in English sport horse disciplines as far as I know.
We have a big local Arab show. The Arab x WB “sport horses” can be lovely creatures that dont look very typy Arab. The saddle seat crosses are their own thing, and an Arab x DHH or Hackney could certainly get that result. Again, can be very nice horses of their type.
It’s possible that if Kate got her start in Arab world, she doesn’t see the knees and the flat croup as being undesirable for English sport horses. It’s also possible she saw DHH in Arab crossbreds. And then figured out that the really big money is in sport horse with European WB stallions. But she actually has no idea what conformation and movement you want in dressage, hunters, or jumping. Because she doesn’t understand the sport horse world, ams her eye has been trained on Arabian circuit.
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So we’ve gone from “what people do Saddleseat?” To “the Arabian people are to blame”
Completely ignoring that other breeds show saddleseat and the Arabian people have highly popular sport horse shows and often compete in the open world. But sure, let’s blame the Arabian people on Kate’s breeding program.
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That is not how I read that, they are simply saying that if Kate’s experience is in that area, that would explain why she thinks a horse with that much knee action should go to a hunter barn.
Not blaming the Arabian show scene for anything. Just the fact that how a hunter horse in that world moves being different than how a hunter horse in the hunter world moves. Neither is wrong. They are just very different.
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FWIW She may also mean 1.7 “doses”-for example SBS freezes in “straws” with 8 straws per dose, so you could have…75 (3/4) of a dose if two straws were used elsewhere/broke.
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I was not blaming the Arab people. There are very nice horses, full and cross, in Arab world. Some are competitive in open breed sports, and some are not intended to be, like saddle seat horses. And maybe some show surprise skills, and there’s a NSH doing 3rd level dressage or jumping a meter.
But it’s indisputable that Arabs and saddle seat and harness horses can tend towards flatter croups than sport bred horses, and have very different canters, and different neck sets.
If a person’s eye was trained on Arab shows, and they don’t understand the basics of sport horse mechanics, and they decide to go breed for a discipline they don’t understand, that could explain they you look at flat crouped high headed horses with pogo canters and think this is hunter material.
I’d add that foals in general tend to have higher head sets and floatier gaits than they will as adults, so Kate may think her foals don’t look that much different from sport bred WB. But it’s clear as they age that they come out looking more like the harness side of things.
I expect Kate knew she couldn’t find a niche in Arab world breeding, so moved over to the larger and more expensive sport horse world. But it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t understand the biomechanics of sport horses.
It’s so odd to have someone persevere in breeding harness lines for sport that I have to think that she just doesn’t have an eye for sport horses at all, and what eye she does have is trained on Arabs.
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I may have to use this explanation next time I am trying to explain it to a bunch of stock horse kids the night before their first judging contest at US Nationals!
That said there was nothing like taking a group of kids who have never been to anything other than a stock breed show to watch finals of Park in Freedom Hall. OKC has many many advantages but it will never be quite the same. The bleachers don’t make the same noise no matter how hard one tries, the green shavings don’t look the same, there is no runway into the pen.
Change is inevitable though.
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Or “by Truck, out of Idaho”
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Again, weird how Arabian people have an entire sport horse section with sport horse conformed horses who compete and hold their own in the dressage and hunter world. Yes, purebred arabians compete and win in pony hunters, one finished 10th this year. Just because you think one person started in Arabs, don’t blame an entire ownership of them for not knowing and breeding conformation differences for different sports. Considering that this BB had no idea Main Ring existed until today, not every Arabian is built and suited for that.
You’re really insulting a lot of Arabian people to justify one person’s breeding program.
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It’s Out of Missouri by Trailer here
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It’s also possible she’s just winging it
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There is Arabian in a lot of sport horses pedigrees. Trakehner, for example. Look up Abdullah. Both sire and dam go back to Fetysz.
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She means 1.7 straws. They split small amounts off straws for ICSI.
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There’s a lot of Arabian in everything.
Nevertheless, we don’t see a lot of purebred Arabians in higher levels of jumping, dressage and eventing. We also don’t see a lot of QH or full draft or hackneys. We see some TB in jumping and eventing, some Iberians in dressage, and a whole lot of purpose bred WB.
Noting that different breeds have different abilities is not being insulting.
We don’t see many WB as cutting horses or barrel racers. We don’t see many Iberians jumping over a meter. We don’t see many Clydesdales doing endurance. We don’t see QH doing saddle seat. We don’t see hackneys in hunter classes. We don’t race Friesians against TB. Etc etc.
The flat croups, swan necks, and pogo canters of Kate’s brood mares and most of her foals are not what you ideally want in dressage or jumpers. The trot is lovely, but it’s not the whole story even for contemporary dressage with it’s focus on extended trot.
All I’m saying is she doesn’t seem to see this. And if she’s around Arabs, flat croups and swan necks are perfectly acceptable. That’s not saying Arabian horses are “bad.” Just that they are built in a different way for different jobs.
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I posted this on the HJ thread, but decided to share it here as well in reply to your post.
I did stumble across some information that MIGHT explain the breeding program.
Kate claimed to have evented since age 7, and started riding at a very young age 
She also claimed to have ridden mostly TBs and ISH, until she acquired a DHH gelding from Maryland in 2012 for a low 4 figure price. She claimed this DHH was named “Bear” and that he made his Grand Prix jumping debut in 2014.
I have no idea if this is true or not… this is just the information I saw. Apparently she believes that DHH have inherent talent for jumping at a high level.
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I wrote 
earlier this year, in response to her arrogant slamming of her former braider.
It’s Karma, Kate Shearer
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Ah this makes sense. And a poster on the other thread confirms this horse was nowhere near Grand Prix ever.
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and “hunter pleasure” horses too, where correct hunter movement is ignored in favor of dragging hocks and overshod fronts breaking three quarters level while the horses hang well behind the vertical.
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Perhaps in the awful mess that is now show hack, which is pretty much another saddleseat style class with a different outfit where people flop like dead fish when trying to sit the trot and there are no real collected or extended gaits, just a teeny bit faster or slower.
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