Fragility of the Modern Performance Horse - Breeding or Husbandry?

[DMK]

In addition to all the good points noted above, I have to believe there is a price to pay when you go down the road of breeding for ONE specific task. Once humans intervene to get a better jump, faster racehorse, more elevated and/or collected trot, more knee action, longer necks, more feathers, more spots… you name it. Once we start playing around in the genetic soup, we usually start out good then things inevitably go downhill.

Talking about too large horses, too small feet, various genetic disorders and so on, to me those are symptoms are that larger problem.

I started thinking about this when I learned about Fjords. One of the things I’ve always had beat over my head like a cudgel is the TB is doomed, doomed, I say because they are so narrowly bred, blah blah blah. They’ve reached their genetic limits thanks to a small pool. Meanwhile off in Norway, the fjord was almost gone from the planet before they carefully bought back the studbook from the few remaining horses. It was always a genetically isolated/unique breed, way longer than the few hundred years TBs have to show for genetic purity/isolation and then it REALLY narrowed. Contrary to expectations, fjords are typically the hardiest, long lived, healthiest, no vet bill kind of horse you will find.

Teeny tiny gene puddle. Hardy horses.

But unlike all those other breeds, nobody was trying too hard to specialize fjords into any one bucket, there were and continue to be a generalist. And they certainly weren’t over managing the stock, fairly harsh nature was doing most of the weeding out and humans were just adapting accordingly. Obviously that fjord isn’t going to be beating any of those specialists when they are anywhere close to the top of their game (which is OK by me, because neither am I!) but maybe that is the lesson here. If you want the specialist then you have to accept the risk that comes with all the genetic choices that took that horse’s ancestors to the edge of equine ability. And unfortunately most of us will never ever get close to that horse that is the superstar at the outer edge of ability, but everyone gets the consequences of all the actions taken along the way of breeding the superstar.

[fledermaus]

This topic is one of the biggest hornets in my hat. First, breeding for extremes is going to damage any breed, any type. Breeding for the fastest possible two year old? The most superduper elastic flashy movement? The biggest, the tiniest, the flashiest, the highest, the anything-est is going to by its very nature going to move toward unsoundness, because you are pushing the limits of the design. “Rare colors” that are rare for very good reasons is another horrible new trend.

Next, we have people ignoring unsoundnesses and poor conformation when breeding, if those can be masked or treated. I know a lady with a large breeding barn of Paint show horses, all of which have to be shod, even broodmares, or their hoofs crumble. She keeps breeding them and they keep winning. This is not an anomaly.

Then, we keep horses in an utterly unnatural state from birth. Living in a box most of their lives, fed on a schedule, taken out to exercise in an enclosed space doing the same movements over and over and over and over. Is it any wonder horses are doing so poorly?

I didn’t have a horse for forty years, after I left for college, because I absolutely will not keep an animal if I can’t keep it under optimal conditions. Finally I moved to a place where I could keep horses outside, on pasture not dry lot, all day, all night, all weathers. They have bedded stalls if they want them but they rarely do, even in New England winters.

My mare grew up in a herd, on hilly rocky pasture. She was not backed until she was almost five years old. She is also 14.2 and a general-purpose type Morgan. I chose her because of her size, her big hard feet, and her upbringing seemed likely to be long term assets. (also she is pretty, well-put-together, and has a steady mind). She is mainly a trail horse, and she can go for many miles, up steep rocky hills and swimming rivers, and she has never been unsound. All I do is “have fun” with my horse.

When I got back into horses I was astonished at how utterly artificial the lives of most ridden horses had become in my long absence. In the 1970’s I didn’t know anyone who had a horse which wasn’t ridden on trails. I didn’t know anyone who was afraid to take their horse out of a groomed arena. But now I sure do. I don’t want to go back to the days where vets de-wormed your horse by shoving a tube up its nose! But there are a lot of things that are no improvement.

[whbar158]

I think there are a lot of factors, breeding, care and technology for today.

How many people breed their mare because she can’t stay sound enough for performance? Many people don’t intentionally breed for unsoundness but how often do you see that in one of the “Im looking for a stallion with these qualities” post? While in the past when horses were working horses soundness would have been a top priority.

We also keep them up, pound them before they are fit, ride them out less than older generations. I live out west, my horse lives in a big pipe stall and is lucky to go out for 30 mins-1 hour once a week. Coming from the east coast and having kept my horses out at least 8 hours a day it pains me. But I also don’t let my mare sit in her stall. I am out 6 days a week to get her out, sure she doesn’t get time to just be a horse in a field but I make sure she gets out for a good walk at least 6 times a week, and take her out on the trails 1-2 times a week too.

Also we have therapies to keep horses going at times they should probably be given a break or to do work their bodies just can not hold up to. We bring horses back from what would have been career ending injuries before, we can inject every joint it seems. We also can see and treat injuries better-so we hear of more suspensory issues vs in the 70’s when maybe someone just turns there horse out for 2 months because it was off.

I don’t think you can point at just one thing, it seems a combination of how things are different. But I also still know plenty of horses that are sound into their 20’s.

[Texarkana]

Of course I think both husbandry and genetics affect soundness. Yet something that gets discounted, in my opinion, is how cultural changes have influenced soundness of performance horses (which is slightly different than husbandry alone).

Our view of horses has shifted from livestock to companions, meaning we tend to have different care and quality of life expectations. I suspect people work a lot harder to keep a chronically unsound horse around today than they did in years past, when they might have been sold (locally) for meat without much remorse, or dispatched of on the farm. I don’t know if we have more unsound horses today than we did in years past, but we certainly see more of them since it’s harder for horses to quietly disappear.

Another cultural factor is that horses have become specialists instead of generalists. Most of today’s horse sports are dominated by horses heavily bred for their very specific form of competition. Along those same lines, horses don’t “cross train” anymore; not that we ever called it cross training, but a horse often had more than one job around the farm or did something else in the off season. Yet most of today’s professional horsemen focus on one style of competition year round. Pretty much everything in physiology and sports medicine agrees that repetition of the same movements leads to injuries, yet we completely disregard that principle when conditioning modern performance horses. shrug

[stock]

I think breeding is a huge issue here, to the points others have raised about certain breeds having been overbred for certain characteristics and thus developing the “side effect” of those characteristics.

The reason this happens is that complex characteristics-like a long arab neck, extravagant warmblood movement, or speed in a TB, are all likeley polygenic (multi-gene) characteristics. As you selectively breed the best to the best, you are selecting across a whole series of genes. Cumulatively you end up with a much more pronounced characteristic, but likely genes that are ok in isolation, become increasingly pathogenic as they are concentrated in their phenotypic effect.

I adopted two mustangs last year, so it has been interesting to see this effect in reverse-ie what does mother nature feel is most essential in a horse in an arid terrain? Giant ears, huge hooves, big-boned legs, the ability to stay fat on air, a think (four inch!!) winter coat, soundness and a certain wariness seem essential.

Interestingly mother nature doesnt care if a horse is gaited or not, stocky or light, high neck or low neck, hindquarters of every variety, steep or sloped shoulders, and nature certainly doesnt care if you have a dished, convex or straight face. Mother nature does not care if you move like low like a barb, break even like a saddlebred, a morgan or a long and lean like a TB, just that you dont go lame.

The other neat thing I have observed is that each Mustang herd management area looks phenotypically unique on things mother nature doesnt care about. Often they look like the pictures of the old strains of saddlebreds, morgans, standardbreds, thoroughbreds or Canadian horses of the mid-late 1800s that founded each particular Herd Management Area. These strains often look NOTHING like the modern versions of the same breeds, which are much more extreme.

Many times they show much more pronounced musculature in the shoulders, as the progenitor animals were dual purpose harness/riding animals, and they needed the shoulder strength to push with.

The most isolated regions still retain a look quite resembling an african barb, with a typical barb hindquarters and convex profile and they get called “spanish” although folks fight about who gets to claim what title, horse people, lol.

One of my mares does a running walk, looks like a standardbred, and is the spitting image of a TWH progenitor strain that was a very common saddlehorse in kentucky called the “Tom Hal” horse. It looks nothing like a modern TWH. My other mare is very spanish with a barb butt, and convex profile. My next one will be one of the morgan types (Those beautiful butts, shoulders and necks!) and Im also excited about some of the saddlebred types, as they are such lovely movers, although they can be from HMAs that are more excitable, so take more time to gentle.

Interestingly, most horses stopped “working” in the early 1900s and became highly focused playthings. Up to that point, lameness was not optional and horses typically worked hard every day at a job. They were bred and screened to perform a real job. From then on out-for 15 to 20 generations, we have no longer been mandating a hard day’s work and continued soundness with minimal upkeep in our purebred animals, instead allowing minutia to accumulate with each generation that leads to a more fragile animal.

A notion would be that rather than maintaining closed studbooks and purebreds, we should instead adopt open stud books and occasionally cross domestic stock back onto the multi-generational feral stock to bred back in the hardiness and resilience mother nature has mandated.