I don’t think that’s true in this case, nor quite fair.
Here’s the problem (as understood in 20th century terms, but understood in terms of “blood” for most of a century prior to that). In a nut shell, it’s that genes come on chromosomes.
What that means is that when you are selecting for one trait you want, you are really selecting for parts of a chromosome. Thus, the other adjacent genes (really, alleles, or versions of a gene that occupies a given position on a chromosome) gets dragged along with it. This is how deleterious recessive alleles get maintained in a breeding population. Those can remain hidden or unexpressed in individuals, but they are heritable. And when you have enough individuals, selected for the trait you wanted on that section of chromosome that also had the bad recessive trait, you will get an individual with two recessive alleles and the heritable disease will show up.
My point is that plant and animal breeders have not been careless or loose-thinking in their work on selective breeding for the past 175 years. Rather, until people can start selecting for- and against genes individually and not have to select for or against all the genes on sections of chromosomes at once, we will have this problem.
We (we defined as humans) didn’t seek out HERDA and HYPP, we didn’t even define it as an acceptable trade off going into our selection bias, but we sure wanted a halter quarter horse with more defined muscling so we could win. That those two conditions are unhappily genetically linked wasn’t at all what we intended. But being humans, a certain number of people went out of their way to ignore it for a very long time, because it worked out really well for them. <---- it happens overanoverandover when we are there ones breeding animals and supporting the offspring. It happens in nature too, but nature has a crappy support system for the weaker ones. We just focus on developing better footing.
And you would think that when the day comes that we can really tinker at the genetic level that all our problem would be solved, but I’m betting we will just continue to be surprised that, yet again, things didn’t work to plan. It’s really our finest super power as a species.
I respectfully disagree. While genes that have no relation to the “desired” phenotype can be inadvertently selected for because of proximity to other genes in some cases, extravagant movement doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and form and function tend to be impossible to fully separate from one another.
What is the “basis” of extravagant movement? Is it purely a personality quirk, in that some horses are born with a desire to float above the ground in their gaits? Or is there a structural mechanism underlying the fancy gaits that also causes unsoundness? Are skeletal abnormalities “bystanders” that are being dragged along with great movement because of how chromosomes work? Or is there an underlying mechanism causing both, such that they can’t be separated from one another?
I don’t think dressage breeders are as willfully blind as, say, halter breeders knowingly breeding HYPP horses to get bulkier muscles, but the fact remains that many (most?) of these horses with extreme movement are not staying sound, and many have also been used for breeding at a young age without a proven soundness record, due to the human desire for that trait.
Reading all of this makes me wonder if the ASBs with their high floating action also have these unwanted gene complexes.
I do know that Arabians have the pastern problems, one source (there are probably many sources) is "Abeyah 39 (from pictures when she was older). One of her grandsons, Antez, was popular as a sire at the Kellogg breeding farm in California. The Davenports have HEAVY line and inbreeding (I did the inbreeding coefficients on around 200 pure Davenports, nowadays these inbreeding coefficients are HIGH. The highest I got 40 years ago was over 30%.) However not all pure Davenports have long, weak pasterns, and not all of them break down in old age, and EVERY Davenport has multiple crosses to *Abeyah 39. Interestingly the vast majority of Davenports do not have the one Davenport import with high trotting action, *Haleb 25, he left no sire line and his daughters did breed on, some in the Davenports and many more in the general Arabian population, but they are not of overwhelming importance to the Arabian breed.
To get deeper in the Davenport breeding, we get the *Abeyah 39 blood in conjunction with the blood of *Deyr 33, who had at least one club foot, was NOT known for high action, and has the only Davenport sire line to occasionally produce National Champions in the Arabian shows. Antez, the major source of *Abeyah 39 genes in Arabians was of the *Deyr 33 sire line (grandson.) Also, the Davenport stallion with the most genetic influence on the pure Davenport AND the bigger Arabian breed, *Hamrah 28, did not have high action at the trot, or long pasterns (*Hamrah 28’s genetic influence on the Davenport Arabians is that each pure Davenport/Hamadie is around 25% *Hamrah 28 blood.)
We obviously need yet another genetic test to “solve” these problems. Intense pedigree research of horses know to have these problems can help, but when there is a lot of inbreeding or line breeding we will need a genetic test. Right now if I was breeding horses of any breed I would be avoiding all breeding stock with LONG pasterns and learn how to ride a much more jarring sitting trot.
Agree. There is a very popular breeding stallion that is known to, sometimes, pass on terrible neck x-rays. He is not line bred. Would never risk breeding to him after seeing the x-rays in one of his offspring. To heart breaking
Here is a screenshot, not even going to attempt to type that name. It’s a German group but the translate function works OK, and some of the content is in English.
Fusaichi Pegasus sold for $4 million as a yearling, and I believe was originally syndicated for $60-70 million after he won the Kentucky Derby. His value dropped dramatically after he failed to be a top level sire.
Several others on this list were expensive yearlings or 2yo (The Green Monkey) that subsequently flopped on the racetrack or at stud.
I don’t have full access to this article but it states 20 to 40 percent of European horses show this fault. I have never heard of it.
I would have thought it would have been identified in thoroughbreds if prevalent considering how much vetting is done at the sales and this condition would seem adverse to racing performance.
Sorry, I have not yet read most of the replies and won’t until tomorrow (bed-time).
Thank you for posting this, OP! I agree with much of what this vet says. I do very much believe that many large breeders breed in Europe breed for auction horses that are pushed beyond what they physically can sustain. That has always been my major problem with the Young Horse program in America and even brought it up to Scott Hassler once, who did not disagree. So many of the auction and young horse champions are lame by 9 or 10. Some of it is being overworked on their young bodies, some of it is due to genes that produce initial flashy movement but are ultimately detrimental to the horse. Stallions and mares go on to breed (make more money for the owners) and pass on and concentrate genes associated with lameness. My horse’s full brother was a stallion retired from breeding for passing on the FFS gene. More and more, these genes can be tested for and researched, but the research is slow. DSLD is a real thing but I don’t think at the moment it can be genetically tested for.
@Sticky_Situation Not necessarily. Going back some, Anky’s horse Bonfire was an extravagant mover for the time but was not always a correct mover and was never correct in the piaffe until maybe 16?. The extravagant gaits won much. But the horse was campaigned through 18, I think. Isabell Werth has campaigned several of her WC and Olympic horses through their teens. Quality riding and management means alot. I can think of many Olympic level horses that were sound through their teens, including Valegro. Pretty much, Olympic, WC level horses are considered as quite young under 11.
The Warmblood registries can be compared to the AQHA, because when HYPP appeared in a certain bloodline, the AQHA breeders (and the AQHA) stuck their respective heads in the sand and did not deal with the autosomal dominant gene for DECADES.
Warmblood breeders may not have such identifiable genetic issues now, but they should damn well be looking for them and tracing them to the bloodline.
If no one will keep track of the sires, and dam lines that are producing horses that have issues that result in them being put down at a relatively young age? Then, no one is taking responsibility for their “breed” or “registry”.
AQHA was the same, it was all about the breed money, about the stud fees earned and sales of young stock. In the AQHA, the “muscling” that was popular from the Sire named “Impressive” a rather extreme version of a “halter” horse (and now breeders seem to be going extreme with the “elasticity” in some WB Dressage horses) it seems as though we should really be careful if breeding for the extreme.
There was then, and could be now, an autosomal dominant, or a recessive genetic issue, that is causing disorders in many young Warmbloods. Breeders need to study the problem when horses are being imported to the U.S. and elsewhere , when they are having to be put down at a young age… No better are the responses from the WB registries to these issues, than were the shrug and acceptance of HYPP by the AQHA.
The lack of response, research and accountability, is disheartening.
That is unfair criticism of the AQHA when it comes to how HYPP was not controlled any sooner than it was.
The real story is out there, but the myth persist that " they knew and didn’t do anything because of the money".
The AQHA had the firm idea that doing best for the horses was paramount.
To keep the registry clean of undesirable genes, they followed what science at that time indicated was best.
At that time the white rule, to keep paint horses out of the registry, AQHA horses were not supposed to be paints, was important.
Well, dropout horses kept happening, horses born with more white markings than permitted.
Some very powerful/rich dissenting members with that white rule decided to sue the AQHA over that rule, insisting the offspring from two duly registered horses should be eligible for registration no matter what color.
The AQHA fought for the right to make their rules as they saw best and, at a terrible financial cost, lost.
That loss took so much of their reserves that the association was struggling for years from those.
In that situation HYPP happened and again, some very powerful members with very deep pockets were threatening with lawsuits at every step the AQHA tried to provide rules to keep HYPP out, once there was credible science and testing possible to do so.
The AQHA at that time still was struggling financially and definitely could not afford more lawsuits they may not win, that is why rules to eliminate HYPP or any other such took so long to be established and are as they are now. Their legal department is who determined what could be done and how best to go about it without getting into more lawsuits.
It worked, but sure set best genetic practice for the breed back, sadly.
Registries can only do so much, AQHA did what it could, given the circumstances.
The Jockey Club was in similar circumstances when it went to live cover only and were lucky to have the more powerful/rich members behind them, not the ones against it.
Associations can only do so much, make mistakes at times, other times they are working for the best for their breed best they may and some times that may just fall short, as happened to the AQHA with HYPP.
They too have to abide by laws, can’t just do what they wish, add or change rules at will, just because they run the association, as the very costly white rule lawsuit proved and all such associations took notice.
However, the buck stops with the breeders , and breeders were allowed to breed known dominant carriers of a deadly disease that could have easily been eliminated by responsible breeding. The AQHA allowed people to keep on breeding horses that passed on a devastating , many times deadly, and entirely preventable disease.
No monetary or legal excuse is acceptable to me. I saw several HYPP horses that breeders knowingly bred and sold and the heartbreak of the kids who watched their first horse die, when the breeders knew it could/would happen.
Some Warmblood breeders may stick their heads in the sand as well, rather than identify issues with their bloodstock… It too bad.
AQHA executives and supporting members agonized over that just as you do, but their hands were tied by the legal environment they had to work under, to their everlasting surprise, as doing what is best for the breed used to be possible before that one lost lawsuit.
We had one top bred wonderful representative of the breed that had, against old white rule, one white spot under his belly 1/4" bigger than permitted, a quarter coin didn’t quite cover it, so he was rejected for registry.
We abided by the rules, we didn’t go find legal loopholes to sue, but others disagreed and sued and won, notwithstanding what the AQHA and common sense dictates.
That is life, some times what is right doesn’t win, we should learn from it, not unwarrantedly crucify those that lost.
That is my point.
There was quite a lot of feeling against pintos in “serious” breeds in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. They were considered flashy and tacky, or ponies or gypsy cobs or mustangs.
