German vet discusses flawed breeding and issues with movement

[sascha]

@Alterration

So what the mare owner would be requesting of the stallion owner is just his blood type?

Yup!

[sascha]

@endlessclimb

That may be the case, but judging a stallion owner for saying “nah, I’m good” when a mare owner presents with that is really unfair.

The mare owner is awfully entitled if she feels slighted when told no.

It was the case and no-one felt slighted in the least when told no. Were heads shaken and eyebrows raised over such a simple request? Yes. And then the mare owner moved on until she found a couple of really good matches both in stallion and in blood type. It was no big deal, but very interesting to watch it play out, “Oh yes, good match, let’s get a contract signed. Oh wait, blood type? Uh, yeah, no.” LOL!

[Warmblood1]

@Alterration

Ahhh, so it’s sort of like being Rh- in humans? So what the mare owner would be requesting of the stallion owner is just his blood type? Seems like a reasonable request to me.

Some stallion owners will go ahead and test and have it on file - Iron Spring Farm does it at least for their Friesian stallions, maybe more. It’s up to the stallion owner and what they wish to do. The mare may have been “declined” for a multitude of reasons and they felt no need to test. Maybe the mare owner behaved the way sascha does and they simply didn’t want to work with the MO. Who knows.

[sascha]

@Warmblood1

The mare may have been “declined” for a multitude of reasons and they felt no need to test.

Again with the inability to read for comprehension:

@sascha

It was no big deal, but very interesting to watch it play out, “Oh yes, good match, let’s get a contract signed. Oh wait, blood type? Uh, yeah, no.” LOL!

[Alterration]

@Warmblood1

Some stallion owners will go ahead and test and have it on file - Iron Spring Farm does it at least for their Friesian stallions, maybe more. It’s up to the stallion owner and what they wish to do. The mare may have been “declined” for a multitude of reasons and they felt no need to test. Maybe the mare owner behaved the way sascha does and they simply didn’t want to work with the MO. Who knows.

Of course that’s a possibility. And some stallion owners might be a little psychotic and be unreasonable about things too.

[Warmblood1]

Oh, for sure. I will go out of my way to work with a good SO. There are some SOs with incredible stallions that I just will not purchase semen or a contract from solely because of the way the SO operates. Breeding is hard enough.

That said, my main qualm is pawning all blame onto stallion owners without even knowing the specifics to a situation. It’s an unnecessary hardship, especially since breeding and stallion ownership, especially in the US, are so difficult.

[Alterration]

@Warmblood1

That said, my main qualm is pawning all blame onto stallion owners without even knowing the specifics to a situation. It’s an unnecessary hardship, especially since breeding and stallion ownership, especially in the US, are so difficult.

Totally get that too.

The horse business is difficult no matter which end of it you’ve got right now!

[DawnJL]

@DawnJL

Not disagreeing with your general premise

I thought that part made it clear that I was not arguing against the rights of stallion owners to determine which requests from mare owners were reasonable from their perspective and was simply clarifying that NI wasn’t a heritable defect.

(I’m a stallion owner and a mare owner so I have been on both sides of special requests. I try to be respectful and reasonable in both roles.)

[Warmblood1]

@ThreeFigs

My Mom bred German Shepherds. She requested that any bitch she was to breed have good OFA certified hips and elbows before she would accept a stud fee.

Soundness and good disposition were very important to her – a bad breeding outcome reflects on both parents and the breeder.

This may have no connection to what you guys are discussing – I’m just stating what an ethical breeder might do to preserve their stock’s reputation.

Well said as far as breeders wanting to preserve their reputations. It’s very true.

I’m also thrilled your mom required hip and elbow certification. It drives me up the wall that dog breeders don’t require this, especially in high prone breeds. I think dog breeding has some horribly low standards. I also believe the average inbreeding coefficient is much higher in dogs which makes the genetic issues much more prominent. IIRC the average COI is ~25-40 percent within dog breeds. When I worked in the small animal field, I certainly saw more consistent genetic disorders and traits within the dog breeds.

[EventerAJ]

Curiously following the NI discussion, as both a stallion owner and mare owner. In my experience in the TB industry, most (all, in my care) mares are blood tested for NI. I never had one come back positive, but we always tested anyway. It was never any responsibility of the stud farm to produce blood tests. If a mare was positive, it was handled appropriately at time of foaling: foal muzzled to prevent ingestion of his dam’s colostrum, and tubed with safe donor colostrum instead. No big deal after 24-36hrs, IF you knew to be prepared. For high dollar mares and expensive stallions, resulting in expensive foals, I doubt the incompatible blood type would influence stallion selection, if the stallion was a good match otherwise.

NI is more of a risk when a mare is bred back to the same stallion multiple times. It happens when a mare suffers a wound (tear, laceration) while foaling, and umbilical blood enters her bloodstream; if foal’s bloodtype is different, her body will make antibodies against it (next year), which then go into the colostrum for the next foal. If that foal ingests antibodies against its own blood, well, thats a very bad thing. Again, preventable if you know the colostrum will cause NI. There are 7 different blood types in horses, and relatively few mares suffer injury plus exposure to fetal blood, so in most mares the risk of NI is small.

As a stallion owner, I can see why one wouldn’t want to bother with a blood test, even if someone else paid for it. It’s not routinely done. If the stallion has 50 other mares booked, who don’t need a blood test from him, and 1 who does, well…maybe the stallion owner feels that 1 mare isn’t worth extra hassle. Maybe the stallion owner made a judgment call…maybe it would be worth it if the mare has exceptional performance/producer that the stallion owner really wants to accommodate. Or maybe it was just an average mare, and a mare owner giving off BSC juju, and the SO politely declined her test to focus on more suitable mares/clients. I wouldn’t bash the SO unless there was further unprofessional behavior. I’m pretty accommodating to mare owners, I would probably do the test, but I could envision a scenario when I would politely refuse. In any case, it’s not something I would personally ask if a stallion owner to do. If I have an NI mare, that’s on me to manage, and if I loved the stallion I don’t care what his blood type is…I have plenty of
extra colostrum in the freezer.

[Lunabear1988]

Tripping to me seems to be always one or two things. Neck issues or feet.

I had a horse with Wobblers. The scariest part is I don’t remember him ever really tripping. He was a blast to ride (the little we did.) But at the hospital during the neuro exam he fell down after essentially passing the neuro exam…

[Lunabear1988]

So much can be connected, that I believe. My wobblers horse also had horrible feet… And was heavily line breed… A TB though.

I do think we are becoming so much more aware of things. Maybe some things are more prevalent these days but it’s hard to know since we have more diagnostics what we just know more about now.

But there are far more experts on the thread than me that have a better idea of all that.

Interesting discussion.

[Mersidoats]

I listened to that webinar over the holiday, and chatted with my MD mother about it. She was aghast at some of the malformations. Her response was “If a human had this issue, they would be in serious trouble. Totally handicapped.” It is making me look at some horses I know a little more closely.

[sascha]

@EventerAJ

Or maybe it was just an average mare, and a mare owner giving off BSC juju, and the SO politely declined her test to focus on more suitable mares/clients. I wouldn’t bash the SO unless there was further unprofessional behavior. I

JFC. Is no-one able to read for comprehension anymore?

Nobody bashed anyone.

There was no “unprofessional behaviour” on either side, let alone “further unprofessional behaviour.”

Going back to the blood test, mare owner decided, on the advice of repro vets (plural) to be on top of the situation and not let NI be an issue at all. There was no need to deal with it at all when it could be (and was) totally avoided.

There may be people in the vicinity giving off BSC juju, but it was definitely not that particular mare owner.

[netg]

@anon6796898

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

Now I very much want to know who you mean, if you’d PM me?

[DownYonder]

I’m very late to this thread and am still far behind so apologies if anyone has already posted this.

The 41.4% referred to on the HorseTelex site for United Touch S is the percentage of “blood” (specifically, hotblood - as in TB or Arabian).
https://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/1677488/united-touch-s

It is indicated by a tiny image of a droplet to the left of where it says 41.4% (look below where it lists his Results). Next to the blood percentage is a tiny image of a two-headed horse, with INBREEDING COEFFICIENT next to it. The Inbreeding Coefficient text is a link to a program that calculates and reflects the inbreeding info, but I don’t have a subscription to the site so can’t get to it.

If you search for a TB such as Prince Thatch xx, you will see that the blood percentage shows up as 100%.
https://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/38925/prince-thatch-xx

[beowulf]

I would like to know as well, please. I never heard back from them, so if you do please let me know.

Unrelated but I came back to this thread because of a study I saw linked in a FB group I’m in today. It’s from 2019, but might be of interest re: ECVM:
https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/evj.13140

[NaturallyHappy]

Very interesting read. I’d like to know, too, please.

[Annie_Burton]

Adding these two in-depth videos to the discussion, one from only 3 days ago,
regarding the hypermobility of joints and the resulting 1-legged trot:

The Million Euro Coup In Horse Breeding - Spectacular Gaits vs. Health

and

Improving Trot ? The modern muddled footing.

Decades of breeding for huge front-action is being rewarded by buyers’ demand everywhere.

[Scribbler]

@Annie_Burton

Adding these two in-depth videos to the discussion, one from only 3 days ago,
regarding the hypermobility of joints and the resulting 1-legged trot:

https://youtu.be/wWqRK5xAhg8

and

https://youtu.be/wu1cKasqR8E

Decades of breeding for huge front-action is being rewarded by buyers’ demand everywhere.

I would add that front action can be made “bigger” by how the horse is ridden schooled or handled. I think this is conceptually similar to how saddlebreds are schooled. It involves throwing the horse a bit on the forehand and letting the hocks trail

A correct trot is truly diagonal. Lots of horses have some amount of delayed or advanced landing when they are green. You can work through it to create a diagonal trot. But a truly diagonal trot may not display the really huge front leg movement that’s a current show piece of dressage. At least I don’t see these extravagant horses in true diagonal balance.

A broken trot is not genetic destiny. You can school out of it. I do think a broken trot is harder on the horse because there’s a number of biomechanical things that aren’t optimal here