Just saw a jumper pedigree where Cor de la Bryere appears three times 4 generations back (this horse’s great, great grand sire) and by him, Calando I twice (sire and dam side) in the 3rd generation.
Seems a bit much? Probably doesn’t matter with this gelding, but made me think…
I worry about line breeding multiple times if I don’t happen to like the characteristics of the horse. In Cor de la Bryere that wouldn’t bother me. I have a mare with Cor de in her pedigree, and I’m looking to breed her this spring. I found a possible sire with it twice in his pedigree, making it appear three times. All other things being good, that wouldn’t have phased me, and it is pretty far back. Here is an excellent article about Cor de la Bryere: http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2010/08/cor-de-la-bryere/
There are stallions now with Donnerhall appearing multiple times, and that also makes me smile. When I look at pedigrees of racing TBs, Northern Dancer and sometimes Mr. P appears multiple times. Line breeding can be a very good thing.
Only matters if you live in North Georgia mountains aka Deliverance country. But seriously if there is no physical or other known hereditary defect then deliberate inbreeding can be good. Best horse I ever owned with best conformation and brilliant mind had 5x inbreeding to an unraced European mare plus Poker and My Charmer of Seattle Slew fame and Rear Admiral. Of course I didn’t know her breeding till after I bought her
Depends…Line breeding magnifies the genetics. It could both strengthen likely hood of certain good traits passing on but also also strengthen the bad. There are some really good breeders who have utilized line breeding to magnify certain traits. I was always told that you want to have it further back…like 4th generation and further…but it really takes an intimate knowledge of lines to do well…something developed over years of work with families…and not something I personally have so I’ve never tried. But have asked advice from those more experienced when I saw a pairing was going to result in some duplicate lines.
Two in the third gen is a bit much for my taste. It depends on how far back. Most Morgans, for instance, will have many of the same sires if you go back far enough. I personally wouldn’t have two that were in the third generation, (grandsire/dam), but fourth gen I would be OK to have two crosses to the same stallion no more. I prefer to have more outcrossing and less linebreeding as I got burned by a horse extremely linebred that had PSSM. 
It depends. Corde is an outcross stallion to the Holsteiner mares and was a halfbred by a TB. I have heard from many great breeders you can’t have too much. That being said you want it as sex balanced as possible and not always through the same Corde offspring.
Tim
I don’t think there is ever going to be a hard and fast rule to this - line breeding is such a common (and accepted) practice that it seems to come down to the potency of the cross (for both positive and negative outcomes) to dictate if it’s too much or not.
In the dressage world, you’ll see those who think that seeing Donnerhall multiple times in a pedigree is advantageous. On the other hand, those same people may also say that they wouldn’t line-breed to Sandro Hit. It comes down to what the lines are known for passing on - in some cases, “a little” is good, but there is a defined line of “too much”.
It can be hard to avoid some stallions. Holsteiner is a good example based on how influential Cor de la Bryere was. You can see how one stallion can virtually shape an entire book. I suspect it is harder to find a horse with Holsteiner breeding without him in the pedigree than with (which then, invariably leads to the repetition of his name in the pedigree unless breeders exclusively use horses from other registries with Holsteiner approval - which isn’t the case).
Personally, I quite like seeing W multiple times in a pedigree - Weltmeyer (Wolkentanz, Wolkenstein), along with D. Donnerhall (De Niro & descendants - Danone for me, especially, but also Davignon and Damon Hill) is probably easier due to the ability to find so many fabulous Donnerhall sons to cross back to him through (and many of those stallions are siring offspring that are becoming notable sires in their own right: Donnerhall - De Niro - Danone - Dante Weltino is a great example). Especially once we start looking into the fourth generation, there’s so much opportunity for other genetic diversity to be introduced, it wouldn’t necessarily be an automatic turn-off to me to see that. Again though, it would depend on the line in question.
COI abobve 5 percent is pushing it.
My dad’s Missouri Fox Trotter gelding’s sire and dam have the same sire. While that is a bit much, I imagine because the instinct to gait is so important this may be more common in gaited breeds. Either way, with a gelding going well under saddle I think as long as you like the horse as it turned out, I wouldn’t put too much stock into whether you would have made the same linebreeding decision.
Regarding the specific gelding in OP - that would not bother me at all. 4th generation is far enough back.
As a whole, that kind of inbreeding (called linebreeding) is advantageous when you are breeding to produce a specific trait. Could be jumping ability. Could be gaiting. Could even be color.
The only time linebreeding is a problem is when there are unsavory characteristics in the individual that is being linebred or, that individual carries genetic disorders that are not outwardly apparent (either because they don’t occur until later in life, or they are recessive, etc) and that particular individual either becomes extremely prolific, or the gene-pool is very small (and/or closed book). When that happens there is diversity collapse in the gene pool and that can be quite negative, as it becomes difficult to breed an individual free of defects and/or free of being affected by said hereditary disorder.
This matters with several WB, Arabian, QH and TB stallions that you should not line-breed to, because they have hereditary disorders (either a-dominant or recessive, or diseases like DSLD and cerv-arthritis which are understood to be hereditary but the mode of inheritance is not yet completely understood) that will affect the health of the offspring. Examples would be HYPP (QHS), SCID & CA (Arabians), cervical arthritis/“wobblers” (WBs & TBs), DSLD (all breeds), etc.
Considering most times, you don’t know until it is too late in these cases, it generally is something that should be kept in the back of your mind if you are a breeder, and looking at the registry’s future. CdB is already so prolific in the HOL studbook it’s hard to find a horse that doesn’t have him in the pedigree. This is not necessarily bad as the formula of linebreeding to him is quite proven for exceptional jump… and I believe by now, if he was producing defective horses, we would have realized it.
Food for thought would be looking at other registries or breeds; excessive linebreeding is how DIM proliferated in Dobermans…
That being said - if you are looking at the (mature) healthy individual in front of you of that linebreeding pairing, and that horse appears healthy and sound, then the linebreeding likely was not a detractor.
Cor de la Bryere had such a phenomenal bascule and jumping style, which he passed on reliably, that he has been used multiple time in pedigrees - you could pick them out in a crowd.
In college, I worked at a farm that bred dilute TBs. And I’m only posting this because, to my knowledge, the farm has since liquidate their herd and does not breed anymore. While I have seen a couple of the stallions on the breeding circuit still, I don’t think any of the mares are in use anymore, which is why I will bring it up. Anyways, they had a couple of mares that had some major conformation issues due to the inbreeding it took to pull the dilution gene out. So, I guess it depends on what the inbreeding is trying to pull to the surface. If it’s focused on good conformation, type and suitability, I feel like it can be done responsibly to bring out the best characteristics of each of the animals…but if it’s only focusing on one aspect and tossing everything else aside, ie: color, excessive muscling, then eventually you’ll probably see some issues start to occur. I will give one accolade to that farm though. They had a cremello stud and sent him to another farm because all the mares were too closely related to him…so at least there was that. But, they may have only done that because the mares already had flaws that were showing in both them and their offspring.
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