Info on Pedigree Just for Fun

[cmdrcltr]

As someone who has had a ton of horse fun with a variety of breeds (Welsh, Morgan, Appy, Paint, Saddlebred, Hackney, and QH), I’ve never invested a lot of time in pedigree study of any one breed. My first exposure to Quarter Horses came when I was about 8 and a neighbor kindly indulged my horse-crazy self by letting me join her when she drove her mare, a daughter of Poco Bueno. I certainly know enough to know that there are different lines for different QH specialties, and I can recognize some of the top names. I am curious about my mare’s breeding and hope someone can tell me more about it, even if it’s just to say it’s pretty non-descrip.

I’ve only had her a little more than a year, and she’s a bit quirky.

Pedigree here

Thanks in advance!

[paulosey]

I see some old foundation breeding way back, but nothing that I recognize in modern breeding. Bluey might have a better opinion. What do you want to do with this horse? If you want to do very competative reining or Pleasure she may not have what it takes, but may be a great horse for what you want to do.

[cmdrcltr]

Thanks! I dabble locally in western dressage, ranch pleasure, and versatility. And trail ride. No big dreams here. I truly was just curious…and curious about the quirky personality, although I do know that is probably just her and her upbringing.

[Arelle]

The problem most people run into is they claim personality is the result of being “XYZ bred” and then you look at papers and XYZ is five generations back.

Most of the traits I’ve ever seen are far more influenced within two generations and then heavily diluted from there. My favorite example of this are the “Gritty” papers someone made up a few years ago:

Unless you’ve got an own son or daughter, then they probably don’t matter too much. If you happen to be breeding, the mare lines can be pretty important and influential - many stallions are known to produce great mare lines - but as far as “my horse snorts a lot because Impressive was his great grand sire” … that’s not a thing.

[Paint_Party]

Those “papers” are hysterical! Kudos to the person who created them. I may have to borrow that idea for my trainer and make up fake APHA papers. Oh, the ideas I have…

[sara78]

How far in thé bloodline do you think that thé breeding matters?

[cmdrcltr]

I actually don’t think that at all about personality, but I do think that certain lines distinguish themselves for different purposes. And some lines get reputations. Right here in this forum there is a thread on “Hancock Horses” that has 41 replies and over 2000 views.

Anyway, I was really only curious if anyone in the wide CoTH world knew anything about anything on the papers, because I know nothing. I wasn’t really looking for a scapegoat for my mare’s quirks.

[Arelle]

I haven’t really seen much past the grand- level.

At least for exact traits.

For example, I have a Zippos Sensation son. I LOVE him. But he’s quirky as shit, and very much “a typical Zippo”. When you start getting to grandsons/daughters of Zippo - it’s more what mare lines factored in.

I’ve seen mare lines that are pretty prevalent and pass traits to their foals, but you start losing exact quirks past that.

Right now, for example, I’m waiting to see if any of the KTG foals “make”. I think they’re all pretty tough minded and I have my doubts. But future offspring, I bet will be less problematic and if the legs pass on - those will be some nice foals.

[sara78]

Yes me neither. I have reiners and they all have traits of their father, mother or grandfather, not further away. For example i have a pale face dunnit x smart chic olena x reminic x peppy sans badger. Well, i Can sée thé pale face traits and smart chic olena but nothing of reminic or peppy sans badger Line if that make sense.

[cmdrcltr]

Friend of mine has 2 KTG fillies. The rising 3 year old has a tough personality; the yearling seems much sweeter.

[Paint_Party]

My new Paint gelding is by The Original Cowboy. Physically he looks very much like his sire, even down to the odd white marking on a front leg. As a bonus, he also has his sire’s great, ammy-friendly disposition. When I bought him, I really wasn’t familiar with the stallion, so when I took him to his first show down at Westworld, I was kind of surprised when several strangers came up to me and asked, “Is that an Original Cowboy?”

So yeah, some lines are really pre-potent (is that the word?)

[kelo]

I don’t recognize much on the papers, certainly not for several generations.

To me it looks like the sire is what we’d call foundation or ranch bred. Pretty Buck and Buster Waggoner are both names I recognize from the famous Waggoner Ranch in Texas, they were legends of breeding back in the day.

Lightning Bar was a racehorse and is in the AQHA Hall of Fame, and the sire of the legendary Doc Bar, who is a dynasty of performance horses (NOT racehorses), and the grandsire of Impressive (the infamous stallion who became a halter horse/halter sire).

The top of the dam’s side, Rocket Bar was a racehorse that sired racehorses, he’s in the AQHA hall of fame.

The “skip” horses are from the program of Hank Weiscamp out of Colorado. He was an absolute legend at it, Skipper W was his most famous horse, but he bred many, many good ones. That was back in the era of do-everything QHs, so they literally did it all – run, show, rope, all that.

I think it’s incredibly fun to research pedigrees and the rich stories you find in there. These are all far back in your horse’s pedigree, but you can do some google searches to read up on them!

[Bluey]

Lightning Bar was an excellent race horse and later sire.
He was an all arounder, would sire race and show and rodeo and ranch horses.
He himself set a new track record and later added high show credentials, as did some of his foals. We had some of those we ran and later made excellent ranch and show horses, as did with him as a grandsire.
Lightning Bar didn’t have much good luck and died young when colitis x ran thru Art Pollard’s herd, killing most of his horses:

Lightning Bar

Any one that wants to know more, there is a series of books called Legends with stories on many salient AQHA horses, also of APHA and Arabian and Appaloosa ones.
There are many of those books, this was the first one:

Legends: Outstanding Quarter Horse... book by Diane Simmons

Bet your local library may have some, or can get the ones with the horse stories you are interested in for you, go ask them.
Lightning Bar chapter is on Legend 2 book.

Edited to add, Lightning Bar was very cool, unconcerned, quiet type horse.
The race trainer thought he needed to be a bit more up to run his best, so about 30 minutes before leaving the barn, he would get a chair, sit in front of his stall and throw pebbles at the door and walls to irritate Lightning Bar and get him stirred up, ears pinned mad.
Because of Lightning Bar then being out of sorts and mad looking, he was getting a reputation for being a rank colt.
That ended once Art found out, but by then Lightning Bar had learned to look grumpy at the track. At least once home he was fine, back to his own easy going self.
His foals were easy going ones also, unless crossed with lines of hotter, more complicated temperament.

[cmdrcltr]

Thank you, kelo, for taking the time to look and reply. I appreciate building the knowledge, even if it is just for fun, since I’m not ever going to be breeding. I will have to do some google exploring.

[cmdrcltr]

Thank you, Bluey, for taking the time to reply! I remember seeing those Legend books somewhere along the way of my horse journeys. I’ll have to look them up again.

The story of Lighting Bar’s trainer irritating him is sort of sad; I guess I may feel that way more because I appreciate the “unconcerned, quiet type” horses. My mare can go from unconcerned, quiet type to “that’s not in my vocabulary, not doin’ it” pretty darn quickly. It’s definitely making me work to expand her vocabulary.

[Bluey]

We bought one of Lightning Bars colts as a yearling, trained and raced him and then stood him at stud with two other horses for several years, then he was injured and died under anesthesia.
He was a rather large and very nice stallion and plenty of local ranchers had some of his offspring for many years, their kids used them in 4H, were very accomplished and nice to handle horses.

You are right that when word got around to Art Pollard about the stupid trainer stirring up his horse before races to make him run better he was mad, he was mad later any time he remembered that. If Lightning Bar had not been so nice, he may have become dangerous from being treated like that. Some people don’t have good common sense.
Most of his foals were a more yellowish chestnut with little white and had good size to them and built more compact, the stallion we had took more after Three Bars and looked like a heavier TB, more angular and bright red sorrel, unlike others, like Doc Bar, compact and small, his paternal brother that went to form his own top lines found in so many of today’s top western performance horses.

Lightning Bar is so far back in the pedigree, without knowing the horse in person, is hard to say what if any of his genes may be expressed in your horse.

[cmdrcltr]

Well, compact and small certainly might fit her description. Although when I sent a picture of her to her breeder, she remarked at “how big” she is. She stands at 14.2 and a half inch. And she has the tiniest of white stars on her forehead—not really noticeable against her coat color.

A good friend of mine who is older than me by a couple of decades had a lovely Poco Bueno mare who produced a nice tempered colt who went back to Three Bars. I don’t recall who the QH sire was. As an amateur who can only have one horse at a time and who fits riding in around my job and family obligations, I’ve come to appreciate a good brain more than anything else about a horse. I am very sure that my mare would come along much more quickly with someone who had more time in their schedule. I really wanted a 14 hand plain bay gelding, but horse shopping from Maine is a challenge even when there isn’t a global pandemic, and I grew impatient.