Looking for some different options to get a pinto buckskin/palomino WB... [Update, contract signed!]

[saturnalian]

I’m an ammy who is ready & willing to take the dive into breeding in order to potentially get my “dream horse”… a tobiano buckskin or palomino WB. I’m looking early in hopes to secure something for 2024, but I’m trying to research/look into all viable options before deciding. I know this will be a journey, and none of it is guaranteed, but I’m excited for it!

I feel like I have Googled everything I can possibly Google as well as searched COTH, and I’m hoping that maybe one of you experienced breeders might know of any stallions or mares I’ve missed! I do not have my own mare, and finding either a double dilute or homozygous tobiano mare has been difficult - I’ve only found mares from Blazing Colours in ON and Golden Edge in CO (leaning towards using one of their mares atm). Finding a proven mare that has been shown herself has been impossible thus far, and that’s what I would really love - to find a few different options of double dilute or tobiano mares, choose one based on her disposition and record, then be able to work with the breeder on finding a match for her (vs. just using whatever’s available/easiest). Finding the stallion seems to be the easy part and it seems a little ass-backwards to just use any mare that’ll give me the coat colour I’m looking for.

So, does anyone know of any cremello, perlino, or homozygous tobiano WB mares who are in a breeding program and would be available for 2024? I’m open to a mare in Ontario or anywhere in the US. FWIW, I’d like to do the hunter breeding classes (if born in the US) or cup classes (if born in CA) with the offspring just for experience, but would eventually like to do the jumpers with it.
(I’m also totally open to unsolicited advice too hehe, is this a terrible idea? Should I just breed the best horse regardless of colour?!)

[Huntin_Pony]

If you have your heart set on a particular (unusual) color like that, I suggest you find one “ex-utero” and buy it. In the long run, it will be less expensive and you’ll know what you’re getting.

That’s some unsolicited advice from a former breeder. (Don’t get me wrong, I love my homebreds, but I’ve BTDT.)

[weixiao]

I would also strongly recommend looking for something already on the ground in the color you want. I think color and quality are not necessarily mutually exclusive but the combination of tobiano and dilute and homozygous limit your options so significantly, I think you are really going to be risking a real quality trade off.

You might also want to consider taking a gamble on at least one aspect of the color and using a single dilute mare with a homozygous tobiano stallion of quality, or visa versa, for instance. That will give you more quality options.

[ASBJumper]

How anxious are you to get this “dream horse”? Are you willing to play the long game to get exactly what you want? Because what you COULD do, if you’re not in a hurry, is buy a young coloured 2-3 yr filly and train/show her yourself and THEN breed her, or lease a coloured broodie, get her back into riding shape and put the show miles on yourself.

That way, you get a the “proven” part AND you’ll know the mare inside and out, you’ll know her quirks on the ground and under saddle, and you’ll be in a much better position to choose an appropriate stallion to match her to.

I know it sounds like an interminable wait, but the rewards are endless. It’s 100% worth it. All of my broodmares have been my riding horses first, proving themselves as safe, reliable and able to do the job, and have then gone on to make babies.

[Xanthoria]

What level jumpers are you wanting to do? That might help because if lower, almost any breeding lines can pop around.

Similarly if you want a palomino, look for a chestnut mare and a cremello stallion to get you there. (Sorry if that’s all really obvious to you. ) A chestnut jumper mare will be relatively easy to find.

Gotta agree with buying an extant horse if the color you like though. Babies can be heartbreaking.

[Heinz_57]

You might check with Avalon Equine about either doing a custom foal for 2024 or seeing what they have already cooking for 2023.

[saturnalian]

@Huntin_Pony

If you have your heart set on a particular (unusual) color like that, I suggest you find one “ex-utero” and buy it. In the long run, it will be less expensive and you’ll know what you’re getting.

That’s some unsolicited advice from a former breeder. (Don’t get me wrong, I love my homebreds, but I’ve BTDT.

Oh, interesting - doing a breeding like this actually seemed to be a less expensive way of getting what I’m looking for (prices these days are insane!)… would you not recommend breeding at all?

@weixiao

I would also strongly recommend looking for something already on the ground in the color you want. I think color and quality are not necessarily mutually exclusive but the combination of tobiano and dilute and homozygous limit your options so significantly, I think you are really going to be risking a real quality trade off.

You might also want to consider taking a gamble on at least one aspect of the color and using a single dilute mare with a homozygous tobiano stallion of quality, or visa versa, for instance. That will give you more quality options.

I don’t mind trading SOME quality for colour, but exactly - I don’t want to limit my choices to the point where I get the colour but have no quality!
Saying that, if I do end up breeding, I think I’d want to stick to a double dilute for the 100% chance… Might as well have something guaranteed is the way I look at it, lol. But that’s saying if the quality is there in the first place. Maybe it’s kind of an all-or-nothing for me.

@ASBJumper

How anxious are you to get this “dream horse”? Are you willing to play the long game to get exactly what you want? Because what you COULD do, if you’re not in a hurry, is buy a young coloured 2-3 yr filly and train/show her yourself and THEN breed her, or lease a coloured broodie, get her back into riding shape and put the show miles on yourself.

Not anxious per se but I am in a stage of life where breeding relatively soon makes the most sense. I think breeding is something I’d like to do at least once in my life for the experience of it. However, the thought of breeding my own mare - especially as my first time - terrifies me, lol! For this first time I’m looking for a breeding program that will essentially take care of everything and I get to be as involved as I’d like to be. Depending on the experience, I might be interested in breeding again if the offspring were a filly, and doing exactly what you’re suggesting!

@Xanthoria

What level jumpers are you wanting to do? That might help because if lower, almost any breeding lines can pop around.

I didn’t want to bloat my original post with a bunch of feely thoughts on my dream​:sparkles:, but I guess what I’m looking to eventually do does dictate what I’m looking for!
I’d love to get up to the Low AOs someday, but to be totally honest, I’m just looking for a partner with a clean slate to make my own. I don’t really have a lot of expectations about what this foal would grow up to be or not be. If it likes to jump - great, we’ll go as far as we can go, even if it ends up being the puddle jumpers or the hunters. If it would rather do dressage, great - most of my friends are dressage riders and I have the most wonderful dressage barn essentially in my backyard. If it ends up being a pasture puff that gets groomed every day and doted on, great - that’s what I love doing the most. I don’t need something that’s bred to do the GPs, just something to have fun with… so that’s why I think breeding to guarantee at least the colour I’m looking for is all I’m willing to expect out of this.
(Plus, the payment plans with breeding programs are pretty nice too!)

[Scribbler]

@saturnalian

@Huntin_Pony

If you have your heart set on a particular (unusual) color like that, I suggest you find one “ex-utero” and buy it. In the long run, it will be less expensive and you’ll know what you’re getting.

That’s some unsolicited advice from a former breeder. (Don’t get me wrong, I love my homebreds, but I’ve BTDT.

Oh, interesting - doing a breeding like this actually seemed to be a less expensive way of getting what I’m looking for (prices these days are insane!)… would you not recommend breeding at all?

@weixiao

I would also strongly recommend looking for something already on the ground in the color you want. I think color and quality are not necessarily mutually exclusive but the combination of tobiano and dilute and homozygous limit your options so significantly, I think you are really going to be risking a real quality trade off.

You might also want to consider taking a gamble on at least one aspect of the color and using a single dilute mare with a homozygous tobiano stallion of quality, or visa versa, for instance. That will give you more quality options.

I don’t mind trading SOME quality for colour, but exactly - I don’t want to limit my choices to the point where I get the colour but have no quality!
Saying that, if I do end up breeding, I think I’d want to stick to a double dilute for the 100% chance… Might as well have something guaranteed is the way I look at it, lol. But that’s saying if the quality is there in the first place. Maybe it’s kind of an all-or-nothing for me.

@ASBJumper

How anxious are you to get this “dream horse”? Are you willing to play the long game to get exactly what you want? Because what you COULD do, if you’re not in a hurry, is buy a young coloured 2-3 yr filly and train/show her yourself and THEN breed her, or lease a coloured broodie, get her back into riding shape and put the show miles on yourself.

Not anxious per se but I am in a stage of life where breeding relatively soon makes the most sense. I think breeding is something I’d like to do at least once in my life for the experience of it. However, the thought of breeding my own mare - especially as my first time - terrifies me, lol! For this first time I’m looking for a breeding program that will essentially take care of everything and I get to be as involved as I’d like to be. Depending on the experience, I might be interested in breeding again if the offspring were a filly, and doing exactly what you’re suggesting!

@Xanthoria

What level jumpers are you wanting to do? That might help because if lower, almost any breeding lines can pop around.

I didn’t want to bloat my original post with a bunch of feely thoughts on my dream​:sparkles:, but I guess what I’m looking to eventually do does dictate what I’m looking for!
I’d love to get up to the Low AOs someday, but to be totally honest, I’m just looking for a partner with a clean slate to make my own. I don’t really have a lot of expectations about what this foal would grow up to be or not be. If it likes to jump - great, we’ll go as far as we can go, even if it ends up being the puddle jumpers or the hunters. If it would rather do dressage, great - most of my friends are dressage riders and I have the most wonderful dressage barn essentially in my backyard. If it ends up being a pasture puff that gets groomed every day and doted on, great - that’s what I love doing the most. I don’t need something that’s bred to do the GPs, just something to have fun with… so that’s why I think breeding to guarantee at least the colour I’m looking for is all I’m willing to expect out of this.
(Plus, the payment plans with breeding programs are pretty nice too!)

Why do you want this color with this breed? While Tobiano and dilute WBs do exist, they are only in some lines and still rare.

Basically what you are saying here is that you want color over performance. Most WB breeding is about performance. So your goals don’t really align with most WB breeders.

So my question is, why do you need a WB?

If it’s the colour that really matters, you could go looking for a really nice Paint with high TB blood, or crossed with WB or Iberian? There is a lot of creme dilute in Lusitanos. These horses are all at least as nice as a lower grade WB. And don’t have the WB premium price tag.

[Janet]

@saturnalian

Oh, interesting - doing a breeding like this actually seemed to be a less expensive way of getting what I’m looking for (prices these days are insane!)…

This is a myth.
There are SOO many things that can go wrong. or just not be what you wanted.

[greymatter]

Crème de la Crème is a younger buckskin hunter stallion in ON. I think he had at least one pinto patterned dilute foal last year. Sometimes on his FB page they post babies of his that are for sale by the breeder. Might be worth a look if you are willing to buy something already on the ground.

[BrownDerby]

Liz Jenner at Gateway Farm in Acampo, CA occasionally has buckskin and palomino foals. You might contact her. Website is out of date and her farm is in a flooded area and may be out of power so be patient.

[SusanO]

Golden West, a double dilute GRP, was in California. He was a multiple Bundeschampianat ( spelling?) so he wasn’t just another stallion with interesting coloration. If you had a chestnut or bay mare you could have gotten a buckskin or palomino. Unfortunately I think he was sold to Australia. Dilutes are more common in GRP’s. There may be more double dilute GRP’s in this country but probably not with the credentials GW had.

If I was looking at a dilute horse I would probably just buy one already on the ground. Although a GRP x horse might produce a smaller horse and not just a pony.

[saturnalian]

I do still want performance - it just doesn’t need to be top tier! My main goals are to do the breeding classes and jumpers. I’m just saying that I won’t be totally heartbroken if those goals change over time with this horse.
To be honest, my actual dream horse would be an appendix. Hard to find those with the height and athleticism I’m looking for, though.

[beowulf]

I would buy something already on the ground. Your criteria is specific enough that I think it’s unlikely to replicate how you’d want if you bred; breeding is such a crapshoot, there’s no guarantee the foal or mare will make it, then you need to wait the prerequisite 3-5 years to even see what you have undersaddle. In that time the foal could die, get a career ending injury, your circumstances could change, etc…

The combination of tobiano and dilute make your search options very limited in the WB books. You may have some okay options since your aspirations are not UL (which is fine, neither are mine) but I’m not sold on the soundness and personality of some of the more popular pinto/dilute lines in WBs.

I think you’d have better luck moving away from the WB criterion and looking for GRP or even TB or Connemara crosses. Both have more options (IMO) than WB do in terms of type.

I have zero affiliation with this farm but this thread reminded me of them - Fox Haven Farm in FL has or had a nice palomino filly by Blonde Surfer Dude xx for sale a year or so ago. I remember liking the filly, but she was also out of a Big Brown mare so I don’t know if the quality came from the mare or the stallion. They may have something you are looking for, worth a shot.

[saturnalian]

A question to those who suggest getting something on the ground instead - would full siblings change your mind at all, if they are all what you’d be looking for in your own foal?
The cross I’m currently most interested in has been successful every year, with its offspring a 100% chance at a buckskin tobiano. One of their oldest foals did the hunter breeding classes with good results, and others’ owners absolutely love their horse’s dispositions. I’ve spoken to one owner, another ammy, who is over the moon with hers.
The mare is not proven other than the fact that her offspring have been given mostly premium status in their respective registries (not totally sure how much that matters though), and the stallion hasn’t really shown himself either other than stallion/registry tests.
Perhaps I’m just having trouble deciding what’s more important - performance vs colour, as Scribbler said… but the offspring of this pair seems to have 50/50 of both.

[Jealoushe]

Disclaimer - don’t know these people.

The stallion listed Selfridge is out of a Fuhler mare, who I knew and many people in area have kin of. Fuhler offspring have done really well in eventing and jumpers and are super ammy friendly. They might have something?

Our Stallions - Fairbanks Equestrian

[ASBJumper]

Honestly, it really sounds like the colour part matters more to you than high-level performance ability, so yes, buying a custom foal out of a proven pair of parents whose siblings have excellent, ammie-friendly temperaments and move well, and are reasonably athletic and sound, is a relatively safe bet for you. This is, of course, assuming the oldest of these siblings (more than 1, ideally) are under saddle and performing already…
I will just add that Hunter Breeding results do NOT necessarily correlate to future performance success in the ring. It just means they look fancy at the end of a shank, most of the time. Just sayin’… LOL

[Scribbler]

@saturnalian

A question to those who suggest getting something on the ground instead - would full siblings change your mind at all, if they are all what you’d be looking for in your own foal?
The cross I’m currently most interested in has been successful every year, with its offspring a 100% chance at a buckskin tobiano. One of their oldest foals did the hunter breeding classes with good results, and others’ owners absolutely love their horse’s dispositions. I’ve spoken to one owner, another ammy, who is over the moon with hers.
The mare is not proven other than the fact that her offspring have been given mostly premium status in their respective registries (not totally sure how much that matters though), and the stallion hasn’t really shown himself either other than stallion/registry tests.
Perhaps I’m just having trouble deciding what’s more important - performance vs colour, as Scribbler said… but the offspring of this pair seems to have 50/50 of both.

Ok you have a farm and cross in mind.

I’ve got a Paint mare and a buckskin project horse on loan. I had a pinto as a kid, my sister had a palomino. This is all accidental. I didn’t seek out color.

I have to say when you’re riding them you notice mind first, then performance. You don’t ride color. And honestly once there are say 5 pintos or 5 buckskins in a barn, they start to look ordinary.

[Scribbler]

I would add that though I dearly love my Paint and my old pinto, I do also find pinto markings break up the line of the horse and can make it less elegant.

[saturnalian]

@ASBJumper

Honestly, it really sounds like the colour part matters more to you than high-level performance ability, so yes, buying a custom foal out of a proven pair of parents whose siblings have excellent, ammie-friendly temperaments and move well, and are reasonably athletic and sound, is a relatively safe bet for you. This is, of course, assuming the oldest of these siblings (more than 1, ideally) are under saddle and performing already…
I will just add that Hunter Breeding results do NOT necessarily correlate to future performance success in the ring. It just means they look fancy at the end of a shank, most of the time. Just sayin’… LOL

Colour vs high-level performance - yes, definitely! I just want to be able to play around in the jumpers locally/A and maybe an AA show or two a year eventually.
The heart wants what it wants and a pinto pulls on the heartstrings… I just wasn’t sure what to prioritize over another; the mare’s proven ability, the stallion’s, their offspring, etc.
All I know is I do NOT want some backyard bred horse that has the colour but horrendous conformation. I want to breed for my goals, but I’m not dead set on trying to guarantee I get a high AO jumper or anything like that. Just something fun - that’s the #1 goal!

For the HB classes, I think they just offer wonderful experience to set the horse up for showing in the future. It’d be cool to win, but I have a couple friends who’ve done them and think it did wonders for their horse as adults!

@Scribbler

Ok you have a farm and cross in mind.

I’ve got a Paint mare and a buckskin project horse on loan. I had a pinto as a kid, my sister had a palomino. This is all accidental. I didn’t seek out color.

I have to say when you’re riding them you notice mind first, then performance. You don’t ride color. And honestly once there are say 5 pintos or 5 buckskins in a barn, they start to look ordinary.

Yes! I’m leaning mostly towards using Golden Edge, but wanted to see what you all thought about finding a mare who’s proven herself rather than hinging it all on the stallion. I’ve read that the mare matters the most, but it seems that people care most about the sire / damsire (as far as advertising goes), so I’m just trying to understand a little better (or, in a perfect world, find a mare who’s proved herself and has the genes I’m looking for).
Disposition is extremely important and one of the main reasons I’m leaning towards this pair with full siblings on the ground that people love.
My first horse, the pinto in my PFP, started it all for me… I have no interest in recreating my heart horse and I know it’s a fool’s errand to even try or expect anything close as far as personality, rideability, etc. goes. But the spots are something I’m interested in getting again.