I just had my five yo purebred Irish draught mare vet checked today for breeding. She is 16.1 hands and very large framed, but a maiden. Would you breed to a 17 plus hand Irish draught stallion? I have my choices narrowed down to a nice tb that is her height, or an RID stallion that is a solid 17 hands.
I heard a horror story about a mare having her first foal and it was too big…am I just being paranoid? I really like the Irish draughts, but am leaning towards the tb.
When my mare was a maiden I bred her to a 17 hand stallion. She is a 15.3 hand tb.
That foal is six this year and he is about 16.3.
Mare should be just fine.
My mares hardest foal to birth was her welsh pony foal!!!
Babies only get at big as the “house” they are in (said my repro professors). They have done studies where they bred Shetland ponies to Shires, apparently babies came out fine, and did a LOT of growing once on the ground.
It is sadly, a crap shoot. I had a mare that had several foals, same sire. All foaling went without incident. Her 3rd foal was too big for me to get out alone and died. I took a break and then her 5th(sent her to a clinic because I was spooked) and final 6th foal (had at home) were without incident.
Yep, as others have stated, the height/build doesn’t matter, in that you simply cannot predict which mares will grow large foals and have trouble delivering them on their own - their height/size has no bearing on that, it’s more of a pelvic/uterine conformation issue.
My first broodmare was 15.1hh and super petite, bred her to a 17hh stallion and she foaled quickly and easily, same with her next foal, did it herself - stallion was 16.2hh.
My new broodie is 15.2hh and build more solidly and wide. She was bred to the aforementioned 16.2hh stallion and had a bit of trouble clearing the filly’s shoulders. Filly was very big and solid at birth but will not finish tall. So this particular mare grows 'em big in-utero, now I know that, and will have to be very vigilant with future foalings. But I won’t hesitate to breed her to a taller stallion - I will just be careful about breeding her to stallions with a lot of bone & substance.
But I could not have known any of this until I actually bred these mares. Same goes for anyone. I knew someone who had a big, solid 16.1hh TB mare whose foals were huge, no matter what she was bred to, and always needed a LOT of help foaling out. You just never know until you do it… size/build has no impact, each mare is an individual.
Normally Mother Nature will handle it, but she’s not perfect. The height is not as worrisome as the broadness and shoulder or hip lock. I would look at the size of the foals by that stallion and how broad they tend to. I believe your mare is by MP and my MPs can throw real tanks.
I wouldn’t. There is, of course, the infamous Shire/Shetland study, but in what other realm of science do we take a single study as gospel? IME, even pairings of similar sized dams and sires can produce foals that are large and difficult to foal. Why risk it, especially for a first foal?
What the professors didn’t tell the class is the unusual way the final product looked. It is NEVER a good idea to breed a small mare (specifically pony mare) to a large stallion. No reputable breeder would want to put their mare in jeopardy. To even gamble with a beloved broodmare is beyond me. Too many mares or foals have died as a result of difficult births. If anyone is that anxious to breed their pony mare to a big stallion, use a surrogate.
Also, the end result can be short legged and look like a dachshund. It has happened.
I honestly can’t see a problem breeding a 16.1 hand Irish draught to a 17 hh Irish draft. You aren’t breeding a pony or a 15 hh Arab to an Irish draught. Anecdotally, a mare’s first foal tends to be smaller anyway. And having posted this about 20 people will now post saying their mare’s first was her biggest lol 
Never on my watch would that happen. If you have ever been there when a vet had to cut the baby out of the mare and both ended up dying…you would never, ever, for any reason breed your mare to a larger stallion. WE always breed down (but we have ponies). I have watched and read too many horror stories to put any of my mares thru something that could end up horribly. Take my opinion for what it is worth, to you, but I have been doing this for 28 years, and have seen a lot.
Regarding the OP and her mare… I think a horse mare is SO much of a safer bet.
Ponies on the other hand…Sandy & I are in complete agreement! 
[QUOTE=VirginiaBred;7609712]
What the professors didn’t tell the class is the unusual way the final product looked. It is NEVER a good idea to breed a small mare (specifically pony mare) to a large stallion. No reputable breeder would want to put their mare in jeopardy. To even gamble with a beloved broodmare is beyond me. Too many mares or foals have died as a result of difficult births. If anyone is that anxious to breed their pony mare to a big stallion, use a surrogate.
Also, the end result can be short legged and look like a dachshund. It has happened.[/QUOTE]
The shire/Shetland breeding wasn’t done in order to produce a marketable sport horse, it was about finding out what size it would produce, and if it would indeed come out looking like a dachshund or not. Breeding two vastly different types of horses IS asking for trouble in my opinion, you can end up with completely mismatched parts (says someone who watched a friend breed an arab to a warmblood and pray for 11 months that she didn’t get a warmblood head on an arab body)
The reality in THIS situation is that we’re talking a 16.1 big built mare to a 17 hand stallion, these horses are not at opposite ends of the spectrum at all. Actually depending on advertising, if the stallion is advertised as 17hh, he very well might really only be 16.2 (my rule for any horse advertised is to subtract 2 inches from whatever the person says the horse is). The difference in build would make much more difference, let’s face it, the tough part of getting through the opening is at the shoulders and the hips, they can have all the leg they want.
I just think in this case there isn’t a significant difference, this is NOT a small mare and she’s not breeding to a shire.
So far so good
The stallion here IS over 17 hands and has 11 inches of bone so he is big. We asked the same question when we were looking at him. What type of mares had he seen. He saw nearly all TB mares. The offspring we could find were all middle to lightweight hunter types…nothing massive. So from a sampling of about 5-8 offspring we made the decision to go ahead. We were concerned as well. The first year he was bred to about 10 mares of different breeds and sizes from a 15.2 hand Irish Draught mare and IDSH mare to 17+ hand warmblood mares and a Shire mare with shipped semen. We had no issues foaling any of the mares and had no windswept or limb issues that would improve with maturity. He DID have foals that were tall leggy and would be big horses but he did not have any massive foals. The biggest two foals were out of the opposites…a 15.2 hand Irish Draught mare who’s weanling is 15.2 now and a 17+ warmblood mare with a tall elegant filly. Neither foal were foaling problems. SO he has been well tested. Now I do disagree with saying the Mountain Pearl foals are huge…I saw many shortly after foaling and they were not huge…they were quite tidy little packages that matured late as is common in Irish Draughts and most were out of mares less than 16 hands. This is no guarantee your particular mare won’t have issues…perhaps you can find out if SHE was a overly large foal and her dam had any issues foaling her. I would also suggest looking for a foaling facility. I have used one and it sure makes the whole process less stressful especially when we work full time. It is the place to go when our imaginations will make us crazy. Good Luck. PatO
I was actually looking at two stallions, that were well over the 17 hand mark for my mare. I really liked both of them, and my biggest hesitation is that my mare is a maiden. If she had a foal already, I would not have any concern. I had a very good breeder that was telling me to be cautious due to her personal experience, and at that time no names ( horse or human ) were exchanged. I also spoke to my vet as well. He said no worries due to her size, but for my peace of mind, i want to find something smaller.
Fear is fear…it doesn’t have to be rational. There is a super Connemara stallion who is in North Carolina and his foals are wonderful http://www.hollymeadfarm.com/67240.html
She has a foal out of an Irish Draught mare this season so you can see the cross. Good Luck. PatO
I’ve bred my section C mare (13 hands) to my section D stallion (15+ hands) twice. She was a maiden the first time. No trouble delivering her 2012 filly nor her 2014 colt who was definitely larger than the first. Now having said that I sold a 14 hand Arab mare rather than breed her to the same stallion because I felt that the body types weren’t alike and that dystocia would be a higher possibility as a result. As others have said it really isn’t all about the height difference. I know plenty of other welsh breeders who breed As and Cs mares to their much taller D stallion(s) and have no trouble with foaling even if they’re maidens.
Both my maiden mares have thrown smaller (at least small at birth) foals–both have grown quickly and the older one is normal size–or at least very close to what we anticipated from the match.
I would be more concerned about width than height. I would not breed an narrow framed Tb maiden to a 17H+ ID, but a 16.1H ID mare is a different critter. I would feel OK about that.
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