[QUOTE=OBdB;8394832]
When someone tells me that he likes papers with TB in the 3rd / 4th / … generation … for a TB to stand in these generations, someone has to use them ! And when someone who likes TB in these generations doesn’t want to breed a TB … then he is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest, because he intents to reap what he didn’t sow (as already said in one of my msg above).
What I breed for depends on the individual horse … meaning if the horse shows jump and gaits and blood why not considering to event him ? The sport in which he / she competes doesn’t depend on his paper, but on his abilities !
Intuitively, I’m attracted to blood horses, the lighter the better. And with this said, I really don’t consider a horse to be exclusively a EV or SJ genitor.
I hold some opinions which are not very popular, but are the fruit of my analysis.
Generally when one has to be make a decision, more than one possibilities can be considered. In breeding at the time when I started with a heavy mare, you could go slow by using light WBs or you could choose to do it faster by using ‘Veredlerhengste’ (TB or AA). I choose the faster way … and because I also have a profond fondness for light horses and even the lightest WBs of that time didn’t ‘do it’ for me, considering the offspring would be a mix of my mare and a WB.
The second point is, in my eyes, the future of SJ competitions is not higher - wider, but competion will be intended for horses with more technic, more elasticity, more maneuverability, more flexibility, better recuperation capacities and better reactions. And more solidity.
The power of the jump isn’t the ultimate judge anymore.
And third, I am convinced (but this is just MY opinion nothing more nothing less) that the WBs have a tendancy to become heavier if you stop perfusing ‘light blood’, meaning TBs or AAs. (This I already stated in one of my postings above with Capitol I as an example).
My first mare, my basis mare, had to be bred to very light horses and I didn’t have generations to reach this goal … The question was which TB and after some errors (with TB and WB), the choice of Sir Shostakovich was the right one. Having two fillies by him I choose another one, Parco, very different then Sir Shostakovich. And again I had a filly.
In 2007 I was approached to breed an eventer for a friend, if we could find a stallion for both our goals (her : eventing - me : breeding). That stallion was Jaguar Mail. The filly out of this reunion was very much TB-like … I loved it ! But subsequently, we found out that she didn’t have the gaits to be an eventer, but she had a very very good jump - and she became a SJer !
Considering that a foal out of Jaguar Mail and a mare by a TB could be a very good jumper, I decided to continue on that way.
Quality Touch has a very good paper - Quick Star out of Sevada (mother to Classic Touch) - and was all what I considered good in a stallion : excellent paper, good career in SJ, good progeny and beside the head, a good model. The filly born in 2011 was good without being excellent in conformation as a foal. But maturing, she was all I expected her to be !
She is an even more refined version of her mother and qualified at 2 years for the French National Championship, where she obtained the best marks for freejumping and 7th place over all (German equivalent would be ‘Staatsprämienstutenschau’ but for 2 years old and with the freejump). That was in 2013.
In 2011, I decided to use a stallion who I liked very much for his career (to this day the stallion with the highest French performance index for a stallion - ISO 190) and his paper : Alligator Fontaine. He is also said to be a very good mother’s father … His model too is very much what I like, though a bit to big …
He became the father of the filly born in 2012. She too qualified for the French National Championship, where she placed 9th. That was last September.
Having been given a present by the stallion owner for the succes of the QT-mare, I choose a stallion of whom I had expectations to maintain the light model of his mother. This stallion is Iowa KWPN, excellent paper, good career, very much like Landgraf (his grand-father) but in a more reduced model. The foal, born in 2015, won the regional championship here in HN Le Pin and qualified for the National Foal Championship.
And finally, I love to experiment !
And even though my mares are all direct descendants of TBs, I always fear that the heavier model of my basis mare will come through over the generations.
So I participate in the ‘Route des Etalons’ every year to look at TB stallions, after studying their papers, videos, photos, careers.
I choose Simplex xx because he is a TB with a good career in terms of number of races, his progeny matures early, he has a good model and an excellent character. All the foals by him I saw (all TBs) had correct gaits even for a sport breeder, nice characters, good models.
Does this make him a sport stallion ? well we have to wait for the birth and then some years to know if this risk was worth to be taken.
There was one other point I considered : I saw 2 years ago a TB stallion by Montjeu out of a mare of the Nagaika female tail. He seemed to have it all : great model, excellent paper with references even in the sport breeding (Narow, Noble Roi, Nouveau Roi, etc). He was, in my eyes, one of the best candidats for a ‘Veredlerhengst’ … Alas, when I contacted the owner for his use on a sport mare, they told me he was put down …
So when I see a stallion, a TB stallion, who fulfills all my desires in all aspects … I wouldn’t hesitate anymore.
Over the years and this since 1991 when I used the first TB stallion, I read, looked at, analysed all writings, pedigrees on TBs in sport breeding and sport performance. I am convinced that if you choose correctly the TB, there is no danger of it being a flop, because he compensate his shortcomings with other traits (those mentioned above) as essential, or even more, as power.
Do I sacrify the F1 generation ? Not in my eyes and also not in breeding time terms : breeding is a generational activity.
To choose a TB stallion for a sport mare correctly, you have to evaluate his model in terms of WB-model and he has to have gaits (difficult, I know !). If you can persuade the owner to jump him … that’s even better.
But in my eyes, there are no pre-dispositions for a TB stallion to be used in WBs. I don’t care if he was a stayer or a miler, he has to have a model compatible with WB breeding.
I tend to very much look at horses said to have liked profond terrains. I don’t care for their winnings, but I appreciate solidity, shown by an important number of races run.
In all my breeding choices, I try to follow my gut feelings …[/QUOTE]
Just to complete this msg …
Here in France many stallions need blood mares … this indication generally is found (when necessary) in the breeding advice of the stallion owners.
For instance, Alligator Fontaine needs blood mares, the more blood the better. BLC even says that the best mare for him would be a TB mare …
Jaguar needs blood mares. Otherwise you risk to obtain a very big horse with mass. Even so, JM is not a ‘Veredler’ (stallion for refinement) although he is a 3/4 TB cross : HiG - Laudanum)
Quality Touch, being a Quick Star son, has two types of foals. When bred to heavy mares, the Galoubet heritage is predominant, when bred to lighter mares, it’s QS who is predominant.
So by using him on a mare by Sir Shostakovich, I ‘knew’ that the filly / colt would not be heavy. But even I am astound that the filly is even lighter than her mother (for the moment, we will see what she looks like in some years).
I used Iowa on this mare because he improves the neck - shoulder conformation (and doesn’t add bone mass).
So you see, I did use HOL / KWPN and SF origins on my mares.
Other points in my breeding :
I don’t want to have the 758th foal by Kannan, the 632d by Diamant and so on.
I think too that most HOL stallions are too heavy or produce too heavy (only my opinion, sorry).
I tend to use stallions where I see a central theme … a guideline … in the paper. A accumulation of good sounding names just doesn’t do it. I am not convinced that a totally open registry is for the best when you cannot consolidate the F2 or F3 generation with orginal blood found in the mare.
The cross with QT gave me a light consolidation on some of the best ‘old’ HOL stallions : Loretto and even further behind the F-line (Fanal).
Another good example is Iowa and why I used him. The central theme in his paper are the HOL origins (Libero H - Nimmerdor - Pericles xx - Farn - old NWP / OLD mareline). I used him on a mare by Quality Touch which gave me a linebreeding on Landgraf 3mx4f and a line breeding on Fax I 5mx6fx5f. Worth mentioning is also that Dorette, mother to Farn is also the mother to Roman : she appears 4 times.
When planing this cross, I considered two other stallions : Cabdula du Tillard and Nervoso. Both would have given a linebreeding on Galoubet 3fx4m. Nervoso is a recent stallion (born 2001), whereas Cabdula is already old (born 1990). Both are known sport horse producers with excellent mare lines.
Both this crosses would have been a consolidation on the mother’s father, whereas Iowa gave me a consolidation on the mother’s father but also on the fathers on the thirdth and fourth mothers.
The cross with Alligator Fontaine is based on the same guidelines. Evidently, using a SF on a mare by a TB, I could only consolidate on TBs : Nasrullah 6fx4mx6mx5m.
But in my opinion, she will be difficult to cross (to consoildate the paper) … short of crossing her with a TB stallion which is not really consolidation. For that, I would have to cross her with a Holsteiner (and considering QT and Iowa worked on her cousin … , but both are already quite old) …
but we should close this OT which has only a far fetched relation to the initial discussion …
You will find out that some things around here are a little bit different than in Europe. It takes some time to get used to it and I wouldnt even say its better or worse… Its just different. People do have a different approach to discussions and breeding matters.