I’m looking for a NRHA boyfriend for my RCH-bred mare. She’s very sensitive like a cow horse so I don’t want someone who’s going to add hot/crazy and he must have a good substantial build; something stout with great bone. The baby would not need to be marketable, staying with me in a show home as a reiner or RCH. My list so far is Lil Joe Cash, This Guns For Nic or maybe Mega Watt Shine?
Any suggestions or experience anyone has with any of these guys?
[QUOTE=OurLittleMiracle;9010187]
I’m looking for a NRHA boyfriend for my RCH-bred mare. She’s very sensitive like a cow horse so I don’t want someone who’s going to add hot/crazy and he must have a good substantial build; something stout with great bone. The baby would not need to be marketable, staying with me in a show home as a reiner or RCH. My list so far is Lil Joe Cash, This Guns For Nic or maybe Mega Watt Shine?
Any suggestions or experience anyone has with any of these guys?[/QUOTE]
Can’t say without knowing the dam and what she and her pedigree has done, what she is as an individual, etc.
Saying that, just going by the stallions, the first one is way above the others in talent, quality, pedigree and temperament, for a reiner.
That is moot question if he and the mare are not a good nick.
Check the statistics, what is your mare’s breeding and what of that has crossed well with either of those stallions, has proven performers of the kind you are aiming for, I assume non-pro, so disposition is very important?
You don’t need a possible Futurity winner if you are not a top trainer for a horse for yourself.
Better to aim for your goals, that would work better than the talented and some times the top athletic type horse it takes for Open at the top.
How’s your mare bred? Feely is different than hot. Feely I wouldn’t worry about breeding to a little hotter stud. A hot mare I would go to quieter.
Example: my one mare is a double bred smart little Lena, peptobppnsmal, SCO all on papers. She’s very feely but not hot. I bred her to a son of wimpy out of a Hollywood dunnit mare and am very happy with the colt.
Other mare is a double bred little Peppy, Peptoboonsmal, smart little lena and doc olena on her papers, she is hot. I bred her to a son of gunner out of a daughter of Shining Spark and SCO. Gunner is a little numb and dumb, but shining spark and SCO brightens him up a little. Also talk to your stallion owners and see what mares THEY are breeding their studs to.
I have one mare that was pretty hot herself but threw very lazy babies so she crossed well on the hotter topsail whiz studs. Remember hot on hot doesn’t always mean the baby will be hot.
Best advice on breeding a mare is to evaluate your mare and make a list of the things you want to breed off your mare and then find those strengths in a stallion. For example, we have a lot of doc olena grand daughters, they’re shorter necked not as much face and not tons of turn, but they had big hearts and stopped like a train and changed leads easy. Well our son of Peptoboonsmal crosses great on these mares because he’s longer necked, buttery soft, put more turn on the babies and has great feet (which is my number 1 concern).
Also, another thing to remember if if this will be your mares first baby don’t hesitate to hold.off on that Lil Joe Cash breeding. When you don’t know how your mare will carry, how she will take to motherhood etc I don’t breed a new mare to the absolute best. Let the mare tell you what kind of mother she’s going to be and what she’s going to throw. You can find a lot of affordable breedings on perfecthorseauctions.com
Yankee Reining Horse Assoc. and CNYRHA have their auctions now and the first two weeks in Feb respectively. Some offer perks for buying through their auctions. Also, NRHA sire and dam offers good benefits for buying a breeding through your auction but it’s already over and you will have to wait for the 2018 breeding season.
Also to add, as Bluey said, very important to ask yourself what you’re breeding for, I look at how many performers the sire has produced. Not that he’s produced 1 or 2 great ones and the rest have done nothing. I would much rather a stud that produceshe a bunch of good horses than 1 great one and 15 duds.
You’re absolutely right, not looking for a futurity horse but a competitive non-pro or open prospect. My mare is by Highbrow Cat out of a Peppy San Badger x Paloma Torcaz mare. And I agree with “feely” vs “hot” - she’s very feely but a good mind, not going to do anything stupid.
The most important thing I’m looking for in any offspring is durability. I’ve checked the magic crosses on her breeding but it’s all primarily for cutting being a HBC daughter.
I never thought about not “wasting” a first breeding on nicer ($$$) stallion until we know how the mare will do - thanks for the tips!
Also don’t be discouraged by cutting bloodlines. Almost all of our reiners are cutting bred and they make great reiners and or reined cow horse. The cutting blood makes them smart, feely and catty.
What are you looking to breed off your mare, ie; what is her weaknesses??
[QUOTE=TheHunterKid90;9010678]
Also don’t be discouraged by cutting bloodlines. Almost all of our reiners are cutting bred and they make great reiners and or reined cow horse. The cutting blood makes them smart, feely and catty.
What are you looking to breed off your mare, ie; what is her weaknesses??[/QUOTE]
That ^ some cutting lines don’t make cutters and some of those make good working cowhorse and some straight reiners.
I have one of those, High Brow Cat on top, Mr Gun Smoke on the bottom, that is too laid back for cutting, talented for reining at the lower levels, very good disposition.
Not knowing what traits she inherited from that breeding the OP mentioned, I think she probably has the good, biddable disposition clinched there, probably soundness, may need to tweak the talent a bit, some tend to “run too long in the same place”.
They also may try so hard, they don’t have as good a natural stop, more the abrupt, short kind, so you need to develop it in them by training.
There is no perfect horse, see what your mare brought when trained and competing and see which stallions you have access to would complement that.
Do you have a trainer that could help you?
They see so many, they get a feel of what crosses are working and why.
If she’s a “typical cutter” she’s going to be feely but sucked back and have a “cow horse stop” aka short and abrupt. So you might want a little more forward but a little numb. And of course a bigger stop.
I like Inferno 66, he is a son of gunnatrashya out of snip of gun…the only thing I wonder about the gunnatrashyas is the only.performers he has produced have been out of the very very best maresults. It makes me wonder how strong of a stud he really is or if it’s the bottom side that’s carrying the genes.
Anyways, sometimes it’s all a crap shoot, but I would be interested in hearing your mares weaknesses to better give suggestions on what to cross her on.
A good cross on HBC is Smart Little Lena…maybe a good son. Just a thought
You mean, double up on the Smart Little Lena on the sire?
Others have tried that, great some times, but that is what mine is, didn’t seem to work that well for him.
I think you are right, many times the bottom side is where the strength comes from and that is missed.
Yep. I have 4 or 5 double bred smart little lenas. Several world champions, all great horses. I’m sure like anything, there’s good and bad…just an idea as I’ve seen great success.
But, all goes back to what she’s looking to breed off the mare, I am interested to hear as my opinion might change haha.
[QUOTE=TheHunterKid90;9010772]
Yep. I have 4 or 5 double bred smart little lenas. Several world champions, all great horses. I’m sure like anything, there’s good and bad…just an idea as I’ve seen great success.
But, all goes back to what she’s looking to breed off the mare, I am interested to hear as my opinion might change haha.[/QUOTE]
Oh, yes, the double bred ones are great themselves, mine’s sire is one of those.
I don’t know that they are as great to pass it on to just anyone, but would be very careful what the bottom line carries in that cross, is what I meant.
We quit breeding decades ago, so it is all academic, just talk, interested still, but not really that up to date, sorry if it sounded like I was.
That is why I recommended a trainer that is showing now and knows the mare would be best help.
Or, like you suggested, ask breeders of the stallions the OP is interested in directly.
She’s got a great big stop but has difficulty with the “agility” maneuvers in reining; graceful lead changes and she’s not plusing any spins. She’s got a lot of speed and will drag her butt, sort of brute strength and not much finesse.
She also has issues in her front end, small feet and bones with respect to her body size, has trouble holding up to the level she’s capable of - hence the breeding vs continuing to show.
I am working with trainers and they’ve suggested the names in my original post based on their experiences and I’m sure what they’d like to ride as well haha
[QUOTE=OurLittleMiracle;9010967]
She’s got a great big stop but has difficulty with the “agility” maneuvers in reining; graceful lead changes and she’s not plusing any spins. She’s got a lot of speed and will drag her butt, sort of brute strength and not much finesse.
She also has issues in her front end, small feet and bones with respect to her body size, has trouble holding up to the level she’s capable of - hence the breeding vs continuing to show.
I am working with trainers and they’ve suggested the names in my original post based on their experiences and I’m sure what they’d like to ride as well haha[/QUOTE]
Well, if she is herself not that good, do you really want to bred more possibly like her, hoping only the good genes show up in the offspring?
You are already consider giving her a less demanding life work than trying to be competitive in a seriously demanding discipline like reining as a broodmare, but is that going to solve your problem of her not being up to what is needed for what you want?
How about looking for an already born horse that can do what you are after?
If we had a mare that was not fast, we didn’t say, well, she can be a broodmare then and expect her foals to be fast.
No matter who the sire was, if she was not good at speed and those genes in her didn’t work right for what we were after, speed, expecting her foals to be good runners was a stretch.
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