Umm. No need to get snarky about the quality of Arabian sport horses. We’re breeding some very, very nice ones and have been for a while, thank you very much.
I am not a fan of Kate (clearly - read my responses earlier in the thread), but there’s no need to take shots at an entire breed just because you don’t like one person.
I believe there were 13 in that particular class. Also, the judges are not (yet - there was a recent rule change) Arabian judges, they are DSHB and Hunter Breeding judges.
To be fair, it looks like most of the horses she has recorded as sold were when she was doing Arabian crosses. There must have been something she was doing right in those horses that made sense to the Arab crowd. Why she didn’t stick with them and improve on that project makes no sense.
(I’m guessing she got a cheap/free DHH mare, realized she could technically market babies as KWPN to people who are thinking that only means riding type WBs, and saw how much some KWPN riding type babies went for. That plus the ease of registering babies = $$$$$$. Or so she thought.)
It is my understanding that there are quite a few DHH/Arab crosses showing on the Arab circuit.
Hers are DHH crosses. I believe that is where her interest in breeding these horses came from, maybe?
Most Arab/DHH crosses are bred for the English (saddleseat) divisions, not sport horse. Most Half Arab sport horses these days are warmblood crosses; next most popular is the Anglo Arabs, and then you’ll see a little bit of everything else less commonly, like ASB crosses, QH crosses, Friesian crosses, etc.
Thank you! I was thinking Arab crosses have a much larger audience than what she is doing now. Seems she had a vision but it is not working. Hope she stops and goes to back what was working.
So that one isn’t a DHH WB cross, my error. He’s listed as KWPN with USEF but I do see that the dam is an Arabian so he’s half Arabian even though he’s not expressly registered that way. I just didn’t see that.
My guess is she switched from breeding DHH/Arabian crosses so she could attract a lucrative new market that she had discovered via her braiding endeavors. H/J people aren’t going to buy a DHH/Arabian cross but could likely be swayed by a horse sired by a big name jumper sire. And way too many folks in the sport horse world- ESPECIALLY the hunter market - care only about the sire. They don’t get it how important the dam’s contribution is to the quality of the product.
I was trying to leave the Arabian crosses out because I thought that was sort of a different market and discussion but I missed that that one was an Arabian cross. I don’t know whether there’s a thriving market in DHH x Arabians for some discipline. I’ve only expressed an opinion on the famous stallion x DHH market for hunter/jumper/dressage so I was trying to weed the Arabian crosses off the list. To her credit those seem to have sold, so the market there must be different.
My good friend has one who began life as a park horse. I guess they were quite popular in those circles!
Wasn’t there a “new” breed back a while ago - Renai? I am not sure it was spelled that way but it was a DHH/Arabian cross. Mostly a flashy saddlebred type cross or a Park Horse type cross. Lots of action. I don’t know what happened to it but maybe she was accessing that market?
I think that when KS was still riding, she was around or in the Arabian world, which would give her a clearer sense of what is valued in Arabs and Arab crosses. I don’t think she has any substantial experience riding jumper, hunter or dressage sport horses.
Arabs are no longer as expensive or in demand as they were years ago, they are more niche. I expect she saw the prices you could get for horses in the European WB registries and saw an opportunity. It makes sense to as to why the flat croups look “normal” to her because that’s a common Arab trait.
Arab x harness or saddle seat breeds are bred for the park and English pleasure classes. Arab sport horse cross rail classes can have a variety of types of horse
I am not an Arab aficionado but I had two seperate friends who had them and took me to watch the big annual Arab show here several times. Sitting at a breed show all day is a great way to see the range of types.
Arab x WB can be a very very nice looking horse.
Amongst others.
Yet another Gene LaCroix brainstorm.
Not to get too off topic but where is Ray LaCroix, Gene’s brother, these days? Way back in the 80s, in my tween/early teens, I was a mad fan of Arabians. (Still am, actually, minus the “mad” part, meaning I don’t subscribe to the publications anymore, but I love the breed).
Even as far away as I was from the actual Arabian scene, there was something about Ray that made it seem, to admittedly novice me, that he was more about the horse than the showmanship and accolades. Just speculation - I could well be wrong.
Far as I know, he’s still training in Arizona.
Ray is still in AZ and still training Arabians. He has shifted his focus to dressage, I believe.
I’ve known a couple. Very attractive horses and very smart, perhaps more suited to dressage than hunters. My first pony was a Welsh/Arab cross, and she was actually very fancy! You had to get her on your side if you wanted to live though - how much of that was breeding and how much of that was “mare” I couldn’t tell you 
. I’d buy another in a heartbeat if I needed a pony.
There was a thread on here some time back - I think in the Dressage forum - in which someone mentioned that Ray was still training Arabians but focusing on dressage. IIRC, the poster mentioned that she had either lessoned with him or watched him teach/train (can’t remember which), but she thought he did okay - that his general horsemanship skills and approach were better\kinder than Gene’s and that he had a much better understanding of basic training vis-à-vis dressage.
I want to touch back on your post, because it’s really thorough and goes right back to the heart of the issue with this situation that started this thread.
Pictures and stories have popped up multiple times over the last 2-3 years which indicate significant neglect problems with KS’ breeding program. These pictures include thin horses and broodmares that are in distressing situations.
Look… stuff happens. Breeding is not for the faint of heart. But there is a LOT of stuff happening with Kate’s program and horses, over and over again. Something is clearly wrong there…
When I first dug into this thread, and started learning more about her program, the thing that immediately jumped out at me was the math. It didn’t make any sense. A lot of the horses she had produced have been via ICSI. That’s not cheap! She also has used recipient mares for many of those foals… so add them to the headcount. She doesn’t own her own farm… and seems to have shipped horses from Arizona, to Oklahoma/Missouri, to Florida, and then back to Arizona… so add in all that board and shipping.
She doesn’t seem to be home much. She works full time braiding at shows all over the country… so she is hiring people to oversee foaling out mares and handling young stock. Presumably they are teaching the young stock to lead and tie and stand for vet and farrier, etc. Qualified people who are actually competent when it comes to foaling out and handling young stock? That’s different than hiring people to muck stalls and simply do turn out for well trained horses. It SHOULD be more expensive. Because we are talking about life and death situations with equines, and the first year of life and the foundation of training for an animal that might live for 25-30 years.
So think about all that overhead expense … and then think about the numbers of horses you laid out in terms of the ones she is retaining vs the numbers sold… and then think about the prices that the ones that are selling are almost certainly selling for…
Anyone who has owned horses for a while, and bred horses knows that this is financially not viable…
So what is going on here? Kate is a full time braider. Apparently good at it. But she’s not a Venture Capitalist or independently wealthy multimillionaire with a lot of disposable income to spend and lose on a hobby breeding program. At least not to my knowledge.
It’s entirely her business, and if she wants to light her own money on fire doing what she’s doing, that’s her choice. But from what we have all seen so far while discussing this situation on this thread… there is a herd of horses involved in this situation who are definitely at substantial risk of an unhappy ending to their lives. And that’s alarming and sad. And it’s alarming that the numbers in this herd keep on growing each year. Presumably because someone decided that they want to try and prove to all the “haters” that their breeding program is really not a failed venture, but actually a stroke of genius destined to change sport horse breeding as we know it…
Sigh. There is an unhappy ending on the horizon for many members of this herd. Especially the unbroken mature broodmares. And that is very sad.
Yes, I agree - it appears that she was originally breeding for the harness aficionados in the Arabian world (part-bred classes), and at that new registry for fancy harness/park horses that Gene LaCroix was trying to get established. And at some point she started realizing how much bigger the market was for sport horses, and wow, how much money those horses sell for, and how uneducated many buyers are in the H/J world (uneducated about bloodlines, etc.) and how ga-ga H/J folks were for “Dutch Warmbloods”, etc. And when she learned that her DHH mares could produce registered “Dutch Warmbloods,” she realigned her breeding program to tap into that lucrative new market, assuming that if she used “big-name” jumper stallions, the H/J people would start falling all over themselves to buy her foals. And somewhere along the way, she learned about embryo transplant, ICSI, etc. and basically turned her breeding program into the equivalent of a puppy mill. 
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
