Hi everyone, I’m planning on breeding my mare in the spring, toying around with the thought of a pony. Is there a “trick” to calculating height/breeding for a specific height/range? For reference I’m breeding a 15.3 thoroughbred maiden mare to a Welsh in hopes of a 14.0-14.2 pony. Hoping its not all just guesswork!
Thank you
from our experience the best way to get a pony is to set your heart on wanting 17h horse
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If you’re set on breeding, then you need to look at adult offspring by that stallion, and out of mares the same height as yours
But, if your mare has bigger height behind her, I would assume the large chance you’ll get bigger than 14.2
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Maidens tend to produce a smaller first foal, but not always. I think it is pretty hard to guess what the ultimate size will be… perhaps ask stallion owner? I bred a 16.1 TB that threw big to a 14.2 Welsh/Holst that threw big hoping to get around 15.2, and now have a rising 5 year old mare that is just shy of 14.2 (now hoping she does not grow any more as she is super fancy). Go figure. The small welsh genes must have dominated. I did read somewhere that offspring may end up closer to one or the other, rather than in between. Although I also bred a 14.1 1/2 paint cross (ancestors probably in the 15+ hand range) to a 13.1 Welsh and got a 13.3 filly, so did end up in between. A subsequent owner bred that 13.3 filly to a 14.2 Welsh/TB, and ended up with a 15.2+ gelding. The big genes came through. I would probably breed to a small to avoid getting a hony.
What flavour of Welsh were you considering? There are still a fair few (though not nearly as many as 20 years ago) C and B xtb crosses around in the UK, most of the ones I’ve seen have been full up ponies, though I did have a lovely C x tb who was over 15hh. Good allround sport pony types.
Welsh D x are still really popular here but very likely to be horse sized (heck, even some of the pure D’s now are 16hh+ ). Welsh A x isn’t really a thing done on purpose IME because of the height difference.
I have a tb x native weanling (tho’ not Welsh) who is already bigger than his native dad, and fast approaching the size of his (adult) full siblings. My ‘small’ horse isn’t going to be that small I think!
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What JB said. If you want to maximize your chances of getting a pony by breeding your TB mare, research the heck out of welsh breeders who do ‘this’ cross. It used to be a popular one in the hunter ring before more warmblood crosses and GRPs became the focus. My TB x Welsh crosses were all Section D stallions to TB mare that was 16.1 hands and as wanted/expected ended up with crosses in the 15 - 15.2 hand range.
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Well, I bred my large pony mare to a large pony stallion. Said colt (now gelded) is probably going to be 16 hands. I have to laugh because I was so certain I would get a 14.2 hand pony and instead I have a small warmblood.
Picture of him next to my 15.1 hand paint.
Nothing is set in breeding. If even the grandsire/granddam have height, you can end up with a much taller horse then expected.
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There’s a Section A stallion in Florida, Cherub’s Casanova, that seems to be bred to a fair number of horse mares of different breeds and types - I’d bet his owner would have some thoughts for you.
