And then 20 years from now we’ll be importing reining horses from Holland if we want to be competitive 
Jennifer
[QUOTE=ThirdCharm;5131338]
And then 20 years from now we’ll be importing reining horses from Holland if we want to be competitive
Jennifer[/QUOTE]
that needed a spew alert…I almost spit my drink on the keyboard :lol:
Tamara in TN
ROTFL!!! I highly doubt it lol. The europeans are importing some good horses, but not that many lol. And there are new lines being added constantly. I have a friend who is having some early success breeding in some Oklahoma Fuel and Sun Frost lines (she used to breed barrel horses lol). Others are trying others… And don’t discount the non-QH reiners lol. The HA and Arabian Reining programs are growing too… Should be interesting to see in 20 years. lol. I don’t think 20 years ago, anyone would think that Reining would have grown so much lol.
[QUOTE=VarsityHero4;5121018]
It’s so foreign (no pun intended!) to me to think of other countries besides the N.A. ones being competitive in reining just because I didn’t think the American stock breeds were really over there, I was half expecting to see some WB’s sliding down the arena… and to be honest I was a little excited ;[/QUOTE]
A little Quarter Horse trivia: Wikipedia says “Next to the AQHA (which also encompasses Quarter Horses from Canada), the second largest registry of QHs is in Brazil, followed by Australia”
In 2005 there were 27,000 registered QHs in Germany.
[QUOTE=VarsityHero4;5121018]
It’s so foreign (no pun intended!) to me to think of other countries besides the N.A. ones being competitive in reining just because I didn’t think the American stock breeds were really over there, I was half expecting to see some WB’s sliding down the arena… and to be honest I was a little excited 
It seems like this might be the up-and-coming event in the world judging by what I’ve seen in the past years up til now![/QUOTE]
Thought I would add that my parents sold a two-year-old colt to Germany in 1982. Europe has been importing QHs for quite some time. Several countries have been showing at the world show, various world championships (NRHA and NCHA) for years.
In the beginning, many of the European owners kept horses in training over here…but that’s not really the case anymore. They would also have judges from the U.S. do their shows…but I believe there are a lot more AQHA judges residing in Europe now. The AQHA dispensing with the live cover requirement made a lot of difference.
[QUOTE=ThirdCharm;5131318]
You have WATCHED reining and cutting if you’re a QH fan right? The only way a WB (and I’m a sporthorse person) could compare with a good cutting/reining horse for energy and explosiveness would be if you shoved a stick of TNT up their hinder parts! And reach/movement of the warmblood variety would be as useless on a reining horse as it would be on a 3-gaited Saddlebred ! They are just not put together to do that job and if you did find one freak wb who was, why would you risk outcrossing to it (and ending with a throwback to its dressagey wb forebears) instead of going with a proven successful bloodline?
Are you one of those QH fanciers who thinks it’s perfectly cool for a QH to be 7/8 TB, 17h and look like it just crossed the finish line at Churchill Downs?
Jennifer[/QUOTE]
No. I do think appendix QH for english classes are awesome, but don’t want one of those for a reiner. Are you one of those ignorant folks who think all warmbloods are 17hh and can’t collect and believe warmbloods are actually a breed? (Unless you’re speaking specific ones, such as Trakehners, which still allow some crosses.)
I’m one of those people who knows enough about breeding to know that when wisely done introducing new lines to the gene pool is smart, and who realizes that those popular lines you see over and over in any pure breeds (as opposed to registries) repeat similar problems. In the QH it’s specific soundness issues. I think only an idiot would breed a 17+h warmblood to a QH looking for a reiner. However, the Europeans have been studying how different traits transfer to improve their horses, rather than just keep what they already have. I think improved soundness is a huge improvement.
[QUOTE=ThirdCharm;5131334]What the Europeans will do is import some of our best QH bloodlinesN ruthlessly cull anything that has navicular or HYPP like the AQHA shoulda done a long time ago, and start kicking our behinds in reining…
Jennifer[/QUOTE]
I think you may be right about culling. But I think you end up with too few lines and too much inbreeding if you’re going from what’s sound and in Europe (though of course you can import more, use ai, etc.) - so if they want to improve their horses, they can’t necessarily look to what works great on our cattle farms, but they can look to what’s not dressagey, but has the right cattiness without stupid size to possible help the reiners there. I think the US breeding programs will be able to keep up without question, and don’t think the AQHA horses will ever become obsolete. I just think we’ll start to see non-AQHA purpose-bred reiners out there.
I’m sorry, but I’m laughing at those of you who are offended that I think maybe someone would want to breed a QH to anything besides a QH, because your posts are the mirror image of the WB fans who think that WB is specific lines with no outcrosses to anything else, ever. You sound exactly the same, and you’re pretty much just all lacking in history lessons and leaning to condescension to try to cover it up.
Interesting. I would have guessed Mexico ahead of Brasil or Australia.
[QUOTE=bugsynskeeter;5124263]
Mister Montana Nic sold last year at the NRHA Futurity to a rookie rider. The price? $125,000.
Mister Montana Nic is being shown in Craig Schmersal at WEG.[/QUOTE]
I heard today he got silver. woohoo! The owners live just a few miles down the road from me…I have a 4-yr old daughter by a 2006 World AQHA reserve champion jr. heeler (Smart Chic Olena and Shining Spark breeding) they used to own…out of a Doc Bar mare I just had to have put down in April.
They exhibit NICE horses - way to go, Smiths!
I’m one of those people who knows enough about breeding to know that when wisely done introducing new lines to the gene pool is smart, and who realizes that those popular lines you see over and over in any pure breeds (as opposed to registries) repeat similar problems.
I think a nice big gene pool is highly desirable (I am an evolutionary biologist) but I can also understand why it might not be that useful to outcross when your are purpose breeding for certain functions and desirable type is already well fixed. For example, there are lots of “herding breed” dogs out there, but if you’re breeding working Border Collies, trust me, there is absolutely NOTHING to gain by outcrossing to different breeds (or even to certain lines within the breed sensu lato, such as show dogs). You just end up with marginally useful and/or useless dogs. This may be even more the case for horses, which have long generation times and small litter sizes, and where each generation must be functionally useful. (Yes, I know that some folks do cross Border Collies with other breeds for some narrow purposes, due to personal preference, or just because. But NO other breed is as good at what Border Collies do as Border Collies, so pretty no one who needs a dog that does what a Border Collie does crosses it with anything else.)
In general, F1 crosses are often very consistent (especially when the parent breeds or lines are very inbred to begin with) but subsequent generations tend to be all over the map.
So yeah, I like the idea of introducing new alleles, but I don’t know that doing so profits individual breeders very much in the short term.
I am not ignorant of the fact that everything in Europe is not 17h and they are not breed registries per se, but they are not exactly dissimilar in type and talent, particularly since so many of the warmblood ‘breeds’ are the same bloodlines. I have no problem with outcrossing if done wisely. But it seems silly to hunt and peck throughout Europe amongst horses that have been bred for a couple centuries for completely different qualities than those required by a reining horse, when there are PLENTY of proven bloodlines available that have been bred for those specific qualities and excel at them to the point where one breed basically dominates the sport.
It would be like taking a Thoroughbred racehorse and breeding it to an Arabian who is outrageously fast, hoping to get a KY Derby winner… Just because, say, Mr. Prospector bloodlines have a rep for crooked legs and the Arab in question has a family with nice straight ones. And yes, I’m aware that Arab outcrosses are the basis of the TB breed, but I think the breed has evolved and specialized beyond the point where the Arab could add to the performance ‘bottom line’. There is a reason The Black Stallion is fiction and it is NOT just the JC’s rules!
Jennifer
