[QUOTE=PNWjumper;7626125]
I’ve started this post so many times over the last 40 pages and keep deleting it before posting it as the conversation keeps going back and forth.
But I’m going to post now, and add up here at the top that there’s a whole “nother” issue with TBs in sport (and this applies to all breeds really)…find me a trainer these days who can recognize scope in an unconventional jumper (or even marginally-less-than-ideal jumper). They still exist, of course, especially in the older generation of trainers, but the young trainer who doesn’t think that a horse has to jump like Rox Dene do a GP course is a rare bird indeed. And that does the TB breed in particular no great favor.
After reading page after page after page of this thread, I will say that one of my chief complaints of the pro-TB sentiment is that it sounds like many of the TB proponents think that the TB of today is the same as the TB of yesterday.
Both types of horses have evolved greatly from where they were even 30 years ago. Saying otherwise negates decades of selective breeding to get to where we are today. Going back to the OP, I don’t believe that TB blood can add scope (because the cream-of-the-crop WBs already have as much scope as an UL jumper needs), and at best have the potential to “NOT take away scope” and at worst - actually take away scope. If TBs had been bred for jumping in mass numbers (like WBs - particularly in Europe where there’s legit access to 1.60m shows and classes) then I would think they could absolutely add jump. But the introduction of TB blood seems typically to be looking for other qualities. As it stands today, TBs in the upper level JUMPER ring are the exception and not the rule. But to be fair, in North America (where the bulk of TBs live), the HORSE that makes it to the 1.60m jumper ring is also the exception and not the rule. And that’s as much because of the cost to get them there as it is the animal someone is sitting on.
Before you think I’m an anti-TB type, my OTTB jumped around an FEI GP two weeks ago and was entered in his first World Cup Qualifier (1.60m) class. I scratched after walking the course because it was set large and I realized that he needs more experience jumping 1.50m+ square oxers from the base…something he just doesn’t naturally “get”. Which brings me to one of my key issues with TBs as upper level (1.60m) jumpers today. They’re not typically built to jump the tricky trappy courses that course designers set nowadays. I watched the (all other) WBs jump half those oxers from deep spots with nary an issue. Like Supershorty mentioned about her mare, my guy is MUCH happier galloping those jumps from a slight gap (in part because he’s one of the TBs who uses, as mentioned earlier, more brute jumping ability than catlike grace). Which doesn’t exactly fly over a 1.60m course when you’ve got a 2m+ spread on an oxer heading into or coming out of a 1-stride and in/out of another related distance…that’s the recipe for rails (at best). And there are rarely more than a fence or two that my guy “gets” to jump the way he likes.
I love my horse. And I mean LOVE my horse. He’s got the best work ethic and biggest heart of any horse I’ve ever owned. He typifies everything great anyone has ever said about TBs. But I would never ever try to BREED what he is. Because he outperforms his conformation and his natural tendency and in that respect he’s a freak of nature. I LOVE listening to the commentary when we show, and the murmur that goes around the crowd when they announce that he’s a TB off of the track. But boy, I would also LOVE to have a horse bred to jump a 1.60m x 2.2m oxer from the base. And THAT is where I think the WBs have greatly overtaken the TBs. And I’m not a skilled enough “conformationist” to understand hind end angles enough to point out why, but I believe that the ability to explode from underneath a jump while simultaneously carrying enough energy to get across the width is the primary reason why WBs have an advantage at the 1.60m level as a very broad generalization.
And I guess I just don’t understand why TBs have to be “the best at everything.” No horse is! Are there TBs that can give WBs a run for their money - OF COURSE! But if you’re looking at 2 groups of 100 horses, one jumper-bred WBs and the other OTTBs, where do you think you’re more likely to find a true 1.60m horse? And the same story goes for breeding. If you have a well-understood line of competitive 1.60m horses and a line of horses that is FAR less comprehensively known in the jumper world - where would you prefer to roll your dice? I’ll offer one thought - as a breeder are you trying to improve the breed as a whole with less emphasis put on your own offspring? Or are you breeding to sell your youngsters for the most amount of money possible? I would suggest that perhaps the breeders breeding for their own mounts (and not sales horses for the market) are going to be the core of the TB revival (if one happens) because as many have pointed out, direct TB blood (meaning WB/TB crosses) doesn’t seem to bring in anywhere near the dollars that WBs out of the top lines do.
My own perspective - as a rider and buyer of young horses, I’d much rather place my bet on the pool with a high percentage of capable horses. Doesn’t mean I’m always going to bet right, but I feel like my odds are higher coming from horses BRED TO DO MY SPORT over horses that AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH AT THE SPORT THEY WERE BRED FOR. Bringing back bloodlines bred specifically for jumping in the TB world AND getting them under riders that showcase those talents could, of course, change the story greatly. But that doesn’t exist the way it does in the WB world right now. It’s all well and good to say, “well if…” but it doesn’t have any real world application until someone puts it back into practice and that practice gains enough momentum to get sport-bred-TBs back into the big rings.[/QUOTE]
Fantastic post!
