Top 25 mare families in the world

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=tom;3700647]
Precisely EquineLVR.

If the Verband had approved Hickstead first it would be viewed by some as the most enlghtened, progressive and brilliant decision possible.

But for the AHHA to do it first is consider an apostasy.[/QUOTE]

This is the issue though Tom. The Verband would not have approved Hickstead , period. He is not a Holsteiner and he is too small… There is no way for them to put him in the breeding experiment either like they did with For Pleasure or QDR. Your stallion Condios got approved without going in any breeding experiment because he is a HOLSTEINER and he had sufficient sport requirements AND you had to show him to the Verband. The AHHA has never even seen this little fella !

This is the fundamental difference in my opinion . The Holsteiner Verband is very cautious and methodical. The AHHA is very liberal with little education.

I have heard thru the vine that the HV is none too happy with this decision by the AHHA and after your interview with Dr. Nissen , I suppose you might have suspected this would be the case.

[grayarabpony]

@Bayhawk;3700689

The AHHA has never even seen this little fella !

They did if they’ve seen any of the big competitions. :rolleyes:

[tri]

There is more to BREEDING approval than watching a horse go round a course of big jumps; like x-rays, conformation, gaits, etc.

Also, you can have, say for example, 2 full brothers, both identical in type, quality, etc. One may be approved and the other turned down. Why? Because they may have too much of those particular bloodlines to have two of them APPROVED FOR BREEDING.

Another example is the dressage horse Bonfire. Yes, he was at the top of the sport. But he was crooked as hell and wouldn’t be approved/wasn’t approved FOR BREEDING.

[grayarabpony]

Leg straightness isn’t even high on the list of heritable traits. :rolleyes:

Obviously the horse has the gaits and conformation for jumping if he can win an Olympic gold medal. Performance is an excellent, if not the BEST criterion FOR BREEDING.

tri, you left out free jumping. The AHHA hasn’t seen the little fella free jump either.

Edited to add: And how could I forget this? Hickstead is licensed Dutch, so he has passed with x-rays.

[Sakura_Hill_Farm]

It has been verified on another BB that Hickstead is not approved KWPN or KWPN-NA, so he has probably not passed the PROK exam.

[grayarabpony]

On paardenfokken he is listed as being licensed NRPS, which does require x-rays.

[ShowjumpersUSA]

As opposed to being licensed only, Hickstead was actually approved by NRPS. According to the Dutch office, he is not licensed to breed with the KWPN.

NRPS is the Dutch Ridinghorse and Pony Studbook.

[grayarabpony]

Wait a minute, I thought licensing was initial approval with a registry. My understanding was that a horse is first licensed with one registry, and then approved for other registries.

This is what alexandra wrote last year:

“You have to clearly differentiate between Approval and Licensing.
Licensing is the original/initial/first licensing with a registry. After this is done a stallion can be presented to other registries and can be approved by them. One could say “accepted aswell” to describe that more precisely”

[vineyridge]

Now wait. Are you all telling me that the Holsteiner Verband rules are so strict that they would reject an Olympic Gold Medalist because he isn’t tall enough? What does that have to do with anything? He’s proved he can “jump the moon”, he’s an incredible athlete, and his size certainly hasn’t been a factor in his performance. What the hell does size have to do with the cost of tea from China?

That’s ridiculous and very short sighted. Hickstead deserves to be given a chance to see what his offspring from exceptional mares can do.

[Equilibrium]

[QUOTE=grayarabpony;3701211]
Leg straightness isn’t even high on the list of heritable traits. :rolleyes:

Obviously the horse has the gaits and conformation for jumping if he can win an Olympic gold medal. Performance is an excellent, if not the BEST criterion FOR BREEDING.

tri, you left out free jumping. The AHHA hasn’t seen the little fella free jump either.

Edited to add: And how could I forget this? Hickstead is licensed Dutch, so he has passed with x-rays.[/QUOTE]

Well I place a value on conformation. I don’t even breed my racemares to a horse who has excelled on the track, but has questionable conformation, or if I know about it, wind issues. We all know of horses that have excelled in a chosen sport who wasn’t correct or indeed had issues, it doesn’t mean they have the best gaits or conformation.

But I will agree, size shouldn’t be the overall killer on breeding to a specific horse. And it’s probably why this guy hasn’t been accepted into any major registry over conformation faults. Really, with the size of some mares out there, letting smaller stallions into registries should be relaxed. I would love a nice 15.3 fully approved stallion for my mare so they might end up in the 16.1 hand range instead of near 17 hands.

Terri

[grayarabpony]

[QUOTE=Equilibrium;3701660]
Well I place a value on conformation. I don’t even breed my racemares to a horse who has excelled on the track, but has questionable conformation, or if I know about it, wind issues.[/QUOTE]

Oh for God’s sake, I’m sure Hickstead doesn’t have crooked legs, but if Bonfire did have crooked legs, it didn’t stop him from having a very long career.

@Equilibrium;3701660

We all know of horses that have excelled in a chosen sport who wasn’t correct or indeed had issues, it doesn’t mean they have the best gaits or conformation

Who, like Hickstead? rolls eyes We’re not talking about horses who race for a couple of years. Performance means a great deal if the horse has competed for years and stayed sound. What breeders want are horses who can excel at a sport, not the horse who stands up the best and trots the best for an inspection.

My point was not that horses with crooked legs need to be bred. My point was that tri’s post was ill-informed and pre-school.

[grayarabpony]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;3701645]
Now wait. Are you all telling me that the Holsteiner Verband rules are so strict that they would reject an Olympic Gold Medalist because he isn’t tall enough? What does that have to do with anything? He’s proved he can “jump the moon”, he’s an incredible athlete, and his size certainly hasn’t been a factor in his performance. What the hell does size have to do with the cost of tea from China?

That’s ridiculous and very short sighted. Hickstead deserves to be given a chance to see what his offspring from exceptional mares can do.[/QUOTE]

Viney, are you questioning the wisdom of the Holsteiner Verband?!?!?!

[tom]

Reece, by definition every outcross sire the Verband approves and/or enters into a breeding experiment is not a Holsteiner:

Quidam de Revel
Quick Star (certainly no bigger than Hickstead)
Diamant de Semilly
Champion du Lys
Ephebe for Ever (why are so few of you concerned about “too big”?)
Cornet Obolensky
Sandro boy
Stakkato
For Pleasure
etc. etc.

– all not Holsteiners.

So saying that the Verband could not approve Hickstead because he is not a Holsteiner is, well, silly.

Did all these stallions go to Neumuenster for approval? I don’t think so.

The KWPN has one of the strictest inspection regimes in the world and they occasionally recognize/approve stallions that are not presented for approval. If it is good enough for the KWPN maybe the AHHA is not too far off base using this practice on the rare occasion.

What matters with respect to size (and every other characteristic) is not how big a stallion is himself but how big his progeny become; more precisely, for example, is the mean size +/- 2 standard deviations within the band of 16 hand - 16.3 hands.

I am not arguing that Hickstead should be approved. I have already written that reasonable arguments can be made for and against the idea. On a personal level I am indifferent. But most of the reasons given above (not only by you but by some others on this board and on the other boards) for him not to be approved are not sound from the viewpoint of a studbook that need to improve its genetics and occasionally introduce outcross genetics.

Finally, I do not think Dr. Nissen spends a lot of time thinking about the AHHA or worrying about what stallions the AHHA approves. You are making the very loose ties between the Verband and the AHHA appear to be stronger than they really are.

[tom]

Terri, Hickstead is approved by the NRPS and the AES and both studbooks require x-rays. The fact that he is not approved by a plethora of other studbooks is probably more a testament to his busy competition schedule, his success in the ring, and the realities of standing a showjumping sire in North America rather than to any defects in the stallion.

Hickstead was exported to Canada early in his international career (as a 7-year-old, if my memory is correct). How many mares would the have gotten in Canada and the USA if he had been promoted and approved by other studbooks? Even if he were 16.3 and a perfect model it probably would not have been worth the effort on the part of the owners.

[tom]

For everyone who thinks approved stallions all have straight legs and perfect conformation please visit kwpnstallion.com (subscription required). Some excerpts:

Jazz: (top-ranked dressage sire in the world and a KWPN Preferent sire): “The hindleg is long and has a strong angle. The base is relatively delicate.” Strong angle is the polite way of saying sickle hocked.

An approved stallion from the V year: The hindleg is long and very sickle hocked.

Another V stallion: The hindleg is long and straight.

A U stallion: The hamstring should be longer. He is toed out in front.

Another U stallion: The hindleg is a little long. The stance of the foreleg is toed out and the stallion has weak pasterns.

I could go on and on…

[tri]

My post is not in relation to Hickstead.

My post was only to point out that competing well should not be the only criteria for approving breeding stock. If that was the case, we could approved anything of any bloodline with any conformation criteria as long as it acheived performance criteria - that is a performance registry, not a breeding registry.

And, yes Bonfire is very crooked - well known fact - and was turned down by the Oldenburg Verband for approval and was gelded.

Do some get in despite a conformation flaw? Yes, obviously. Should all get in regardless of conformation flaws? I hope not.

Greyarabpony, I don’t respect anything you have to say.

[ponygirl]

Tom,
Not to side rail this but you bring up the kwpnstallions database which I’ve been trying to subscribe to yet am finding it impossible. USA, in any form, is not listed as a country so I select the very last thing assuming that is “Other”. It then changes Mrs. to Mr. and says I exist already yet I do not. Any tips?

[tom]

Tri, every stallion, every mare, every gelding has conformation flaws.

Some flaws are objective (such as a front leg that is not straight) and may or may not impact performance and may or may not be highly heritable.

Other flaw" (such as a “long back”) are simply deviations from a breed stardard. One studbook’s “flaw” is another studbook’s desired characteristic because the horses will be used for different purposes.

But every horse has one or more objective conformation flaws. Even stallions.

I don’t think too many people would dispute your argument that competition results should be the ONLY criterion for approving breeding stock.

ponygirl, telephone or email them
Tel. 011.31.314 358358
e-mail: kwpnstallion@reedbusiness.nl

[ponygirl]

Thank-you Tom!

[tri]

Yes, I realize that all horses have flaws. That was not my post. I was simply responding to GAP’s stupid insistence that because a horse is in top competition, he should be automatically approved by any Verband regardless of being presented or not.

I don’t think they should and apparently most officials at Verbands as well as most top breeders agree with me.

Wasn’t it Rubinstien that was turned down by Westfalia for being too small among other things, yet went on to be approved with the oldenburg verband, the rest being history?

Voltaire had a similar history - he was turned down by one, not thought well of, yet went on to be sire of the century with the Dutch.

Abgar is a foundation stallion with the dutch and is sickle hocked AND he is known for passing that trait along with enough dominance that it goes several generations. I still have him in my foundation breeding mare’s bloodlines.

Abdullah is crooked in front and is known for reliably passing those front legs to offspring also for generations and many abdullahs out there paddle in front from it.

It is up to each Verband to decide what they will tolerate and what they won’t. Sometimes it is political but it is always subjective.