I have a well bred, beautiful moving Appaloosa mare that I am considering breeding for a sport horse foal. She is 16 hands with ample bone and an uphill build, but she is a stock breed and her biggest conformation fault would be her small feet with low heels. She is a snowcap and should be a 100% color producer when crossed with a solid. I would be breeding for a dressage prospect. Any warmblood or thoroughbred stallions out there who are known to make good dressage crosses on stock breeds? The plus to breeding to a thoroughbred would be that the foal could be registered with the Appaloosa association. If bred to a warmblood, it would be nice if the foal could be registered as a part bred with a warmblood registry but I’m not really sure how that works. Appaloosas with warmblood breeding can not be registered with the Appaloosa association (unless gelded/spayed and registered with “unknown” sire).
If there is Laurie’s Crusador semen available and you aren’t opposed to frozen, you might look at him. He was the 2006 Hanoverian Dressage stallion of the year.
I wonder if there are any Stravinsky straws floating around? He would be an excellent choice. You might have to import it from the UK though.
Another UK based frozen option if you can get it would be Watermill Swatched
I can’t remember if it is Sea Accounts or Sea Lion, but I believe one (or both?) of them did pure dressage after they stopped eventing and would be worth a look. I don’t remember them being really WOW movers for pure dressage, but I will be honest and say I haven’t watched a video of either in a while so you should have a look and decide for yourself!
Saketini moves very nicely and I’d look at him too. Not sure if he has been used on stock horse mares yet but his owner
@EventerAJ would be able to tell you more.
There is a Dance with Ravens son called Raven Sky standing in VA now that you could look at, although he doesn’t have any foals on the ground yet and isn’t proven yet for sport. He seems cute in the videos I’ve seen and moves pretty well. Doesn’t blow me away yet but he is young and green.
Escher DFEN standing at Euroequine with 69% blood and is out of a Pleasant Tap Daughter. Escher has excellent feet, superb conformation–and my foal by him is a definite upgrade over her dam.
I believe Celle still has it though I’m not sure if they’re offering it internationally. If you look at Celle’s frozen semen list, there are several pretty well known thoroughbred stallions that were approved for breeding still available (Likoto comes to mind). Sea Lion, mentioned above, is also still available through Celle last I looked.
I don’t think that a foal of a WBxAppaloosa would be eligible for registration with the bigger conventional ones (HANN, GOV, ISR/OLDNA) but you may have more options with lower book options in certain registries or some smaller ones. If that’s the criteria you have then I would look first at finding a registry that is willing to approve your mare for breeding and then look at what stallions are approved by that registry.
I think this is going to be your primary limiting factor.
Why breed this mare? What is her own performance like? Would you consider her a sport horse prospect? Any foal is going to have a mix of genes from both the sire and dam, so you need to consider her as carefully as you consider a stallion. What if the breeding resulted in a foal exactly like her? Would you be happy with that? If so, she may be worthy of the breeding. If not, you may be better buying a prospect already on the ground that fits what you’re looking for. There’s no guarantee that you’ll improve on her by breeding.
@lenapesadie A friend of mine is expecting a QH/Friesian cross baby soon. Very excited to see this baby! Dam is a 16h+ palomino with excellent QH lines, and the sire is an athletic Friesian (not in the know of those lines). She bred to keep the baby for herself, but judging from yours, I might persuade her to share!
Quarter horse breeders have been doing crosses with TBs for years for lighter horses with more suspension. They wrote the book on it. I’ve seen an awful lot of weird looking stock horse types crossed with WBs. You’ll never know for sure what genes will match up with what. Do a search on these forums - lots of info on TBs sires that cross well with heavier breeds. I would, under no circumstances, breed a stock-type horse to a Friesian.
How exciting! I think the Friesian is a good cross on the QH. The high knee action is softened by the quieter leg of the QH. I might be biased though. Lol
I’ve seen some real franked-horse types with the Friesian crosses. TBxStock horse is a very proven cross and I’d be very wary of experimenting beyond that.
Sounds like the OP has a nice mare. She says she is a beautiful mover and well bred. I personally would love to see a resurgence in sport-type Appaloosas and I’d really like to see who the OP chooses and how the foal turns out! No reason that we have to be focused on warmbloods here.
Does the Knabstrupper registry allow Appaloosa blood? If so, that might be another direction to consider.
I agree there are way more Friesian crosses that should not have happened, than good ones. QHs do better than some, but Arabians, TBs, and Morgans seem to do the best. And “best” is still all relative. So no, a Friesian is not what I’d choose for this, there are too many other breeds much more likely to produce a much better sporthorse. Personally, I’d only buy a Friesian x QH so I could see what the horse was. I wouldn’t breed one.
Without a picture, it’s hard to know. Does she herself look like a sporthorse? Or does she look like a Foundation QH?
Are you wanting to be able to register the foal? As for Knabstrupper registration with an App breed mare:
http://www.knabstruppers.com/faqs.htm
Gatsby has been bred to several stock horse mares, and produces very well, as he is very prepotent in making foals look a lot more like him, than the mare. The TBs mentioned above are excellent choices as well.
The Wap line of stallions from the JG Appaloosa Sport Horses are ones to look at.
If to import swimmers Albaran xx - located at Watermolen in the Netherlands - seem to be available on frozen 
Beautiful! I hadn’t thought about that. Can they be registered as half Friesian?
I’m specifically looking for a non traditional dressage prospect and I’m partial to Appaloosas. It is hard to find sport bred Appaloosas especially ones bred for dressage. I currently show one and while I don’t think he’ll make a Grand Prix horse he is very talented. He’s a App/QH/Thoroughbred cross, currently at 2nd level and doing quite well in a competitive region with mostly warmbloods. This mare is a beautiful natural mover, but was never trained with dressage principles. She had a limited show career on the Appaloosa circuit in hunter under saddle and over fences and was very successful. I stopped showing on the App circuit and she has a very quiet demeanor so I gave her to my mom as a trail horse and bought my current show horse. I think she has natural ability as a dressage horse, that’s just not the direction we went with her. I would hope that a sport stallion would improve on her, but yes if we ended up with something exactly like her it would still be a very nice horse. She does not have the greatest feet, but that’s honestly her only fault.
I do believe there is a registry for them through a smaller stud book. Perhaps more than one. Heritage Horse something or another perhaps. I didn’t bother with it for my gelding as he’s a lifetime horse for me.
Thank you! I love my boy and have zero regrets ðŸ˜
you could check with the breed registry of your choice (once you find a stallion) - if warmblood they may issue a Certificate of Pedigree that would allow you to show in their division and earn breed points, if that’s your goal. Have to check the registry but that might be an option if you find one you like.
I used to own a LOVELY TK/QH Cross. He looked more like a WB than a QH. Bred by Judy Yancy and he was by Insterruf out of a beautiful and very TB looking QH mare. He lived to around 30 and did hunters, dressage and Eventing. He carted kids around for years and was the best babysitter for all my babies.
The ATA does allow for part bred horses in the D book (COP papers) so at least there is a paper trail you can also go for year end awards and even have the foal voluntarily inspected. :).
Westfalen NA still inspects Knabstrupper’s you could check with them if a cross with and Appaloosa would be eligible for pre-studbook.
I think it’s pretty well established that stock types cross best with TBs. Too bad A Fine Romance has passed on.
Mega ditto.
