What tests for breeding a part-Arabian mare?

[DaniW]

I may have gotten my ancient history mixed up a bit as to exactly which horses were flown out of Poland during the war.

That doesn’t negate the fact that I was there in the eighties when the only way to test for CID was to breed to a known carrier and it was specifically the Bask progeny that were coming up as the carriers.

I went to undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona from 1984 - 1988 and they had several donated horses that were carriers - Tu -Fire , with 2 traces to Bask , was a stallion I specifically remember was donated to Cal Poly because he produced a cid foal.

[stripes]

Dani before you post any more falsehoods, you need to research some proven facts. #1 is that *Bask is not a carrier for SCID. #2 that SCID was discovered from a Crabbet herd in Australia. Many of the CMK mares that were bred to *Bask were the carriers - NOT *Bask.

[DaniW]

[QUOTE=stripes;8029829]
NO HE WAS NOT. *Bask was not and a SCID carrier.[/QUOTE]

And this is the problem with burying your head in the sand. He was dead long before there was a blood test - he died in 1979 and the blood test first became available in 1997 so there is no way you can say he didn’t have it and all the data points to the fact that he was the reason the gene became so widespread.

[stripes]

Dani… it is a well known fact that *Bask was not a carrier and that some of the CMK mares that he bred were IN FACT the carriers. You should really do your research before posting anymore.

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=DaniW;8029833]
I may have gotten my ancient history mixed up a bit as to exactly which horses were flown out of Poland during the war.

That doesn’t negate the fact that I was there in the eighties when the only way to test for CID was to breed to a known carrier and it was specifically the Bask progeny that were coming up as the carriers.

I went to undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona from 1984 - 1988 and they had several donated horses that were carriers - Tu -Fire , with 2 traces to Bask , was a stallion I specifically remember was donated to Cal Poly because he produced a cid foal.[/QUOTE]

Breeders talk among themselves. You are obviously not really a student of the breed if you don’t know the Bask history. He is a legend in the breed and you thought he was born in WWII.

So I need to give credence to actual Arab BREEDERS and students of the breed in this area. Not everyone likes the Bask-bred horses, but not one in the dozens & dozens of breeders and fans of the Arab horse I’ve spoken with has ever connected Bask & SCIDS.

I don’t really think you have your facts straight.

[DownYonder]

So I should have my mare tested for SCID, because her Arabian blood is mostly Crabbet?

She also has that one dose of Bask back there - do I also need to test her for CA because of that?

Even if I plan to use a WB stallion with NO Arabian blood in the past 5-6 or more generations?

[oldernewbie]

What do you want to accomplish? Of the three most common genetic issues with Arabs, I think you could safely skip the LFS test. LFS comes from Egyptian bred horses and it doesn’t sound like you have any of that strain in your mare.

I would test for the other two just because I am a little OCD that way - I just like to know for sure. I even tested my (human) twin sons to find out for sure that they were identical after everyone told me they weren’t - but I was sure that they were. (Sure enough - they were identical! Never question a mother’s intuition! )

I will say though, IMveryHO, the risk in your scenario seems very very low.

Good luck!

[neversaynever]

Because of the high percentage of warmblood in the mare would you also suggest testing for PSSM1 and Fragile Foal Syndrome (WFFS)?

[vineyridge]

Seems to me the options are test the mare before any breeding. Or don’t. Test the foals whether you test the mare or not. If one of them is a carrier, you could geld a colt, but what would you do about a filly? It’s not whether the foal is going to be affected, because the odds against that are very high. But do you want to produce a carrier?

[DawnJL]

While the frequency of SCID within the Crabbet lineage horses is higher than in some other bloodline groups, the myth that Crabbet horses are the sole source of SCID needs to be laid to rest. (Just as LFS as solely a straight Egyptian problem is incorrect.) Evidence is that all three of these recessive deleterious mutations were known among the Bedouin and originated in the Arabian gene pool many generations before Europeans, North Americans, and Australians ever imported Arabians from the desert. Since carriers of these recessive alleles are healthy (unlike with HYPP), the alleles became randomly distributed within any particular subgroup based on how commonly these (unknown) carriers were utilized in breeding.

In the case of SCID, which is commonly (and incorrectly) attributed solely to Crabbet stock, it has also been proven to exist in the Davenport lines (among others) which never passed through Crabbet Stud. Blaming Crabbet Stud for SCID provides a false sense of security to those whose horses don’t trace to Crabbet stock so it is not a productive approach.

Because all three of these disorders are recessive, it is quite common for the allele to remain undetected for generations. The problem with relying on all these rumors of carrier lines is that for all the historic carriers that were identified via knowledge of affected foals, there MUST have been other carriers that were never discovered because either they never produced an affected foal, they produced affected foals long before the disorders were recognized as heritable, or their production of affected foals did not become public knowledge.

The existence of these genetic tests frees us from relying on rumor, old witch hunts, and misunderstanding of the origins and inheritance patterns of these mutations. The tests allow KNOWLEDGE to be the basis for making responsible breeding decisions in regard to whether or not a particular individual possesses one or more of these alleles. Just test and KNOW so you can make informed and responsible breeding decisions.

[D_BaldStockings]

If the foundation arab mare was a carrier, she would have one normal and one abnormal gene.

Her foals would have a 50% chance of inheriting that gene.

if the mare is tested and is ngative, there is no further need to test the foals: they are all negative.

Ther is no ‘halving’ of the potential of being a carrier as you become more distant from the foundation mare: it is either passed on each generation, or it is not.

Think of it as a chestnut gene hiding under a black coated horse.

You can breed for generations and if you never breed to a ‘chestnut carrier’ you wil not produce a chestnut foal.

On the other hand, if your ‘registry’ discards/culls chestnut foals, you would be wise to only breed the ‘non-carriers’.

[st_francis]

Jeez Dawn, way to suck the fun out of this witch hunt.

hanging up pitchfork

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=DownYonder;8030210]
So I should have my mare tested for SCID, because her Arabian blood is mostly Crabbet?

She also has that one dose of Bask back there - do I also need to test her for CA because of that?

Even if I plan to use a WB stallion with NO Arabian blood in the past 5-6 or more generations?[/QUOTE]

DY: personally, I think the risk is so small as to be fairly close to 0%; it’s the old story about “hybrid vigor”.

But if you have money to burn test for all of them and rest easy.

The way I look at it (in my case) is that I know my stock (the Arab), and she has been tested in the field. At her age (almost 22), if she had something, I’d know it.

Her daughter (now 10) who is 50% WB (through Werigo, who competed in GP dressage under Steffen Peters till he started his breeding career at age 17; so died at 20, I think) has been likewise healthy, sound & strong HER whole life. They all sound like a pretty healthy horses to me.

And I will be breeding this daughter to Prelude By Mozart, who is still alive and breeding with gusto at age 24 (I think).

So in my case the performance history & merging to breeds (the resulting foal will only be 25% Arab), remove all serious worry from me.

But your mileage…etc. etc.

[stripes]

Honestly speaking here… I personally see no risk in breeding your mare to a WB stallion that does not have a PB Arabian in the pedigree. So I wouldn’t test due to your breeding choice. I think you’re in a real “low risk” category.

And to be clear… *Bask has never been connected to SCID or CA so if you see *Bask in the pedigree no fears there.

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=stripes;8031466]
Honestly speaking here… I personally see no risk in breeding your mare to a WB stallion that does not have a PB Arabian in the pedigree. So I wouldn’t test due to your breeding choice. I think you’re in a real “low risk” category.

And to be clear… *Bask has never been connected to SCID or CA so if you see *Bask in the pedigree no fears there.[/QUOTE]

OK, just for “fun” I am going to stir the pot abit.

ALthough my “foundation” mare is PB Arab (the one whose pedigree is posted on this thread), the WB I was using has crosses to Ramzes, who was 50% SHAGYA Arab (and real Shagya, not Shagya mixed with traditional Arab strains).

I am doubling back on this blood because Ramzes was amazing.

But anyone know if any of these diseases transferred from the original desert Arab to the Shagya ?

Since Ramzes was one of the corner stone stallions of both the Holsteiners and the Westphalians and can now be found in pretty much all the WB groups, I wonder.

Geeze, now that I think about, how did the French breeders keep these disease out of the Selle Francais or the Anglo Arab?

I never hear about them in connection with these breeds.

Here is the pedigree of the planned foal:http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?d=Mozart's+Angel&sex=&color=&dog_breed=any&birthyear=&birthland=

Jordi is the Shagya. JT Maja is the Bask-bred, PB Arab.

[DawnJL]

“If she had something, I’d know it.” implies a complete misunderstanding of what SCID, CA, and LFS carrier status means. Carriers of these alleles are NOT unhealthy; they are heterozygous for genes that are only problematic in the homozygous state. Horses that are heterozygous for a recessive deleterious allele are not “disease carriers” and “hybrid vigor” does not prevent carrier status to be conferred from a carrier parent to offspring.

While breeding to a mate that has no close-up Arabian heritage is highly unlikely to result in a foal that is affected by one of these disorders, the risk is not 0% if there is any Arabian ancestry. Random chance means that there are purebred Arabians living today who are carriers of one of these genetic alleles who inherited that allele that traces to an ancestor that is 5-6 or more generations back in the pedigree. The same is possible for any horse with any Arabian ancestor. What makes it unlikely that a WB with distant Arabian ancestry is a carrier is that 1) most Arabians aren’t/weren’t carriers and 2) the further back in the pedigree a carrier is found, the more likely the 50% non-carrier option happened at some point. But all carriers today trace to original carriers that are MANY, MANY generations back so it is important to recognize that distance from the original ancestor doesn’t guarantee that the gene wasn’t passed down.

The value in these genetic tests is two-fold. They allow the knowledge to prevent affected foals from being born and they allow breeders to be informed as to their horses’ genetic status for these alleles rather than just “assuming” status based on rumors and incomplete information.

Many on this forum went ballistic over Czantiago’s status as a CA carrier. IMO, it is hypocritical to be critical of using carriers with clear mates on the one hand while suggesting that breeding an untested Arabian is OK. Test results provide information that can then be weighed in making responsible decisions. Without testing a breeder could be utilizing a carrier and producing carrier offspring while remaining oblivious.

This has ramifications beyond Arabians. Deleterious recessive genes exist in many breeds. As more gene mapping occurs more of these tests will become available. (Hurrah for the HWSS test for Connemaras!) All breeders need to understand these issues and be ready to use testing tools responsibly.

[ctyslcr]

DownYonder:

You seem to be concerned about the status of your mare. I would just test your mare. It is probably less than $200 to test for SCID, CA and LFS. You can do the CA and LFS through UC Davis for $60 total. The SCID test is through Foal.org and the test hairs go to VetGen. If you test through Foal.org you get a discount versus going directly through VetGen. Good luck.

[stripes]

Breeding to a Trak, I would test. They have found CA in the Trak’s. I read somewhere when all this started about the stallion with CA that went to the Stallion Testing that the study being done within WB’s for CA did find carriers in Traks & Oldenburgs with Arabian blood.

[clint]

A couple of decades ago I bred an imported Spanish Arabian mare to an imported Spanish stallion. The resulting foal had CA, which I had never heard of. If I thought I would run even the remotest possibility of having another foal with that disease, or any of the genetic diseases carried by Arabs, I would test.

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=Dawn J-L;8031534]
“If she had something, I’d know it.” implies a complete misunderstanding of what SCID, CA, and LFS carrier status means. [/QUOTE]

I totally understand what “carrier” means.

My point was that, at worst, all my horses (and the horses behind them) could be is carriers.

What I meant was that, given all the evidence & history of all the horses involved, the risk was seriously minimal.