A WB with a strong hip-loin connection and a track record of crossing well with Arabs or Ango-Arabs.
When I was shopping I seriously considered a sporthorse type Saddlebred… would actually love to see what that kind of cross could produce!
I wouldn’t breed a cross, when the cross is two fairly dissimilar breeds. It can get messy. The first cross works well because the foal tends to have a mix of characteristics and it tends to blend/work, but when you breed that cross, the mare won’t pass on those blended characteristics, but rather she will pass on individual genes from each breed.
I am not explaining this well…
But as an example: very nice Clydesdale thoroughbred jumper mare, 16.2 hands, crossed with a 16 hand, well build, TB stallion. Result? 17.2 hand Frankenstein: Giant draft body, refined TB legs and head. Horse could not stay sound to save its life as it was just too heavy for its legs. It had gotten size from the Clydesdale even though its dam didn’t show the size, but the refinement in its legs from the TB part of its genetics.
Note: Not my horses/breeding program.
http://ranchitolibertad.com/mares.html
The mare on the bottom right was bred in a program which specifically looked for warmblood/saddlebred crosses. You can see from the photos she was super nice under saddle. She was bred twice to an Arabian who is schooling GP and very talented in piaffe/passage.
The NSH on the bottom left was bred to Rubignon and Wild Dance and had some a couple of very nice foals.
NSH is an ASB x Arab - relatively similar breeds, compared to a draft x light horse (ie TB). The NSH hs a common “breed”, ie cross, because of the relative reliability of those 2 breeds to produce a certain type of horse.
There’s nothing reliable about draft x light horse, though a given pair of individuals might reliably produce a nice type with each other, or a given draft stallion might pretty reliably produce a nice type with a specific light horse type.
Field Hunters often are the F2 result of an F1 draft x light horse, crossed back to the light horse breed.
To be a National Show Horse, the Saddlebred has to be registered as such - not just any old Saddlebred stallion. And to breed on from there I would go like-to-like. Interesting and fun hypothesis.
As I understand it the NSH has opened it’s book to all half-Arabs as well, and now an NSH must be 50% Arab by pedigree? Used to be a 75% Saddlebred backcross was eligible, but I haven’t kept up with the rules.
Which was why I thought Pinto might be an option for the owner.
Or there is always the COP route and pre-mare book for some of the ‘will accept presented mares of good scores’ WB registries where the foal’s sire is registry-approved.
All theory anyway, since the mare will remain a maiden.
For an NSH I am not sure I would consider a friesian – but if it were either a singular breed (as in arab or saddlebred) I may consider the cross – but IMHO the friesians I have known that have crossed with other cart-types or long-backed trotters have not been very athletic… I think the poster who mentioned crossing a breed with a predisposition for long-backed was not a great idea was onto something. now the friesianxarabs, or friesianxtbs I have known have been fairly nice in type.
For an NSH I’d go with a nice, solid morgan - there is nothing in the world better to my eye than a sport-type morgan… they are just beautiful and fantastic horses.
Underlining “sport-type Morgan”.
I bred a NSH mare to a Selle Francais stallion with a heavy Arab pedigree and got a beautiful moving athletic mare.
This is her pedigree: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/reflexiondusoleil
This is a link to photos of mare: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150968871945710.765051.10150100457545710&type=3
And this a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TubchNuCY0
In hopes of a basic, solid citizen all rounder, my vote is ranch bred QH.
I bred a NSH mare to a Selle Francais stallion with a heavy Arab pedigree and got a beautiful moving athletic mare.
Wow! She’s beautiful. That seems to be a really nice cross. Those photos make her look like a slightly taller, heavier-boned version of my mare. I wonder if a Trakehner cross might be interesting as well - they have such a heavy influence of the Shagya blood. Of course Shagya is a totally different type of Arab (not even true Arabians, really, depending on who you ask). But, a they are well known for sport!
Following up on the Friesian cross comments, my trainer informed me the other day that she is working with a young, green Friesian x NSH cross. I was surprised, but she told me that he’s one of the smartest, nicest-moving animals she has ever sat on (and she has been on a lot of nice, top-level dressage horses). I don’t have photos but she said he is a solid citizen. Whoever bred him must have put some thought into it. It’s not a cross I would do myself but hey - with the right horses maybe it works out!
I have seen some very nice moving (no idea of temperament) Friesian x ASB crosses. When that cross works, it works well, but it’s much more of an individual thing than a breed thing. That said, I do think the ASB tends to produce overall nicer F1 crosses with Friesians than many other breeds. I also think the Morgan is REALLY good at outcrossing with a variety of breeds with similarly nice results as a whole.
