Saw another post that made me think it would be useful to describe what each stallion brings in when linebred, both pros and cons.
The stallions that came to my mind in the first place were:
Hope everybody pitches in!
Post the pedigree of the mare you want to breed. Add what she needs help with or what she excels with. Add any experience with prior foals…what to improve or what you liked. Post a picture of the mare. Decide what the breeding is for…jumping, dressage, eventing, market, breeding. Then people can help you easier.
Linebreeding in dressage is more about what not to cross…it isn’t embraced as enthusiastically. There is however more and more reason to consider linebreeding as they get better at breaking down the evaluations to predictable information. Jumper people are about the jumping and don’t worry as much about what is in the pedigree and how many times but they are becoming more market driven as puchasers so you need to consider that as breeders. I am breeding for jumping for the first time and wondering more about the predictability of form. I still think first about temperament. I have a mare with triple Ibrahim and Furioso…so what do I do with that base. While the top jumpers are filled with Selle Francais pedigrees much like hers the analytical people are in the Dutch and German breeds…if my mare had as much Capitol and Nimmerdor as Ibrahim and Furioso I am sure there would be more opinion on what to do next. There will be people who would take a linebred mare and out cross her. That is much what the Germans and Dutch have done with Baloubet and Quidam. The Belgians have often continue on with the linebreeding using more Alme on the French base.
Ultimately the breeders in animals who have done extensive linebreeding…and closeer(inbreeding) are working on making the results more uniform and predictable. They risk breeding in unfavorable traits as well. The early breeders ruthlessly culled the resulting offspring. Today I think if you were known as someone who culled ruthlessly people would think very poorly of you for not kindly considering the lives of each creature you create…and in my opinion that would be right.
I am working it backwards…didn’t get much help whan I asked. I am looking at the pedigrees of the top performers(jumpers) and looking for what is happening in the depth of the pedigree…the top line and the bottom line are documented pretty well…they are easy to see.
Well, actually my question wasn’t for my particular case. What I do know is the linebreeding of certain horses can increase the risk of undesirable traits showing up (like Akzent, when linebred too much can harm the quality of the legs).
I am not in the condition to go see as many foals as I’d like, and am interested in what certain lines can bring into the picture when linebred.
Weltmeyer crosses quite nicely with both F and A lines. For example Weltmeyer and all of his sons usually crossed beautifully with Argentan and his sons Airport and Argentinus. Quite a few breedings resulted from crossing Weltmeyer (or sons) with Bolero (or his sons). Weltmeyer x Donnerhall; Weltmeyer was paired with the SPS Lovely (Ludendorff) which resulted in 3 SPS mares and 2 stallions, Wolkentanz I and II. There were various other attempts too, but these were the more frequent pairings. W line is quite versatile usually. Weltmeyer quite often improved hindleg usage. He had a good temperament that well-suited to succeeding at upper level dressage. While a lot of his kids were oriented for dressage, most could jump rather well. Not too many breeders, however, choose to double up Weltmeyer when he still close up in the pedigree. Weltmeyer can sometimes produce horses which can be sensitive and very forward-thinking when under saddle. Weltmeyer also quite notably stamped his offspring and his stallion sons, for the most part, followed this particular pattern. I have a Wolkentanz I granddaughter and she most decidedly has the Wolkentanz look about her, and contains some of his sensitivity too. I have a Weltmeyer granddaughter via White Star x Argentinus, and she is also on the sensitive side, but a mushy jelly bean who loves attention. She has Argentinus’ LONG legs. Don’t know where she got her plain head from, but her dressage scores got better as her tests got harder - typical of this cross who must have a challenge to really do well.
Donnerhall is a superior nick with Pik Bube and PB’s sons. He also went really well with Akzent daughters. With this nick, you have kids who have superior rideability, a competitive spirit, excellent brains in their heads and an improved topline. I’ve seen a number of Donnerhall-Rubinstein crosses that very, very nice. Rubignon is a good example, a stallion who has competed internationally in Grand Prix dressage, was on the Swedish olympic team and now is living right here in North America - what a clever acquisition by Rainbow Equus Meadows.
Bolero has been quite successfully paired with Argus. He and a few of his sons also did extraordinarily well when paired with Grande. These were rather balanced horses. When paired with Argus, they were quite frequently versatile horses since Argus is one of the few stallions who was competed simultaneously Grand Prix Dressage and Grand Prix show jumping AND produced kids who could go both.
Absatz was an improver. They paired him with jumpers and dressage horses of every imaginable cross because he was rather versatile. The most famous cross, however, was when the mare SPS Worms was paired with Absatz and out popped Argentan I and II and the mare Anika who is the grandmother to the stallion Lancet.
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10484320
This is a recent example.
Line breeding just increases the chances of condensing the genetics of the horses that are doubled up in the pedigree. Good or bad. So if the horse was talented but had conformational defects, you run the risk of one or other or both. I guess that is why some sires are not seen in pedigrees too often.
Weltmeyer crosses quite nicely with both F and A lines. For example Weltmeyer and all of his sons usually crossed beautifully with Argentan and his sons Airport and Argentinus. Quite a few breedings resulted from crossing Weltmeyer (or sons) with Bolero (or his sons). Weltmeyer x Donnerhall; Weltmeyer was paired with the SPS Lovely (Ludendorff) which resulted in 3 SPS mares and 2 stallions, Wolkentanz I and II. There were various other attempts too, but these were the more frequent pairings. W line is quite versatile usually. Weltmeyer quite often improved hindleg usage. He had a good temperament that well-suited to succeeding at upper level dressage. While a lot of his kids were oriented for dressage, most could jump rather well. Not too many breeders, however, choose to double up Weltmeyer when he still close up in the pedigree. Weltmeyer can sometimes produce horses which can be sensitive and very forward-thinking when under saddle. Weltmeyer also quite notably stamped his offspring and his stallion sons, for the most part, followed this particular pattern. I have a Wolkentanz I granddaughter and she most decidedly has the Wolkentanz look about her, and contains some of his sensitivity too. I have a Weltmeyer granddaughter via White Star x Argentinus, and she is also on the sensitive side, but a mushy jelly bean who loves attention. She has Argentinus’ LONG legs. Don’t know where she got her plain head from, but her dressage scores got better as her tests got harder - typical of this cross who must have a challenge to really do well.
Donnerhall is a superior nick with Pik Bube and PB’s sons. He also went really well with Akzent daughters. With this nick, you have kids who have superior rideability, a competitive spirit, excellent brains in their heads and an improved topline. I’ve seen a number of Donnerhall-Rubinstein crosses that very, very nice. Rubignon is a good example, a stallion who has competed internationally in Grand Prix dressage, was on the Swedish olympic team and now is living right here in North America - what a clever acquisition by Rainbow Equus Meadows.
Bolero has been quite successfully paired with Argus. He and a few of his sons also did extraordinarily well when paired with Grande. These were rather balanced horses. When paired with Argus, they were quite frequently versatile horses since Argus is one of the few stallions who was competed simultaneously Grand Prix Dressage and Grand Prix show jumping AND produced kids who could go both.
Absatz was an improver. They paired him with jumpers and dressage horses of every imaginable cross because he was rather versatile. The most famous cross, however, was when the mare SPS Worms was paired with Absatz and out popped Argentan I and II and the mare Anika who is the grandmother to the stallion Lancet.
Very useful and exactly what I was aiming for. But what about the problematic areas of each of these stallions, which can show up when linebred?
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