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I love looking at pedigrees, they are filled with so much history, looking at the names reminds me of all the wonderful, or not so wonderful, things I have read, heard or seen in person, about these horses. Although I look at the entire pedigree, back all five generations, I pay most attention to the granddam, grandsire, sire and dam of the horses I am looking to breed. I feel they are a true representation of what genetic material has actually filtered down from the horses farther back on the papers. If I can see what these close relations have produced, I consider that to be even more helpful, as it will tell me if these horses are likely to pass on the traits I find valuable. The most important information when I make breeding decisions, however, is the horse in front of me. I look carefully at both the mare and the stallion. What are their strengths and weaknesses? There are no perfect horses, but I certainly would like to produce a foal as close to my ideal as possible. The best way to stack the deck in my favor is to make sure I do not breed two horses together that share many of the same weaknesses. So, if a particular mare has poor hoof quality, I would want to make sure I bred her to a stallion who had superior feet. If a mare has good rhythm and a correct fox trot, but is short strided, I would look for a stallion who also has good rhythm and a correct fox trot, but had more length to his stride. In this way you have a better chance at improving on your mare’s gait by increasing the stride length in your foal. Of course there are some horses who have faults so serious that they should just not be used as brood stock at all. It is the disregard for this basic breeding rule that can cause problems such as HYPP in Quarter Horses and DLSD in the Peruvian Paso. |