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Re: [RC] To breed or not to breed - Heidi Smith

I was going to comment further on this post last night as well, but I see Maria and Sarah W have beat me to it.  If anything, the "big name" show horse stallions have MORE foals in the kill pen so to speak than others, simply because they ARE in vogue, and more people breed to them, making far more of their foals available.  Furthermore, even though the ridden show disciplines may change fads more slowly than the halter ring, they DO nonetheless change fads with regularity.  What made a good western pleasure horse back when I had any interest in showing would be given the gate these days--a horse that moved freely, moved with neck properly telescoped and just flexed nicely at the poll, and covered ground readily in a pleasant fashion.  In the Arab ring, western fads come and go over how slowly the horse can move (often shuffling his hind feet, or practically dragging them from the next county), how overbent he can be, etc.  In the stock breeds, one has seen peanut rollers come and go, horses that slope so painfully downhill in front that they are caricatures, etc.  So indeed, the stallion that is producing the "champions" of today is often out of style next year.
 
The situation is far better with disciplines that have a using objective--horses that can get to the finish line first, horses that can cut a cow, horses that can jump, horses that can consistently recover and do endurance ride after endurance ride, etc.  Those sorts of disciplines that require balanced conformation and general athletic ability do not come in and out of vogue as the rail and halter classes do, and furthermore, horses bred to do athletic disciplines can usually do other disciplines than the specific ones for which they were bred, as well as make good general riding companions. 
 
Especially if one is breeding to suit one's self, it pays to seek out the "generalist" horses rather than the "popular" horses, as the former will have a value for a long time, whereas while the latter may have a higher dollar value right now, they will be much harder to place 5 or 10 years down the road.
 
Heidi
 
In a message dated 3/4/03 9:20:47 PM Central Standard Time, penelope_75647@xxxxxxxxx writes:


Very rarely will you find  one of
these horses in the sale pen unless it is a high classed
auction where the sale average is high.


I disagree with this. There is a very big named stallion with high stud fee that has had many of his foals end up in slaughter house pens. High dollar, in vogue, stallions have plenty of foals that get thrown away.

Maria

Replies
Re: [RC] To breed or not to breed, GoldenCMK