[RC] Buying/selling horses - Mike & Laurie Hilyard
I find this thread interesting for a couple of
reasons - first off, how do you breed for endurance? Other than the slow
heart rate that recovers quickly (essentially, a heart with great stroke
volume), adequate legs, and an unstoppable desire to eat and drink, I'm not
sure what the similarities are. Maybe a high pain tolerance? Someone
pointed out a flat croup is rotten in the mountains - but is it as bad a fault
in Michigan sand? A horse with perfect conformation for the rockies
might get left in the Florida dust.
Karen C.'s interviews with the longevity club in
Endurance News seem to all have the same mantra GO SLOW to make your
horse last those ten years. That, and have the luck to not step in a hole,
get kicked by a pasture buddy or any of the million things that make
horses unsuitable for the sport.
And if I am going to breed to get an endurance
horse - I take my 15 year old mare that I've done those 10 years with and send
for some of DR Thunder Bask's semen - it will be a minimum of six years before I
know if that baby can actually be competitive, and 10 before I know he can
last. So now my mare is 25 and Doc is getting a bit elderly, too.
Which is the next question, how do you define
success in the sport? Wins, or longevity, since they are generally
exclusive of each other. I know Rio managed both, but how many
others,especially in the last five years? Anyone who is willing to use up
a horse every year or two will be able to do much better than one who top tens
"by accident" when the weather, their horse, and the competition was the right
mix. Since there is no monetary reward for riders (and thus breeders)
there is no pressure in our capitalistic society to breed for any particular
type of endurance horse.
