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Re: [RC] Proving Stallions (or mares for that matter) - Beth Walker

Great post, Kat. I clipped it, since it was pretty long...

So -- since there is such a long waiting period in endurance as opposed to flat track racing, what kind of 'proxy' tests would you suggest for people interested in evaluating a stallion's (or mare's) potential to produce good endurance prospects?

I know there are breeding programs out there with an emphasis in endurance, but (I'm guessing here) I think the majority of the programs are geared more toward either the show ring or Arabian racing, so someone evaluating those lines would need something else to go by.



On Oct 19, 2007, at 8:08 AM, k s swigart wrote:

Susan Garlinghouse said:

I personally would not consider breeding to any
stallion that had not thoroughly proven himself in
upper echelon performance---endurance, jumping,
eventing, third-level or better dressage at the national
level, etc.

Speaking from a TB racing standpoint (which is a great place to be able
to understand the aspect of "proving performance" in horses and linking
performance to pedigree)....

.....

And after a stallion has foals that are performing (or not performing as
the case may be), his own performance record becomes totally irrelevant
with respect to his value as a breeding stallion.

.....

The fact of the matter is, the way to "prove" a breeding stallion is to
breed him and test the ability of his foals. If a stallion has foals on
the ground, look at the foals and what they are doing, because when a
stallion has foals on the ground, what HE is doing pales into
insignificance.

.....

In disciplines where successful performance cannot be properly evaluated
until the horse is 6-10 years old (like most of the "national level"
competitions Susan mentions), this becomes much more difficult. If you
wait until the horse proves himself at the national level (probably not
before the horse is 9) to breed him to get his first foals and raise
them up to peformance age to test the foals you won't know whether the
stallion is capable of producing high level competitors (which you
probably won't know until the foals are 9) until the stallion is 19
years old.

....

This makes it so you have to use some other form of performance (other
than actual competition) to be a "test" for your breeding stock's
ability to produce capable offspring. If you perform this test on young
breeding stock and use the ones that peform this proxy test successfully
as breeding stock, and THEN test the foals' peformance at the actual
discipline to confirm that you were right to use them, you can continue
using them.


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Replies
[RC] Proving Stallions (or mares for that matter), k s swigart