"On the latter note, there have been some top racehorse breeders who didn't start with the big bucks to buy the outstanding younger individuals--so they researched the mare lines that produced such individuals and then bought old mares that had been top producers but who were literally cast-offs, and which they could acquire for a song. Such mares might not produce stellar racehorses in the first generation, due to a less than optimal uterine environment--but keeping and breeding their daughters sent some of these astute breeders right to the top, because they had gotten their hands on the genetics that pass on the good working traits.
If it were as simple as breeding Champion A to Champion B to foal out Champion C, everybody would be a successful breeder. But there's a lot more to it than that. Heidi"
Heidi, you come across as very knowledgeable. This is so true, there is nothing simple about breeding. Breeding horses isn't meant to be easy. It's an art AND a science.
Sometimes, even when you breed a "very good" stallion to another "very good" mare - the conformation of the two just doesn't "nick" and you end up w/ something much worse than either parent. However, if you "know what you're doing" you can breed one horse w/ a certain type of fault to another horse without that fault but a strength, and even out the differences to produce something of beauty. To get that result built in as a genotype (or consistent result in future offspring), you really have to know what traits are more heritable of both parents. It's a wonderful jigsaw puzzle to work on if you have enough family members to study.
There are so many people that can't use simple Mendelian genetics to even predict the outcome of their foal's color ... Much less understand inheritability of traits, incomplete dominance, multifactorial inheritance and so on.
