Bask-bred endurance horses

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Corry, Lynda H. wrote:
> 
>         I just wanted to pitch in my two cents worth regarding Bask
> horses as well ... Baskhari is my first and only endurance horse, and we
> just recently had our "ten year anniversary" together.


Cookie Hickstein wrote:
 Where did you ever hear to stay away from Bask bred arabs for
endurance? My husbands Bask bred gelding is going on 4000 miles this
year, my gelding is bask/Witez II bred and we love the bloodline!  My
son as a junior rider put over 2000 miles on his Bask/witezII gelding. 
They all have wonderful recoveries and do very well.



Hiya,
This is absolutely not meant as criticism against all Bask horses, but
IMHO, if ever there were a line of horses that needed to be judged on
individual merits and not simply because of their pedigrees, this is the
one.  Gene LaCroix is a member of the Kellogg Foundation and without
getting into particulars, let's just say I am NOT impressed with the
level of integrity and honesty he has displayed (and I'm no pollyanna,
either).  I used to be a member of the advisory panel and it was very
well-known that Gene LaCroix would have allowed Bask to breed to a
schnauzer if the check would clear.

Again, this is absolutely not a flame against Bask horses---the only
point I'm trying to make is that LaCroix used Bask like his own personal
ATM/sperm bank, exhibited zero selection when mares were brought to
Bask, and for every good Bask-bred horse, there are dozens of pieces of
garbage, many of whom were also allowed to breed on because Bask was
holier than holy and everybody was frantically breeding pedigrees back
then instead of horses.

I admit that one of the most athletic horses I ever knew was by a Bask
son, and I would have killed to own that horse.  And obviously there are
other good Bask-bred horses out there doing very well---I guess I'm just
not quite so ready to lay the credit solely at Bask's door, instead of
the dam lines, the upbringing, the rider, etc.  I've certainly handled
an awful lot of Bask-bred babies at Cal Poly and liked very few of them
(as endurance prospects, anyway), but that's another story.  I also
turned down free breedings to Reign On, considered one of Bask's
"better" sons, and I've seen a ton of truly nasty-looking, over-priced
horses whose only salvation from going on the truck to Texas was a
pedigree that said Bask.  Let's just say the Bask pendulum can swing
pretty widely in BOTH directions.

Anyway, this really sounds like I'm trashing all Bask horses and I don't
mean to.  My only point is that if I were looking at an endurance
prospect, and Bask was in the pedigree, I sure would do back flips
making sure that the mare(s) Bask was bred to was truly worth breeding,
and that the offspring was also true breeding quality, not just a
by-product of the breeding frenzy of the '80's.

That old saying, "you can't ride the papers" was never more true than
when applied to Bask.

Just my .02 of course.

Susan Garlinghouse