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Re: Match made in heaven





On Mon, 20 Jul 1998, Teddy Lancaster wrote:

> He may be superior, but does he produce better (or even as good) as
> himself? 

From what I have seen so far (8 years at stud is not long for an endurance
stallion to prove this), the answer is "yes."  Quite a number of people
are having great success in endurance with their Kaharty get,
disproportionately, I would say, to their representation in the
population.  I have yet to hear of anybody who has been disappointed with
the endurance capabilities of their Kaharty get--those that are old
enough to compete, that is.

Considering the fact that I am, to a certain extent as the owner of a
stallion, in competition with him; I could still heartily recommend using
him as an endurance stallion on your best endurance mare.  MY only
complaint with the horse is how he is advertised in the endurance news.
The "trainer of problem horses" in me is adamant that it is totally
inappropriate to advertise your stallion with a picture of him rearing up.

A picture of a stallion rearing up does not allow viewer to see anything
of conformation, movement, capability, performance...all it does is show
off incredibly bad manners.

Pictures of horses rearing up may be artistically pleasing...but the last
thing in the world *I* would want to do is breed my mare to a stallion
that has what I consider to be THE WORST behaviour "problem" that any
horse can have.  By choosing to publish a picture of the horse rearing up,
the owner has chosen to show the horse at his very worst.

> To best breed a mare, one MUST look at bloodlines and understand
> what happens when lines are not preserved.  You may get another Secretariat
> who races well, but will never put anyhting on the ground worth a damn.

WHile Secretariat may not have performed at stud as he performed on the
track, one can hardly say that he never put anything on the ground worth a
damn; Risen Star and Lady's Secret come immediately to mind. 
Additionally, Secretariat is proving to be one of the better broodmare
sires of his generation (in the April 25, 1998 issue of TB Times he is
third on the Broodmare Sire List,, I choose this issue because it happens
to be the one I have handy). While he may never have produced another
horse like himself....well....no other sire since him has either. 

Additionally, many endurance riders would be perfectly content to get a
horse who "races well, but will never put anything on the ground worth a
damn."  Especially since many endurance riders prefer to ride geldings.
If you are going to breed your mare once, to get one good endurance horse
out of her....generally speaking, some degree of outcrossing IS the way to
go.  Outcrosses don't breed on so well...but if you are going to geld the
horse anyway, who cares?

> Prime example: the majority of PEOPLE in the USA.

I am not even going to try to guess what is meant by this...however, the
majority of the people in the USA are outcrosses--as are the majority of
people everywhere.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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