What kind of stallion?

["Lisa Lyttle (EPA)" <Lisa.Lyttle@ericsson.com.au>]

Title: What kind of stallion?

Kris,

I'd have a really good look at my mare (which is what I'm doing anyway).  I'd look at her strengths and weaknesses, what makes her a good endurance horse, what conformational strengths/weakness does she have, compare to both stallions, is he strong where she is weak and vice versa.  One great comment I've heard is to look at both horses and then imagine a foal with the worst features of both horses and think, hmmm, will I be prepared to keep that foal?

I'd also look at temperament, and then I'd look at bloodlines in both horses.  Eg in my mare I've noticed that some of her weaknesses come from particular ancestors, so I have to avoid stallions with those particular horses in their pedigree as the double up can reinforce the undesirable genetics.  Eg I'm not only looking at my mare and the stallion I have in mind, but I'm researching her parentage, his parentage, and not just the paperwork, looking at as many pictures of the actual horses and asking people who've seen and remember those horses as well, its giving me a bigger picture.  There's a lot of factors involved, and so I'm still in the camp of, hmmm, maybe its easier to go buy a weanling instead.  As to endurance, performance in front of me vs performance in pedigree, well it depends, as my understanding was that particular conformation, temperament and movement types contributed to ability....

Those are some things to think about.

Lisa