Re: HORSES & ECONOMICS

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/22/99 8:05:06 PM Pacific Standard Time, Knaptyme@aol.com
writes:

<< Ok, I'm going out on the limb here.  Do we know for sure the certain
pedigrees
 make better endurance horses or have certain pedigrees been promoted within
 the endurance riding market?  Are we (endurance riders) becoming so arrogant
 that we must have a 'the pedigree' to participate?
 
 The fact that most us of ride Arabians and they have always been known for
 their endurance should that speak for itself. >>

There is as much difference in Arabian pedigrees as there is between the
Impressive-type Quarter Horses that are bred for halter and the Doc Bar type
bred for cutting.  Pedigrees are not a black-and-white predictor of endurance,
but when you have lines that show up in a very small percentage of the Arab
population at large, yet show up in a high percentage of endurance athletes,
you begin to realize that there is some importance to looking at pedigrees.
Also, when you start to see common denominators in pedigrees of horses that
FAIL at the sport consistently for the same reasons, you realize that those
problems, too, are heritable.  Many of our Arabians are now what we would call
"mixed-source" horses, but even so, many lines pop up in the successes at a
far higher rate than they do in the breed as a whole.  It has nothing to do
with arrogance--it is merely one more tool like having Susan G study body
scores and cannon bone to weight ratios.  It is pretty hard to find a horse
where you feel like ALL the ancestors are a positive influence, or that all
are negative, for that matter.  What you look for is a pedigree with a
preponderance of good influences, and then evaluate the horse to make sure
that he appears to have traits in common with those ancestors.  We are not
trying to preserve names on pieces of paper here--we are trying to perpetuate
genes that code for traits that we want.

Heidi