Arab endurance bloodlines

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Permalink Reply by Diana on January 1, 2010 at 9:14am

*Statistic (Patron/Statistika) seems to be the sire of choice for top endurance horses sire of Theatric and Heraldic. Asgard Arabians breeders of Heraldic and Theatric use a Russian/Polish/Crabbet cross. Unfortunately *Statistic is dead.

Al Marah has done well with the Crabbet lines and same with breeders of the Abu Farwa line out in California area (Peter Mileo has one of the best Abu Farwa bred stallions that I have read out in distance reports).

Asgard Arabians breeder, Dr. Tom Sayvetz, gave a very interesting lecture at last year's AERC Convention about top Endurance bloodlines. He emphasized Polish/Russian bloodlines as they "prove" their horses before breeding them. They must be form-to-function conformationally correct and be sane along with athletic ability. *Bask raced before entering the stud and then showed here in North America. Same for *Padron and other similar horses.

Crabbet stud basically was based on the same school of thought. Al Marah has followed along similar breeding plans. Belesmo Farms again uses Crabbet/Polish/Russian stock. I've seen some nice *Samtyr offspring float effortlessly down the trail - again another proven bloodline from Europe. The Khemosabi line is nicely boned, athletic, sane and this is domestic bloodlines.

If you favour Egyptian and Spanish bloodlines you can find some nice horses out there. I find for the most part don't have either the bone, the stride length or the brain to take the long gruelling miles of the longer distances on tough rides. That's not to say there aren't some good examples out there - just not my choice.

Ultimately I would look for a working bloodline not a halter bloodline, maybe one of the older bloodlines with plenty of bone and stride. If you have a particular stallion in mind that you want to breed to, then you need to look for a mare that compliments that particular stallion.

Go with what appeals to you as a working animal and that you enjoy riding and spending time with. Pretty is only as pretty does in the endurance world.

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