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The Thoroughbred horse off the track
Good or bad for breeding riding horses (Quarter horses, jumpers, dressage horses, etc.)?
I have come here to find out as much as I can on this subject.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Geoffrey Pannell on
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are you girls still talking about the horses!!! lol
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Permalink Reply by Jackie Cochran on
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I guess I would put them in the heavy-weight hunter group, with good bone (I hope), quieter temperaments than a pure TB, and well up to carrying a 200+ pound man fox-hunting all day. I have yet to meet one.
I do know that 40 years ago that the Irish horses, including TBs, were considered to have the best bone. For 2 or 3 years I lusted in my heart for a grey Irish TB hunter! Then I saw my first Arabian and it was all over.
I ALWAYS look for bone in a riding horse. I do not care how pretty their heads are or how fine and graceful the horses look, I want craggy heads, substantial bone, deep girths, short cannons, broad and deep knees and hocks, and decent pasterns. Everything else is negotiable except for temperament, plus I don't want my hip bursitis flaring up from riding them.
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Permalink Reply by Elles Prins on
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Oh yes, nice horses. You can see why they can cross so well with a TB.
A warning about conformation books. When I first read my books on conformation I went out and looked at my quite faulty Anglo-Arab and felt sick. You will probably not have much problems with your lovely lady though.
One thing I liked about Michael Schaeffer's book is that he showed successful show jumping sires with LOTS of faults. Do not get hung up on perfect conformation, I do not think that there is a great equine performer with perfect conformation!
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I looked more at the Irish draught horses at this site.
GORGEOUS. Drop dead gorgeous.
Their stallion, if I was breeding for a quieter athletic horse I do not think I would look much further. He is built right to cross with a lot of TB mares.
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My thoughts exactly ;-).
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I had to stop looking at the site, those horses are just too wonderful. Boy, those Irish, they sure can breed good horses! To me they would work better as an outcross than the other light draft breeds, and they would mix with the TB much better than a Friesian or a light Percheron.
A little day dream now, if I was rich, rich, rich instead of on disability--find and buy a broad breasted an wide hipped TB mare with decent bone, very good broad, deep knees and hocks, not too refined, and breed to the stallion.
It is my belief that the stamina and speed can best come through the mare, it is those little mitochondria in each cell that produce energy, they come from the dam.
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Yes. nothing as important as a good dam.
Those horses really do have presence.
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Jackie, what do you think of this horse?
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Sort of hard to evaluate without knowing the breed. I prefer more bone (you will get sick of me saying this about the bone!), I would prefer higher withers and the pasterns are a bit upright. I presume this is a stallion which excuses his sort of thick throatlatch.
I get the feeling that he has too much mass in his body for the fineness of his legs. However if the horse lost around 100 to 150 pounds I have a feeling I would like him a lot better, his withers would be more apparent and his legs would not look so overloaded. But even then his knees and hocks would look too small for my preferences. Just my opinion, for all I know he could be a super sire.
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I did not find a conformation photo of El Prado. From what I saw El Prado may have had better withers than Portrait Gallery, but I could be wrong.
The most important thing is that he performed well racing, his get did well racing, and being the grandfather of the great race mare Rachel Alexandria (sp?) to me is proof positive that El Prado's blood in a pedigree is worth while.
The problem of selecting first for conformation, second for performance, and third by the progeny test is that a lot of good horses are not selected. Many great TB race horses were not perfectly conformed, in fact many had great conformational weakness, but they proved themselves where it mattered (for TBs), on the race track and in the breeding shed.
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