Pick the sport horse broodmare!

[ASB Stars]

This is a spin off of the thread talking about how to get a hunter prospect. Below, I am going to place links to photos of three successful broodmares that I have owned. To illustrate that they are not always what you might expect, they are presented as sport horses in hand- as opposed to a show horse stance.

Mare 1. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t18/bryndewinesfarm/PhunintheSun.jpg

Mare 2. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t18/bryndewinesfarm/LoveinBlue.jpg

Mare 3. http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t18/bryndewinesfarm/FoolishEventPV.jpg

The last shot is poor quality- she didn't think much of playing sport horse;)

However, each of these mares has produced winning show horses. The mares are by Phi Slama Jama, Callaway's Blue Norther, and Spring Valley's Deliverance. All three have also produced quality sport horses. If you start with a mare who is an athlete, in my opinion, you are in a great position to produce something special- it is just a question of job description!:D

[Renae]

Specifically what sport? What you want in a dressage horse vs. a show jumper vs. a hunter vs. a carriage driving horse will be different. After all jumping ability is a heritable trait, but a hunter has to move flat, and you may want your dressage horse to have some of the jump in the canter your jumper has, but they also need a big floaty suspensiony trot and top dressage horses are very sensitive to the aids, and the carriage driving horse needs the dressage horse's trot but has to be sensible for at the top levels of driving the driven dressage tests do involve cantering in harness, plus of course the obstacles and working in a team. Oh yeah and then you have eventers, something it seems not many people specifically breed for as an eventer really needs a little of everything.

[D_BaldStockings]

Goodness!
You do have some lovely bodied mares with solid underpinning.

I love the 3rd pic, it shows just how bad you can make a very nice mare look, you really had to try to get her shoulder to look that upright and make her back end fade away...

I have a mare whose eyes are closed in every pic we have of her except one where she was paying attention to her foal, and that is the only one where she didn't get snapped at a really awkward part of her stride, too.
Thank heavens for digital cameras that give you 100 pics to choose from so you can find one that looks like and flatters the subject.

Mary

[ASB Stars]

Specifically what sport? What you want in a dressage horse vs. a show jumper vs. a hunter vs. a carriage driving horse will be different. After all jumping ability is a heritable trait, but a hunter has to move flat, and you may want your dressage horse to have some of the jump in the canter your jumper has, but they also need a big floaty suspensiony trot and top dressage horses are very sensitive to the aids, and the carriage driving horse needs the dressage horse's trot but has to be sensible for at the top levels of driving the driven dressage tests do involve cantering in harness, plus of course the obstacles and working in a team. Oh yeah and then you have eventers, something it seems not many people specifically breed for as an eventer really needs a little of everything.

Pick your sport! My point is the differentiate between what is needed in the show ring, and outside of it, is a thinner line than most people consider it to be.;)

[SportASB]

As always, Stars, your horses are awesome! I would take any one of them. I esp like the first one!
Interesting about the Phi Slama Jama bred. I always thought of that line by him being more narrow and long. Interesting! What was the breeding on the other side?

[SportASB]

Renae,
I breed ASB sport horses. I prefer them to be an all around. If they end more suitable for dressage, fine. Jumping, fine too. I let the indivdual decide.

[ASB Stars]

As always, Stars, your horses are awesome! I would take any one of them. I esp like the first one!
Interesting about the Phi Slama Jama bred. I always thought of that line by him being more narrow and long. Interesting! What was the breeding on the other side?

Gee, thanks!!:p

Phun in the Sun is out of a Mountjoy's Premier Starheart mare. The whole bottom side of her papers is Stonewall bred. VERY nifty. I really think Phi is a fabulous sire of broodmares, and will prove to be moreso in the future. I have not found the Phi mares I have seen to be narrow at all. In fact, most of the ones I've seen are elegant trucks! (sorry, Doc :rolleyes: )

[Renae]

Renae,
I breed ASB sport horses. I prefer them to be an all around. If they end more suitable for dressage, fine. Jumping, fine too. I let the indivdual decide.

If you are going to try to compete with the people breeding warmbloods though you need to realize and consider that even with warmbloods there is great divisions in breeding lines between dressage horses, jumpers and hunters. Robinhood or Popeye K are as unlikely to sire the next big dressage horse as lunikely as Jazz or Krack C the next big hunter. Specialization is the buzz word, and there are reckognized differances in comformation and movement desirable for the different sports. I think if you just breed and hope and pray that the resulting foal will be useful for somehting you are throwing a dart at the board with your eyes shut, but if you breed like strengths to like strengths with a definate goal in mind you will be more likely to hit the bullseye. But I htink lumping sport horse together when it comes to breeding is far too broad a definition as two of the types, dressage horse and hunter, would fall as polar opposites, and jumper could fall closer to either type but oit must be able to get over fences cleanly and safely and there is a reckognized standard from over fences that most successful jumpers have, and other smaller sports like eventing, driving and endurance have their own desirable attributes.

[SportASB]

Expecting to breed a Saddlebred for a true hunter (not ASB hunter) is kinda silly to me. Hunter type is far from what a Saddlebred is. Now there is no reason Saddlebred type cannot be suitable for dressage and jumping (not hunter type jumping). My foals could do either. But if they perfer one to the other, why not?
Myself, I show in both dressage and jumping and dabble in eventing. I like a horse that is versatile. :)

[ASB Stars]

Renae:

While there are absolutely different lines that are predisposed to produce athletes that excell in different disciplines, the standards for judging a sport horse remain the same- irregardless. Let's focus on breeding type- correct, functional athletes- and then determine their division.

With show horses, following certain bloodlines to produce horses that excell in specific divisions is largely a crapshoot- much depends upon the early training. However, there are some lines that have marked tendencies- Main Event threw some wonderful walk trot horses- but very few successful gaited horses. His horses were more "post legged", with less angle than you need, ideally, for a gaited horse. I find alot of the Merchant Prince horses to be that way. The Will Shriver horses tend to have better angles for driving, and reaching under themselves- and the line has produced a ton of great gaited horses. I won't bore you further, but we run before we walk. Let's produce high quality, good thinking, and beautiful- if possible- athletes, first.

[Rockyroad]

That middle mare is really appealing. I know virtually nothing about picking a horse for dressage or jumping. Tell me more about why YOU picked her, and how she fits into your activities, if you dont mind.

[ASB Stars]

Actually, I don't own any of these mares any longer- they are all in ASB show horse breeding programs:D

That mare is a great example of why studying bloodlines is so important. Because, when I bought her, I had been out of the loop in the ASB show horse world for about 20 years. I knew who her grandsires were, and her granddam, but I did not recognize some very big names that happened to be on her papers. I hadn't a clue- but I liked the individual. Now, if someone showed me her papers, I would do it in the opposite way- I'd realize that most of what she is was right on the page.

She was a very skinny three year old who was part of a group that was brought up from KY to a farm in NJ by the person who I bought my first ASB from. I called, looking for a sport horse type mare, and he told me that he had a couple of mares that might work. I dragged her out of the stall THREE times, and just walked her on a loose shank, because I could not believe how fabulous her walk was. Everything on her was in the right place- there were some things I might tweak, but she was fabulous off of her hocks- and that makes up for a whole bunch, on my list.

She was originally going to be a prospect that I was going to let my mother ride, but, it turned out she was IN FOAL- which no one mentioned when I bought her, and she foaled three months later. I had been feeding her three meals a day, and she was looking great- and then she got a bag...:eek:

In any event, after I had a better understanding of bloodlines, I realized that she is exactly what you would think she would be, knowing her breeding. The person who I sold her to bought her sight unseen, because she KNEW what those lines produce.

She has a beautiful shoulder and hip angle- a broad chest, short cannons, she turns beautifully at the poll- and she is extremely strong across her loin coupling. That picture was taken at Dressage at Devon, and it was the first time she had been off of the farm. Really a great, great little mare.

[NikiP]

Do you have any side shots of the first two? Both are so drool worthy!

[ASB Stars]

I don't think I do- but I'll look.

Guess which one this colt is out of?

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t18/bryndewinesfarm/DSC_0015.jpg

Proves just how important the mares really are.:D

[minny68]

You have lovely mares and make a great point. There was a dressage gentleman up here a few years back who primarily worked with Andalusians. He was looking for a highschool dressage prospect and ended up buying a trained 5 gaited Saddlebred stallion. This horse was gorgeous and talented! He yanked his show shoes, tossed him out for a few months to just be a horse and started highschooling him. Man was that horse amazing. He was 17hh and had a spanish walk that went higher then his 6'2 owners head. Unfortunatly, he had an untimely demise when he slipped on ice in his pasture and shattered a femur.

This breeder told me that he looks for in a dressage prospect for the same things many people want in a gaited prospect. A shorter back, strong hind end, nice shoulder angles, elegant neck and athletic ability. He really loved this stud and would not hesitate to own another Saddlebred. We actually bred a very talented (but never shown) mare to him and ended up with a colt who did quite well up here in futurities and park, but who I also think would have been an amazing hunter had we chosen to train him that way instead.

[ASB Stars]

My point- and I do have one:p is that you can produce fabulous horses who can do just about anything- if you start with quality. The ability to market to BOTH the show horse buyers AND the sport horse market only helps the breeder to be able to keep moving forward with their program. We need to build BOTH markets. We need to support the marketing of our horses to the sport horse buyers- and show the breeders how to present those horses in order to maximize their benefit.

Gib Marcucci told me something when I was eleven years old, that I have never forgotten. "It costs the same amount to feed a bad one, as it does a good one." I have been taking care of the "bad" ones- those that people did not feel were worthy of keeping- most of my life. BUT, if you are going to breed one, be thoughtful about it, do your research, and you'll increase the odds that you are going to get a "good" one!:D