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Re: [RC] To breed or not to breed - Heidi SmithI have yet to see an own son or daughter of Zippo Pine Bar, Scotch Bar Time, The Investor or any other of the modern day cornerstone pleasure horse sires in the killer pen..or even the top sons of these studs that are carring on "the family name". I have seen average horses by these studs sell at sales for more than they should have simply because of the name. Have sure seen them at the low end of poor auctions, going for killer prices. again not so in Paints and QTR's, for example, the Zippo Pine Bar horses are still as much in demand today as they were 15 years ago. Sure we have refined the concept of how a pleasure horse should move. We have learned to breed for pleasure and not try to force a horse that physically can't hold a collected frame going down the rail with no contact. But this is a whole nother topic, none of which pertains to endurance <grin> I beg to differ about the changes in the rail classes demanding different styles among the Paints and QH's--spent far too long practicing in Paint and QH show barns not to have seen the fads come and go. If anything, I thought them even more pronounced than in the Arab ring. I would also wonder about the notion that "we" have refined anything here--the qualities that make a horse a balanced athlete and the biomechanical and physical principles behind those athletic qualities have not changed in a thousand years. What has changed has been our level of knowledge (or ignorance) of same, and our ability to delude ourselves that we are really judging athletes in rail classes. And this pertains to endurance in that endurance is (and by its nature has to remain) a sport of generalists, where the tinkering that man does to "refine" how the horse moves only makes the horse less efficient. Dressage is pretty much the same story. Again not true in Paints...there are many pleasure horse stallions that have stood the test of time. And in some cases where the original stud has died, his sons are carrying on the name. If anything that "name" gets stronger as the years go on. The "name" may get stronger, but the "name" is no longer associated with the same traits in the pedigree that made the original horse notable. We see the same thing in the Arab ring. I saw this with my Paint and QH clients all the time--where they "cherished" those names in the pedigree, but bred a type of horse that was not at all what that "name" represented. Which makes the "names" become meaningless. Many "popular" paint pleasure horse studs are putting horses that can cross over into other disiplines very successfully depending on the bloodlines of the mare. Much of what is called "crossover" in the stock breed show ring is simply putting an English saddle on a horse and having him go around the ring in pretty much the same fashion that he went around in Western Pleasure, but just naming it English Pleasure or Hunter Pleasure. No, these horses are not "crossing disciplines" in the sense that they are going to Grand Prix in dressage, or excelling on the race track, or becoming Hall of Fame endurance horses. Giving more creedence to what we both agree on, which is mare power. I have always said if you want to excell in a given equine dicipline get a horse that has been specifically bred to to that. If you want to dabble in everything then yes, "generalist" horses are your "jack of all trades, master of none". The "specilist" can generalize (in my experience) but I have yet to see the "generalist" be able to excell in anything, they are always middle of the road horses. People don't pay top dollar for "generalists". Personally I think if you are breeding "generalist" horses than you better be breeding them for you and not to sell. As you stated you can buy generalist horses in the killer pen for alot less than it cost to put one on the ground. No, ma'am, that is not what I said. On the contrary, one CANNOT find those quality generalists in the killer pen, but the specialists that didn't quite make it and have no qualities to allow them to do anything else are there a dime a dozen. The generalists are the horses that are excelling at endurance, dressage, and other sports that REQUIRE general skills. They are also the horses that the general public buys as riding horses. And they are in much bigger demand than specialists who didn't find stardom. It has been not only my experience (which I don't think is paltry) but also that of many horsemen whose skills and abilities I highly respect who have said time and time again that the generalist can do anything, but the specialist is extremely limited. It is no surprise that in the Arab world, the same families of horses (and often the same horses themselves) can excel at sports as diverse as cutting and endurance, or dressage and reining. Muferra, the dam of RT Muffin (AERC Hall of Fame, who "retired" to become a Pony Club jumper) was also the dam of the second highest money winner on North American race tracks the year he ran, and the dam of a top saddle seat horse (who went on to be a premier endurance sire himself), and was closely related to many jumpers, sport horses, cutters, trail champions (as in the arena variety), etc. Nope, give me a good generalist ANY day. Ahhhh...here in lies my orginal point, if you are breeding horses to sell and want to stay in the black, it's easier and more profitable to sell the babies out of a proven or "popular" stud in that particular discipline. (When did we switch from selling babies to selling aged horses???) Alas, the life of the horse does not end when you sell him as a weanling or a yearling. His life may well be affected by what the fad is 5 or 10 years down the road, as that is what will affect him in his prime. There is no argument that we all make more money if we sell horses as youngsters. But that doesn't alter the fact that what sells now may well not sell in 10 years. And personally, I want to know that my babies will have a life when they are in their prime, whether I made money selling them or not. I think where we are crossing hairs is with the term "in vogue",(which I regret ever having used..lol). This obviously means different things in different breeds. As I stated before, I speak only for the breed I know, paints. The "in vogue" paint studs I know, have stood the test of time by putting a high percentage of horses on the ground that are pretty uniform in the traits that consistantly puts them in the winners circle for that event(s). From what you are telling me, in Arabs the "in vogue" studs are "flash in the pans" that are being over bred to substandard mares, putting a vast array of babies on the ground, who just happen to be winning because of the studs name or should I say the money behind the studs name. And you think that doesn't happen in the stock breeds? I had Paint and QH clients breeding by shipped semen to the "flash in the pan" sire of the moment without even SEEING the horse, and getting shorted on shipped semen because the people were breeding 250 mares IN ONE SEASON to these stallions. YES, many of these foals end up in the killer pen, eventually, even as some of their paternal half-siblings are reaping the rewards of stardom. And if you don't believe this is happening in your breed, you'd better hang out at some of the big stallion stations in the midwest and California, and watch the Equitainers go out the door every day! This isn't about percentages--when a stallion puts THAT many babies on the ground, he doesn't NEED percentages. SOME will be stars, simply by random luck. I wouldn't know, I don't breed, raise or sell Arabs. I do however successfully raise, train and sell paints and was only offering advise from what I have personally experienced. Maybe I was out of line even posting publicly since most of the people on RC have Arabs. The same problem occurs in Arabs. But if anything, at the moment it is even worse in the stock breeds. Tamara and Nicole are both correct in their posts that the QH's, TB's, etc. are by FAR the predominant breeds in the kill pens, although color does tend to sell sometimes despite quality issues, because it is in vogue right now. And the PMU barns read like a "Who's Who" in terms of the pedigrees they use--and while some try hard to place their babies, many cannot successfully do so. I would also add that the breeders who stay in the business the longest and tend to have the most long-term success often pay very little attention to what the "big names" are in the show ring. Instead, they are the breeders who follow their own vision, who garner as much knowledge as possible, and who try to consistently put out sane, sound riding horses, regardless of what is winning at the moment. They don't alter their programs based on what wins. I cherish Bazy Tankersley's quote to the effect that the mark of merit of any breeding program is the quality of riding geldings that it produces. She has stuck by her vision for well over half a century, as have a few others, and their efforts to breed the best horses from the best of their foundation stock has stood them in good stead. Three programs come to my mind when I think of that sort of ideal--Bazy's Al-Marah program, Marjorie Van Gilder's program, and Charles Craver's Davenport program, all of which have been in existence for over half a century. All three of these people breed top-notch horses--and they have NOT changed their programs at all based on what is currently winning in the show ring. Nor did their programs crash when the big Arabian "crash" came. (Nor did many of us smaller breeders who tried to breed to the same sorts of ideals.) Rather, it has been the dedication to the breeding of the good generalist horse--the horse that can do anything well--that has stood them in good stead. Heidi Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. 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