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> This may be true for many of the horses we see today from Poland (since
> mostly it is show breeders who go there and are willing to spend the
> money to bring the horses back from there), but it isn't true for all
> the horses bred in Poland.  The Poles DO still performance test their
> horses by racing them, so if I were to go to Poland looking for a good
> horse, I would want to be looking at race records.
The fallacy in that is that horses who have been solely selected for the
track often also get bred away from the metabolic capabilities that are
necessary for the sport.  Otherwise, we'd all be riding the most modern
TBs and they would be cleaning up.  Just as you will find TBs who still
have the traits necessary for endurance, you will also find some track
Arabs that do.  But the longer they breed for the specialization of the
track, the less apt you are to be able to find the sorts of individuals
you want.  So no, I would not go to Poland and look at race records,
either.

> > If I were to shop for Polish horses with athletic ability, I
> > would stick to American Polish breeding, and would
> > look for pedigrees heavy on pre-World War II breeding.
> You don't need to look for pre-World War II imports, all you have to do
> is look for pre-Bask imports :).
Um, yes--all of which have "pre-WWII breeding...."

> Bask came from a long line of
> successful Polish race Arabians; however, he was a washout on the track
> himself, so the Poles sold him off (i.e. he was a Polish cropout :)).
> And then Gene Lecroix (a marketing genius if ever there was one),
> imported him to America and redefined the American Arabain halter horse
> and subsequently show horse, and the Poles were only too willing to sell
> the rest of their crop outs to Americans for exhorbitant sums of money
> :) :), and then to start producing them on purpose as well, especially
> after the American Arabian halter horse standard migrated across the
> Atlantic to Europe.
Yes, reasonably accurate history.

> However, these aren't the only horses that have been imported from
> Poland, even post-Bask.  One of the most prominent racing sires/sire
> lines in Arabian racing in America today is the Polish import *Wiking
> (and he appears in a number of endurance horse pedigrees too).
Again, beware of the racing specialists.  There are a great many endurance
horses with sire lines that aren't worth didly squat for endurance, but
who have pedigrees largely made up of older breeding that is.  So--no
surprise--a fair number of them do well in the sport, since that is the
preponderance of their breeding.

> Ironically, both *Wiking and *Bask come from the same sire line, the
> Polish stallion Witraz, who is a son of Ofir, who was also the sire of
> *Witez II (as well as Wielki Szlem who is also prominent in the pedigree
> of successful Polish race horses).  However, this information will be of
> no help in looking at pedigrees of what the Poles are breeding today,
> since the Ofir line will be all over the pedigree of all of their
> horses, so it will tell a prospective buyer little about whether a horse
> will be successful in endurance.
Another good point--one needs to know the directions that the breeders
have taken in those in-between generations.  What breeders select to breed
on is what shapes a bloodline over time.  And that is where the modern
Polish breeders have gone off-base in terms of horses suitable for what we
do--and why it is far easier to stick to lines where that has not been the
case.  If one IS determined to find suitable Polish lines, one is FAR more
apt to find them here in this country, as Renie pointed out, because there
ARE "Polish preservation breeders" who have bucked the mainstream and who
have clung to the classic riding traits in their selection of breeding
stock.  They are not in the majority among Polish breeders by any means,
but they ARE out there, if one sleuths them out.

> Steph's successful endurance horse Great Santini is "pure Polish" and
> comes from the *Bask sire line (and, BTW, is by US National Champion
> halter stallion MS Santana); however, his success comes from the extent
> to which he does not resemble his sire (which is probably why he ended
> up at the killers, litterally), but is, instead a "throw back" to some
> of his earlier ancestors :).
Another excellent point.  The useful ones in the modern breeding programs
are the throwaways.  They are the ones who still reflect the qualities of
the older ancestors, rather than the direction which the modern breeders
are going.

> If I were going to Poland today to look for endurance horse potential, I
> would ask to see their current racing records and would not rely on
> seeing any familiar names in the pedigree, since those familiar names
> are going to appear in the pedigree of ALL the horses.
I personally would not go to Poland to look for functional Polish-bred
riding horses, period.  I'd stay here and find the breeders who share
Renie's philosophy.

Heidi


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Common sense should also be a part of the decision making process. If you
see someone who doesn't have any, hand them your tool box.
~ Lisa Salas - The Odd Farm

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