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Re: [RC] To breed or not to Breed - heidi*Hi Jody, I have a few opinions on this, and I hope some other folks can comment too....I feel that breeding at age 3 is NOT a good idea for some various reasons..... OK, I'll bite... :-) 1. You really have no idea what you have! Until this mare is trained under saddle, conditioned and fit, you have really no idea what the gaits are like, how the horse holds up under hard riding and miles, how the metabolics are...what the "riding" disposition will be (lazy under saddle, loves to go, or maniac), in other words...you are dealing with a pretty blank slate based only on the bone and conformation you see at age 3...and whatevery disposition the horse has BEFORE it has gone out in the world and done anything.....things like, is this a horse that is steady in an emergency situation...or will tend to panic??? Well, that depends on how you select the 3-year-old. When you have good knowledge of the individuals in her pedigree and when those individuals CONSISTENTLY represent the sorts of traits you want, you have a VERY good idea about those things. And as a breeder, I wouldn't breed ANY mare that I couldn't say that about--no matter HOW good her personal performance! If the pedigree is a mishmash of traits, you will not get consistent foals, regardless of how good the mare herself is. And if the pedigree is consistent, you are not apt to be surprised by the foal, even if you have not yet ridden the mare. Granted, most American pedigrees (in many breeds) are a mishmash, so in that case yes, it's a crap shoot. But you will only diminish the crap shoot in such cases somewhat by performance testing. When you know (and in my case have vetted and/or ridden) many of the immediate close relatives, and you've studied their attributes and faults, and they are consistent in the traits you desire, your odds are far better. 2. Many 3 year olds are not finished growing.... 3. ....and the problem with THAT, is that they still maybe rump high, unbalanced......and so...should they be carrying a baby that young? Depends ENTIRELY on the individual. In practice I dealt primarily with non-Arabs, and the vast majority of them were QUITE sufficiently mature at 3 to be breeding to foal at 4. With Arabs, you have to look a bit more at the individuals--but a fair number are quite fine to be foaling at four. If we can ride a 4-year-old in LDs, a 4-year-old can certainly have babies... Also....I still think our 13 year old Arab mare has a slightly dropped back...becuase she was bred when she was 4, as an unfit horse. I think a mare should have good, fit muscle tone and a very strong back before being asked to carry a baby. Fitness is a relative thing. My mares run out on a mountainside and are fairly "fit" with respect to muscle tone, etc. I would also submit that conformation plays a MAJOR role here--and if a mare has a poor back, then she isn't a good genetic prospect, anyway. I'd also say that perhaps the single biggest factor in producing sway backs is nutrition. If the nutrition goes to hell in a handcart, so will the back. And this can be true even if the horse is NOT pregnant. Now, maybe it doesn't matter if a horse is destined to run in the wild forever, or be a broodmare for life....but for a potential mare with a good riding career ahead of her...I would NOT chose one that had been bred as a youngster.... Having started several such mares under saddle in their teens, I've never had it be an issue. And yes, all of them had good backs. 4. Makes more sense to breed a mare that has proven, through a lot of miles, at whatever discipline you deisre, that they are manageable and sound and somehow superior in some way. While that is ideal, again, see the above. If you have the knowledge to select good prospects in the first place, you also have the knowledge to select mares that can MAKE good prospects. I am sorry, but I have seen far too many extremely poor quality mares bred just because the owners were so emotionally attatched to them! Including a Kahahty sister, who I felt had extremely bad conformation. Oh, I agree! But you can tell if the mare has bad conformation when she is three! And you can tell how she moves, and what her disposition is like, and a great many other things. If she is good enough for me to want to ride, she is good enough for me to want a foal from. Additionally, I have to really sit on myself to KEEP from riding some of my best mares. Sadly, as other posters have pointed out, the GOOD ones are the ones who too often DON'T get the chance to reproduce. I want to keep those that I REEEAAALLLY want to ride in production--because that is how you build a superior breeding program. Heidi ============================================================ Personally, I shouldn't give a s--- where the other people on the course are, and if I find myself starting to concern myself over this, I remind myself that this is the first step on the road to overriding my horse and tell myself to "knock it off!" :) ~ Kat Swigart ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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