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Re: [RC] endurance breeding - heidiHi, Sue-- No single stallion stands out, and I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make in evaluating endurance breeding is looking only at sire lines. The older preservation family lines are FAR more represented among top endurance horses than are the modern show lines. One example is the CMK breeding group, which comprises only about 5% of the American gene pool at this point, but which shows up repeatedly in top horses. To date, of those Tevis and Haggin winners whose pedigrees can be traced (all of the registered purebreds, a few unregistered ones, and five of the partbreds), NO horse carries LESS than 25% CMK breeding, and over a third of them qualify as CMK. In the last decade, 50% of the Tevis winners have been CMK. These horses are roughly equivalent to what you would call Crabbet/Old Colonial breeding in Australia. The WEC winner Hachim fits this profile as well. When researching any particular sire line, look at how many of the offspring attempted the sport, and then look at how many of those have done well. Look for how many have continued on to the 1000-mile point or better, and look at completion percentages. (Can only do that on the last decade or so.) Any program worth its salt should be producing horses with 85+% completion rates, IMO, on average--in other words, their completion rates should be as good or better than the average for the population at large. And they should also be able to produce horses that on average have some longevity in the sport. Our own program is small, but we have to date had 8 horses bred by us or by our stallions that have gone over 1000 miles (one has over 10,000 miles), we had three with various owners rack up good records this past year for their first seasons, have had a youngster win and BC at Virginia City, have had a youngster 2nd at Tevis, etc. Our program is not unusual among CMK programs--one need only look around at programs such as Michael Bowling's, Lois Russell's, Marjorie Van Gilder's, Jackie Bumgardner's, and Kathi Theile's, to name just a handful. All of those programs have bloodlines in common, and breed old-style functional Arabians, of primarily CMK breeding, with occasional lines to other old lines such as the Patton Polish or Babson. The Rushcreek program was a CMK program, and the early Hyannis horses were also CMK or CMK-Patton Polish crosses. These lines keep cropping up again and again at the front of the pack and at the forefront of career mileage records. BTW, the highest placing US horse at the WEC (GA Tyfa Mynte, aka Honey) is also CMK--and a 20-year-old mare to boot. Interestingly enough, the recent BLM mustang thread also underscores the fact that breeding matters--it is interesting to see how the successful mustangs also tend to come from a few select herds, hence are apt to be at least somewhat related. Yep, breeding matters--even when you don't know what it is! :-) Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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