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I have an endurance friend whose wife is looking at Icelandics for 
pleasure riding.  They've looked at about 5 horses and have been amazed 
that every one had perfectly straight, wonderful legs and was also 
otherwise very well put together.  Over the years,he has bought at least 
5 arabians for endurance.  Each search has been long and frustrating. 
Even some of the horses he has bought, while conformationally ok, have 
turned out to have other problems.  When price drives the market, 
quality sure does suffer!
Laney

SandyDSA@xxxxxxx wrote:
> In a message dated 4/6/2005 1:04:40 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, 
> Pasang@xxxxxxx writes:
>
>     Perhaps for years we endurance folk have had a "free ride" in the
>     horse acquisition aspect of our sport due to market forces driving
>     down the prices of Arabians. But when availability of good Arabian
>     horses gets very low, the prices will naturally go up, way up. 
>
> *Oh no it isn't a free ride, sifting through prospect after prospect, to 
> find the right combination of ability and heart, The availability is 
> already very low when compared to the availability of average to poor 
> ones being bred at a breath-taking rate up until recently, with the 
> "rejects" finding their way into cheap auctions and often on to the 
> endurance trail, where they may or may not be particularly suitable, 
> either. At the same time, a $10,000 endurance horse is already out 
> there, and some probably rightly deserve such esteem. Most do not - but 
> when the front runners in the pricing market continue to be horses who 
> demonstrate signs of ADD at the end of  a lead and/or mince about a ring 
> for a full 5 minutes before they are dripping with sweat, i cannot help 
> wondering where breeding quality for its own sake went, rather than 
> breeding what is popular this year. *
> ** 
> *We will not likely be paying $10,000 for a "good" one but probably for 
> a REALLY good one or top notch one - probably more. But the rank and 
> file endurance CANDIDATE should not be a $500 weanling or an $800 two 
> year old.*
> *s*


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