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[RC] Rushcreek Horses/Race Horses - k s swigartHeidi said: Kim, you are right about the Rushcreek program, and from what I've seen, it actually maintained its consistency longer than the Hyannis program did. The "Rushcreek program" is a perfect example of the need to look at breeders rather than individual horses, and, I suspect that the reason it has lasted so long is that Rushcreek does not, and never has, bred horses for the endurance market. Rushcreek breeds (and always has bred) horses for working a large cattle ranch, and a handful of the horses they have bred have made it into the endurance community. Most of them stay on the ranch and work cows their entire lives (at least they used to, I don't know much about what they have been doing in the last 5 years). This is also the reason that it isn't necessary to restrict your horse search to those that come from successful endurance lines (especially since most successful endurance horses are geldings and therefore, cannot bred on, this is a big problem, BTW, with respect to linking pedigree to performance in endurance). If Rushcreek is anything to go by, working cow horse is at least as good, if not better selection criteria for bloodstock than winning endurance horse. The fact that most successful endurance horses are geldings is a HUGE problem with respect to talking about pedigree and breeding programs for endurance horses. Most really successful endurance horses, because they are sterile, make absolutely NO contribution whatsoever to the gene pool of future endurance horses. Their close relations can, but they can't themselves (with the possible exception of Cash II, but this option is waaaay to expensive to do on a wide ranging enough basis to even determine if it is worthwhile). The typical selective breeding model (of make your breeding choices, test the progeny at the event of choice, and breed on the ones that succeed) doesn't work for endurance. What most Arabian breeding programs from the early 20th century did instead was to use the racetrack as a proxy test. They would make their breeding decisions, test the results when they are young on the race track, those that succeed on the race track were used for breeding stock and those that didn't were culled out and used for the event of choice (in this instance, military service). And actually, this proxy test worked pretty well. I am mostly of the opinion that as long as the race is long enough (at LEAST a mile and a quarter, but preferably longer than that), that the ability to repeatedly win on the race track is an excellent selection criteria for athletic ability and longevity. It is not, however, necessarily the best selection criteria for suitable temperament. For that, "working cow horse" is probably a better one. :) Whatever the case may be, you don't have to look for "successful endurance horse" in your horse's pedigree (in fact, you will have a hard time finding them because few successful endurance horses have any progeny). There are lots of places that you can look for athletic ability and longevity. kat Orange County, Calif. kat Orange County, Calif. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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