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RE: [RC] Proving Stallions (or mares for that matter) - heidiI should add to this discussion by reminding people that phenotype and genotype are not the same thing, and that one needs to pay attention to genotype when choosing a breeding stallion, regardless of how good his performance record may be. Although I don't have the pedigrees in hand, I'll follow kat's lead and use an example from the TB world. When I was a kid, we had ranch horses sired by a TB stallion named Cheyenne Chief, who sired some very nice using horses, but who was spectacularly unsuccessful on the track. His sire was a horse named Pillory, who won both the Preakness and the Belmont, and was 2nd in the Kentucky Derby--one place off of being a rare Triple Crown winner. I did some research of sorts years back, and Pillory was a "flash in the pan"--his pedigree did not predict his success, and subsequently, he did not sire anything of note. He was a fluke, and he bred on like his pedigree would have predicted, not as his performance would have predicted. Likewise, there have been some very successful endurance sires who never set foot on an endurance course but whose success at stud was no surprise based on their breeding--two that come to mind from an earlier era are Koskiusko (sp) and Las-Trad. The former is even in the AERC Hall of Fame, although he never did a ride. Another one that has multiple offspring that have done very well is Aurlani Farwa--he likewise never did endurance, but has a half-brother in the AERC Hall of Fame (RT Muffin) and was a very consistent sire of athletic offspring. By the same token, there are some very successful stallions on the trail whose pedigrees are a mixed bag in terms of performance--and they have bred like their pedigrees, with very spotty results. So while it is nice to see a performance record on a stallion, in our sport, where not many stallions race, I would far rather breed to a stallion who has never been on the trail but who is SIRING successful offspring than one with a great endurance record but a pedigree that doesn't back it up. Heidi Susan Garlinghouse said:I personally would not consider breeding to any stallion that had not thoroughly proven himself in upper echelon performance---endurance, jumping, eventing, third-level or better dressage at the national level, etc.Speaking from a TB racing standpoint (which is a great place to be able to understand the aspect of "proving performance" in horses and linking performance to pedigree).... While successful performance of the individual stallion himself at whatever the discipline in question can be a good predictor of success at producing successful performers (in fact it is probably one of the best predictors), a stallion is not "proven" as a breeding stallion until it has foals that are successfully performing. And after a stallion has foals that are performing (or not performing as the case may be), his own performance record becomes totally irrelevant with respect to his value as a breeding stallion. Spectacular Bid had one of the most impressive racing records in the history of American TB racing (and I think he still holds the world record for the mile and a quarter on the dirt); however, he was totally unimpressive as a sire. Although his stud fee when he first retired was probably quite high (although here I am guessing), after he had foals of racing age (and probably after having been bred to some of the best mares available since horses with good racing records usually get the best mares when they are first bred) his stud fee dropped with the non-performance of his foals. By the time he was 10 years old and still not producing anything that could win, his stud fee was a paltry (in TB terms) $2,500 and he probably didn't get bred to many mares at that price (and almost certainly not any good mares). On the other hand, Sadler's Wells (a Northern Dancer son) had a rather unimpressive career on the track himself. However, after a few years of producing foals (from not necessarily the top quality mares because of this unimpressive career), he made it to the top of the General Sire List in the UK (most earnings of his foals of racing age) and his stud fee (and access to the best mares) went up. The fact of the matter is, the way to "prove" a breeding stallion is to breed him and test the ability of his foals. If a stallion has foals on the ground, look at the foals and what they are doing, because when a stallion has foals on the ground, what HE is doing pales into insignificance. In the TB world, since they test them when they are two and three years old, it is possible to test the stallion in the performance in question (i.e. racing) to see which ones you probably want to breed, and then to test the foals to see if you made the right choices, and then use stallion for breeding lots of foals for the rest of his life (another 15-20 years). In disciplines where successful performance cannot be properly evaluated until the horse is 6-10 years old (like most of the "national level" competitions Susan mentions), this becomes much more difficult. If you wait until the horse proves himself at the national level (probably not before the horse is 9) to breed him to get his first foals and raise them up to peformance age to test the foals you won't know whether the stallion is capable of producing high level competitors (which you probably won't know until the foals are 9) until the stallion is 19 years old. And if you are in a discipline where stallions don't perform particularly well simply because they are stallions (jumping comes immediately to mind, but endurance and eventing probably also come under this category), then testing them at this type of performance may NOT be a very good predictor of the stallion's ability to produce capable offspring (if they aren't stallions). This makes it so you have to use some other form of performance (other than actual competition) to be a "test" for your breeding stock's ability to produce capable offspring. If you perform this test on young breeding stock and use the ones that peform this proxy test successfully as breeding stock, and THEN test the foals' peformance at the actual discipline to confirm that you were right to use them, you can continue using them. And I can agree that if your goal is to breed as many foals from the proven stallion as possible so he can improve the breed, then the horse IS "too valuable" to risk on the performance field itself, if the performance field is a riskier place than at home in the breeding shed (e.g. You wouldn't want to use your best producer of war horses as a cavalry mount, even if it IS an exceptionally good war horse). However, by the time a horse is old enough to have foals of performance age (i.e. he is also old enough to be a successful performer as well), then he is only worth using as breeding stock if he IS successfully performing or if his foals are successfully performing (or he is untested for reasons unrelated to ability and even then you are taking a bigger risk). 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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