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[RC] Even the best is not perfect - k s swigartD'Arcy Demianoff-Thompson said: I am sorry to be a stickler here but I have always been taught by (Bazy Tankersley, Shiela Varian, Jean Pacheco to name a few) - breed the best to the BEST! Never start with anything that has a fault of any type. There is no such thing as a horse that doesn't have "a fault of any type." Just because you want to breed the best to the best (that you can) doesn't mean that you can only breed faultless horses (since they don't exist). What breeders do is look at each of the whole horses that they intend to breed, are honest about their faults, try to determine which ones are heritable and to what extent, hope to breed away from them if they can, and decide which ones they can live with if they can't. Since this mare has already spent the first 9 years of her life as a broodmare, presumably she has foals on the ground that can be evaluated to see if she throws babies that you like. After breeding stock has foals, the responsible thing to do is evaluate it on the quality of its foals. While it is true that when you are looking at unproven breeding stock, it is safest to assume that you are going to get foals that are like their parents (so don't breed a mare you don't like just because she's lame and you can't do anything else with her); however, after breeding stock has foals on the ground it is safest to assume that you are going to get foals like the ones you already have gotten no matter what the parents look like. If the mare has a fault that doesn't show up in any of her foals, then its cause may not be genetic at all (or it is a recessive trait that can easily be bred away from) if you like everything else about the mare and think that other qualities are worth preserving into future generations then.... Breeding is a process of making trade-offs and hoping that your breeding decisions lead to foals that are better than their parents. If you think you have to start with faultless parents, this will never happen. You cannot have an improvement on faultless. kat Orange County, Calif. :) "Le meilleur que je sais les hommes le plus que j'aime mon cheval."--Catherine the Great =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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