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I must agree with Kat on this. Everyone here thinks that breeding pure Arabs for the halter shows is really wonderful, and if I had a dollar for every raised eyebrow that I get when I tell people that my horses are baladi Arabs, I wouldn't have to work. A baladi Arab is a "country bred" Arab and while they are usually about 90% Arab, there are outcrosses to all sorts of things, most commonly TB or draft.  However, I know the backgrounds of most of my horses back two or three generations and they were bred specifically to produce sound, sane riding horses. The intelligence and personalities of the parents of my horses were every bit as important as how pretty they might be. I am indeed a backyard breeder and most of my breeding stock comes from my extended backyard. They are horses that I've known for most of their lives and whose abilities are well known to me. Even with the costs of raising horses being fairly considerable, I know that if I had to disperse my herd tomorrow, I'd get very, very good prices for them as they are also well known to be good horses...even without a pedigree. But I don't sell horses.

Maryanne

On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:47 PM, k s swigart <katswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Heidi said:

> Breeding the occasional foal for one's own use,
> having researched what it is that one wants, is
> no problem to anyone.  I was talking more about
> people who label themselves as "breeders" over
> the long haul.

Personally, I am of the opinion that one can also be a "breeder" of
hybrids that you have no intention of ever breeding on.  And it can be
done "over the long haul" if breeding quality horses, even for other
people to ride, is something that you enjoy.  It is definitely a
breeding skill to select the parents that would make good hybrids and
raise them to an age where they are useful to other people and then sell
them and do the same again.

One does not have to be producing breeding stock to be considered a
breeder.  One can simply be producing working stock, and get one's
breeding stock from somebody else who does have a program to produce
breeding stock.

In fact, I would be so bold as to say that the biggest mistake that most
"breeders" make is that there are too many of them that are trying to
produce breeding stock and not enough that are trying to produce working
stock but rather just use their breeding stock "culls" as working stock.
Whereas, one can get better working stock if one is NOT trying to
produce breeding stock.  Breeding stock culls do not make the best
working stock. Generally because hybrids have a tendency to make better
working stock but not particularly good breeding stock.

And since there are more people who ride than breed, there is plenty of
room in the breeding business for people who focus on producing working
horses and just buy or rent their bloodstock from the handful of
breeders who produce breeding stock.  The long-term production of
breeding stock is but a tiny niche of the horse production requirements.
Long-term producers who focus on producing working stock are few and far
between such that most people who all they want is working stock are
stuck with breeding stock culls or raising it themselves.  Neither of
these options is particularly palatable to the average horse owner.

I wish there were more "breeders" who focused on producing quality
working stock, which probably means producing quite a few hybrids.

You can trust me on this: a horse that was produced with the breeding
decision, before it was made, to produce a good working horse is almost
guaranteed to be a better working horse than one for whom the breeding
decision was a plan to produce future breeding stock, and it didn't come
out as good for breeding as hoped.

There aren't enough breeders out there producing good hybrids.  Which
makes it so average horse owners, if they want one will have to produce
it themselves in their back yard.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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