The act of actually using an Arab for
trail riding, cattle, endurance, whatever is the best way to change the trend of
breeding "living works of art" (a term I absolutely hate.) When a working
animal is bred to do the job he was initially used for, then the breeders will
breed for that working trait. I'm equally appalled at the way many breeds
of dogs have gone when bred only for the show ring. I just pray that one
of my favorite breeds, the Border Collie, is never bred to look cutesy in the
show ring. They are far too intelligent to waste on the show ring, unless
it involves doing their real job. They are, however, very obsessed and
sometimes that's enough to drive a person nuts. I always figure
if you want a Border Collie, you'd better have a real job ready for him to do,
routinely, or he will be a very unhappy dog.
Dogs or horses, it's just too bad that it's the
show animals that command the high prices. The working ones often don't
bring enough money for their breeders to pay expenses. However, I notice
that working cattle dogs can now command as much as $10,000 at
auction.
I think maybe the tide is turning back and some arab breeders are
realizing what they have been doing has been hurting the arabian breed- about
5 years ago my niece showed our then 22 year old "rescue" arabian gelding at
the local arab club show and took reserve champion in the
geldings/stallions class. The judge, who also judges halter at the big
Scottsdale show, took her aside and asked her what the breeding on him was and
said "too bad he's gelded-people are seeking out the older lines to breed back
into". My niece has his papers and all I can remember is he seemed to
have a variety of all the old lines that used to be prevalent here in the
Phoenix area. He has really good bone and just an over-all "balanced" look to
him and he's still beautiful and moves pretty nice even at age 29.
