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I thought some folks might be interested to hear about the new breeding
policy and future plans for the Arabian breeding program at Cal Poly.
As most people know, the Cal Poly Pomona campus was originally a ranch
owned by W.K. Kellogg who imported or otherwise bought a herd of
Arabians from Crabbett Stud, Maynesboro, Davenport, Brown, etc., mostly
in the 1920's. Later the ranch became a U.S. Cavalry Remount station
and eventually the Cal Poly campus. Alot of truly great and
influential horses were either a part of or products of the Kellogg
breeding program, including Raswan, Rayseyn, Ferda (dam of Ferseyn),
Antez, Witez II, Abu Farwa, Kello-Gwalor, etc. If you look back a
generation or two in ALOT of great endurance horses, there's often
plenty of Kellogg blood in there.
In the '70's, the director at the Arabian Horse Center decided to start
bringing in Polish blood, mostly Bask just like everyone else was at
that time. Alot of people felt it was a mistake diluting the original
Crabbet blood which should have been kept as a foundation herd.
Especially after Reign On, a Bask son out of a Kellogg mare won Canadian
Nat'l Park Champion, there was much more of an interest in breeding to
Polish stallions, primarily popular show lines from Lasma. (But don't
get me started on how much of a "help" Gene LaCroix has been to Cal Poly
or I'll bite someone, or at least start saying some very unladylike
things.)
Anyway, to get to the point at last. The leadership has changed in the
last few years at the Horse Center and especially after the discovery
that Reign On is now sterile, it's been decided by the Kellogg
Foundation to move away from the "show" bloodlines and start moving the
breeding program back to the original qualities of the Kellogg herd. So
instead of breeding the Cal Poly mares to Polish stallions in the
interest of breeding hothead Park and English Pleasure horses that are a
bitch to be around (this is the voice of experience here), the new
policy is to breed to the "old" bloodlines obtained from preservation
breeders to produce athletic,substantial USING horses that are actually
a pleasure to be around. In other words, the kinds of horses that make
good endurance prospects (like we couldn't have told them THAT years
ago). And one of the nicest parts is that they've already made
arrangements with a CMK preservation breeder in Canada (I don't know
exactly who) for a five-year loan of foundation bloodstock to infuse the
original CMK blood back into the Kellogg herd starting this breeding
season.
If you're not into bloodlines, this probably isn't very interesting, but
I know there are alot of people who thought it was a tragedy diluting
the original wonderful bloodlines with so much European blood. It's not
that I dislike Polish or Russian Arabians at ALL, I just personally
think it takes more than a pretty head and a popular show pedigree line
to qualify a horse as a sire. For a long while, that was the basis for
a fair number of breedings at Cal Poly and I for one am delerious that
the policy has now shifted back towards breeding athletic family horses
with brains rather than snorty dingdongs.
So much for News Tidbit of the Day.
Susan Garlinghouse
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