Re: WHERE WILL ENDURANCE HORSES COME FROM...

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/22/99 8:05:36 PM Pacific Standard Time,
bobmorris@rmci.net writes:

<< Secondly, we
 have bred excellent endurance mares to excellent endurance stallions and the
 results have been very poor endurance horses. Remember the Racing adage,
 "breed the best to the best and hope for the best".  Winners do not
 predictably produce winners. >>

This is a mistake that too many so-called breeders make--horses can win and
still have lots of ancestors that you would not want to have come back and
haunt you in a breeding program.  I grew up on ranch horses that were the
result of Thoroughbred Remount breeding, and one good mare in particular that
we had was sired by a son of a horse that had won the Belmont and the
Preakness and was second in the Derby.  (The horse was Pillory--I think the
year was 1922, or close to it.)  This horse came out of a nothing pedigree,
and in turn produced little of value in the breeding shed.  Just because he
was a great race horse did not make him a great sire.  The Thoroughbred people
have done a lot more with pedigree studies than have the Arabian people in
regards to performance, and while there are no guarantees to ANY breeding,
your chances are considerably better with families that consistently produce.
That doesn't mean that you won't find the occasional fabulous winner in other
families--just that the degree with which you can predict success is much
higher in some families than in others.

Heidi