BREEDING
WITH A PURPOSE
Whether you are a back yard breeder or a
serious breeder with a full barn and an agenda for producing a certain breed,
the principals of breeding are the same. You do not need to be a big fancy barn
or a notable stable to produce top quality foals and you do not need to be a back
yard breeder to produce less than desirable duds! Many big barns don't do a good
job and many small breeders don't either. Many "backyard" breeders make
intelligent choices in mating pairs and do a fine job of producing quality foals!
Today
there is far too much emphasis put on prestigious names and political correctness
than there is simple common sense when it comes to the matching of mating pairs
from the perspective of what will produce the best possible horse.
Too
many people get hung up on wanting "champion" names on a pedigree, or
that particular "bloodline" that is currently in vogue at the moment.
It
does not matter whether you are breeding miniature horses or drafts, whether you
are breeding Quarter Horses or Arabians. NAMES do not make a horse.
There
are many inferior or less than desirable horses that carry the best names in the
world. Having those names on the pedigree didn't do them a bit of good because
the match between dam and sire was not well chosen.
Any time a mare
is bred, there should be a reason why she is being bred, a goal in mind for what
that resultant foal will be used for and a projected idea what that foal ought
to look like…an educated guess as to how the foal should move and a feel
for it's abilities.
In today's world too much emphasis is placed
upon being in the "IN" crowd and being able to boast of a specific name
in a pedigree. That is reminiscent to those cliques that tend to haunt the halls
of high schools but being a member of a clique rarely got anyone ahead in life.
Here is a different approach to breeding and one that has sound
reasoning behind it that is easy enough for anyone to understand and utilize to
the betterment of the horses being produced.
Whenever a person decides he or she wishes to breed a mare the very first thing
that they should do is to take a good, hard, honest look at the mare they wish
to breed. Most people do not have an eye for detail when it comes to conformation
and may not have learned to recognize the flaws and strong points of their own
horses. Without that knowledge it is a crap shoot as to whether or not any foal
produced will come out well.
Besides just looking for common qualities
of good conformation a person needs to look at that conformation as to how it
relates to the type of motion or use to which the prospective horse is to be put.
In short a person would be foolish to breed a light boned, very refined horse
if the use it is bred for is pulling heavy loads… or to breed a drafty, heavy
horse if the use it will be expected to perform is racing. The conformation and
genetics need to match the desired use.
One of the first principles
of breeding is to never breed a weakness to a similar weakness. If the mare has
a weak point then the chosen stallion she is bred to had better be strong in that
point.
With Missouri Foxtrotters there is a certain general conformational
type that facilitates the gait. Beyond that there are also conformational considerations
that affect the way the horse performs the gait and finally there are also conformational
aspects that facilitate the horse in gait but also affect other aspects of it's
capabilities.
