Breed Shows Have it Backwards!

Among many problems inside American Sport Horse Breeding programs, breed shows are absolutely not helping those problems, and in many cases, breed shows are harming the breeds involved.

Winning yearling breed show attributes are often mutually exclusive from lifetime quality care and training practices. Too many people equate a breed show winning yearling as a potential winning sport horse. Additionally, young horses "promoted" at breed shows are generally not being raised with their future in mind.

A valid reason to enter a young horse into a breed show could be to acquaint them with the sights and sounds of a horse show. Seeing a new place and being away from friends is especially important for raising an even tempered horse. For the young horse, the earlier new, "scary" things and environments happen, the better. An in-hand class at a horse breed show could go a long way toward creating this positive, "scary" environment.

But at sport horse breed shows, witnessing in-hand classes of young horses is difficult. On parade are a bunch of immature horses who will grow up with health and temperament problems based purely on their preparation for the show. It's this short-sided nature of the young horse's care and training that reflects poorly on the reasons most breeders enter the breed shows....

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Registration, Papers, and Inspections - Does it Matter?

In the mid to late 1990's American Sport Horse Breeding boomed, and North American Warmblood Registries exploded in popularity. Years of fashionable European horse importing coupled with declining Thoroughbred soundness turned the "Warmblood" into the new American Dream horse. Suddenly, one didn't need to import a German Warmblood; that same caliber horse could be bred at home, in The States. Or could it?

By the late 90's sport horse boom period, I was heavily involved in with Warmblood breeding, research, and bloodlines. For several years, I sat on a breeding committee inside an American Warmblood registry keeping up to date on other registries, their rules, their studbooks, their mare books, and their inspections. As part of the committee's task, we made recommendations on rules and rule changes pertaining to the "integrity of the breed."

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Stallions should be OUTSTANDING. A nice stallion makes a GREAT gelding!

...Some stallions are outstanding athletes; dressage and jumpers that stand out from all the rest. I am not going to name names, but most outstanding stallions, are imported. Sure, there are a few nice "homebred" stallions as well, but by and large, worthy stallion semen is only found in Europe (sorry)....

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Love isn't enough to justify breeding

..."I love my mare". That, along with many other statements, does not qualify your mare to reproduce. I realize breeding seems tempting with the availability of quality stallions, but just because you have a mare doesn't mean that you should breed her. Most mares are not that nice, and most nice mares need to be bred carefully.

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