You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

I am constantly learning new things when it comes to horses. From watching a barn friends techniques to researching facts online I am constantly amazed by the black holes of information that I can fall into.

For instance the past year or so I have gotten way more into various bloodlines. This started when I was searching for Annie and pestering the bejesus out of Amanda about different TB stallions as sport horse sires… Then over the last year I have moved into the warmblood territory. Admit it you thought that the it’s a boy announcement was precious!

Despite owning Houston I have been pretty bloodline illiterate most of my life. There is sooooo much to learn. It is very interesting to me how certain stud books/ registries overlap so much and how little people know about breeding and the registration/ approval process. Even breeders themselves… but that’s another story.

Being at a farm that has about a foal a year now I am starting to get thrown into it a little more and actually went to my first keuring last month. The variation in quality of foals was pretty incredible. And the scoring? Don’t even get me started. Every foal was so close in score I don’t even know why they bothered. It seemed as though they decided how the foals were going to score before they even got into the ring. 

It is interesting to me how little people seem to think the dam matters… also a good stallion doesn’t mean they are a good sire… 

So any other bloodline/ breeding junkies out there? What do you look for? 

5 comments

  1. Amanda says:

    Breeding/bloodlines is one of those things that 99% of people know almost nothing about, but IMO is extremely important. So many traits are very genetically reliable, it’s a little astonishing to me that most people just don’t care.

  2. L. Williams says:

    I’ve always be heavily into Thoroughbred Bloodlines, but that is because I was a racing fanatic first and sporthorse second. Still don’t know much at all about Warmblood bloodlines, but I think its a lot easier to buy performance.

  3. Kelly says:

    I have attended 3 Keurings at Bannockburn Farm and one at the farm where Riva was born. Watching the inspection process of Belgian vs RPSI was interesting and agree that scoring is so close. Fascinating!

  4. Nicku says:

    I’ve got a lot of experience with foals and yearlings but never geeked out on bloodlines. I love a good 3 or 4 year old with a good mind, sound body and great movement, I don’t care where it came from really. But I can imagine there’s a great abyss of info out there if you’re interested in learning about that! I think after the soundness debaucle that was my last horse I would want to know about the site/dam/siblings ability to stay sound in work for a full career, but I have no clue how easy that info is to find or breeders offer up???

  5. Karen M says:

    I know zilch about bloodlines, but I always get a giggle out of people who are impressed with their ex-racehorse having a famous/prolific stallion in the line when it’s not really a big deal because of how much inbreeding goes on.

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