[Sandra-A1]

Sharing another article.
Remember it is one person's opinion and based on their own personal experience. Still there are interesting points made. :
The article below was found here: http://www.thehorseconnection.info/index.html

Tell It Like It Is!
Breed Good Horses: It Might Save Them a Lot of Abuse Later in Life!

By JP GIACOMINI

Most horses suffer abuse in their life not so much through the malice of their owners (most folks really love their horses), but through their riders’ ignorance of effective training methods. A popular answer to that problem is naturally to improve the public’s education, and such companies as Purina sponsor lots of good clinicians to enlighten horse owners. But improving horsemanship is a never ending project and many horses will end up at the “knackers” before enough people learn how to ride at least as well as they can drive a car!

Another essential part of the solution is to breed horses with good minds, good conformation and a genetic ability for the job at hand. If training easy horses is hard to do for most aspiring horse trainers, difficult ones can be a nightmare for both the rider and the horse. Horses need to carry a rider and do a little something at the same time. If they are built wrong (physically or emotionally), their conformation will get in the way of their rider’s desires at every moment and result in unfortunate and repeated conflicts with dire consequences for the horse.

Here are a few examples of the most common problems I see when I am helping riders fix their training problems. Downhill horses (particularly with no withers) cannot carry a saddle without becoming sore on the top of their shoulders. “Soft backs” (or sway backs) horses cannot carry the weight of the rider without lumbar pain or without raising their heads, which makes them excited, which brings the rider to use stronger bits, gadgets, etc., which induces more pain and frustration all around. Straight hocks, which do not flex effectively and therefore do not push the horse forward or help the back to round (in order to carry the rider in a mechanically correct way). Feet too small to carry the weight of big animals or too poor in quality to sustain shoeing. Pasterns that are too straight and knees bent the wrong way, that cannot absorb concussion. Dressage horses without enough energy to willingly produce collection. Pleasure horses with too much energy to ever be relaxed on a trail ride. Unfortunately, all these problems result in either acute abuse (frustration and battle) or chronic abuse (everyday pain, unsoundness and poor performance) in spite of the rider’s good intentions.

What is the solution? Breed horses that are versatile, rather than specialists (big trot or slow lope or big stops), because versatility implies balance of movement and harmony of forms, resulting in ease of training. Find a versatile INDIVIDUAL to breed to, coming from versatile parents (for more genetic guarantee). Choose one that walks AND trots AND canters with EQUAL quality: long walk = flexibility, big trot = strength and energy, slow canter = balance, one that (at least) COULD decently participate in Equestrian Sports at entry level (as opposed to just win subjectively judged Horse Show classes), such as dressage, jumping, racing, endurance, combined driving, reining, barrel racing, etc.. In other words, even a horse destined to do saddle seat, western pleasure or park classes, HAS to stay sound and HAS to get out of his own way without blinkers, special shoeing or daily medication.

Over the past 40 years, my experience covered thousands of horses of most breeds, used in most disciplines. I like all good horses, whatever their color or their “accent”, as long as they like the job they have been chosen for and they are physically capable of it. I know I won’t need to do anything to those horses they will hate me for. I try to give them comfort through adequate saddle, horse shoeing, nutrition, turnout and an occasional massage session. I also make sure that their behavior is conducive to learning. But if they are not suited, I suggest to the owner that they need another job, and that it MUSTN’T be breeding!! Unsound, unwilling, incapable horses do not belong in the gene pool, even if they are the greatest pets and deserve to be loved for the rest of their days.

I breed Lusitanos (Portuguese cousins of Andalusians), because most of them are athletes, love to work and are incredibly sound. They are versatile: my past stallion Novilheiro was first a Grand Prix dressage horse, then an event horse and an international show jumper in England; his full brother Opus was a star of bullfighting in Spain (a very demanding sport!); and some of their cousins won the World 4-In-Hand Combined Driving Championship. They both lived to be 30 while pasture-breeding in their retirement, producing many look-alike offspring.

The reason for these great results is due to the Lusitano breeders adhering for centuries to a “breed standard” that ensures soundness and versatility. They focus on the quality of the back as the centerpiece of a riding horse’s biomechanics (straight, horizontal, medium size). They insist that riding horses must be built “uphill” and be self-carrying. They have also concentrated their gene pool around preferred qualities and eliminated the poor specimens. For centuries, Lusitano were used for High School and war (the toughest test), then exported as improvers of other breeds.

In American breeds, sensible people regret the progressive disappearance of “Old Style” Morgans, Saddlebreds, Tennessee Walking Horses or Quarter Horses. Strange fashions in show ring halter classes bear a lot of responsibility for this, but on the other hand we now see better conformation, due to the increased competition in performance.

Due to that selection, the “Iberian Conformation Factor (or Baroque)” is reappearing occasionally in many breeds who once used that blood. The Iberian breed standard, designed around qualities that are indispensable for practically all saddle horses, can easily be used by all breeders as a guide-line for success without going away from the breed they love. This policy would speed up the selection process and be a good development for horse sports in general. The resulting horses would suffer a lot less “forcing” in their training as a result of increased inborn versatility and all it’s implications.

For those who do not know who JP Giacomini is:

Biography of Jean Philippe Giacomini (JP)
Jean Philippe Giacomini, internationally known as ‘JP’, was born in France where he received a formal education in equestrian sports through the French Cavalry system at his neighborhood riding club. Later, he studied dressage with Master Nuno Oliveira in Lisbon, Portugal and at the National Portuguese stud of Alter Real with Don Jose Athayde. Because he found that the advice “by the book” often failed him for correcting training problems, he had to figure out on his own the intricacies of horse training by trial and error.

He rode many ‘green’ colts, raced in a few steeplechases, evented, show-jumped and trained his first of many Grand Prix dressage horses when he was 17 years old. Through his travels, he studied the techniques of great riders from many countries and various disciplines. He was lucky enough to ride horses trained by direct students of the great French luminaries (Decarpentry, Cuyer and others) as well as Portuguese and German masters’, such as Dr. Borba and the late Herbert Rehbein. Later, he worked on well over 10,000 remedial horses during clinics given on three continents.

While producing international champions in dressage and Show Jumping, he coached event riders to win several major championships, ride in the Olympics and be awarded five Gold and Silver FEI medals. This facet of his work gave him the opportunity to check and develop the validity of his approach against the best in the world as well as innovate in the field of holistic sport horse management.

This combination of theoretical knowledge and empirical experience resulted in the eventual creation of his own “Essential Horsemanship Training System ”. It is centered on the “Relax Reflex Reward” technique (“The 3R’s of Riding”™), used throughout a long catalogue of constantly refined lessons based on a short ‘check list’ of unalterable principles applicable to every training situation. This ‘Reality Training’ approach has resulted in the discovery of some of the simplest, yet most revolutionary solutions ever devised to resolve specific issues of equine behavior and biomechanics.

He is a breeder of Lusitano & Andalusian horses (was the trainer & owner of Novilheiro, international show jumping champion Lusitano stallion). JP is the author of over 100 published equestrian articles on breed history, equine biomechanics and equestrian philosophy.

JP trains his five beloved Lusitano stallions (he calls them his ‘living laboratory’) Besides being a distinguished linguist and writer on horse matters, JP is an amateur artist who enjoys writing poetry, sculpting and drawing. He is married to photographer Shelley Giacomini. Together they have five wonderful children: Colomba, T.J., Tegan, Tara and Ruy-Philippe.

[CowGirlUp1833]

Great Thread Sandra. Thank you for sharing that with us

[shell]

I believe that can be true.

[BestofPrincess]

that sure made me feel better about breeding my mare

[cowhorseman]

this article hits the nail on the head, many of our horse problems could be eliminated by good breeding practices, unfortunately this is uncommon.In the cutting world breeders are selected by their ability to win, not bad ,but other things should be considered like conformation, disposition etc. I recently elimated a mare from my herd because of poor disposition, and her offspring were all like her.

[TrueColoursFarm]

Here's another viewpoint on the current state of breeding over in Ireland / England:

Take this statement issued by bloodstock economist John Lynam:



Irish economist urges drastic measures to eliminate overproduction

Bloodstock economist John Lynam has suggested shooting or retiring a large number of broodmares to help Ireland solve its overproduction problem.
Lynam addressed the problem at three separate seminars of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association in Cahir, Navan, and Newbridge, suggesting either shooting or selling unproductive mares and doing away with the fifth day of the Goffs Orby yearling sale and the third day of the Tattersalls (Ireland) Ltd. September yearling sale, Racing Post reports.

"Overproduction has been with us for the last four or five years, and market forces in the bloodstock industry are not working because a number of producers are not seeking the maximize profits," Lynam said. "Mares must be culled and 60% of the mares that bred the foals in the catalog for last year’s Goffs November foal sale need to be taken out of production.

"Getting more specific," Lynam continued, "I would estimate that 80% of the mares that bred the foals on the first two days should be shot or retired. What the industry does not need is people putting these mares into a sale. If that happened, their ownership would simply be transferred from a realist to an optimist."

The number of mares in Ireland has increased approximately 20% over the last five years to nearly 19,000, while numbers in England have decreased slightly to 13,000.

Lynman suggests owners evaluate the strength of mares when the fourth foal becomes of racing age, and that owners do not send their mares to stallions who are too good for the mare.

"Mares who deserve no more than [$18,917] stallions are being sent to stallions standing at [$37,834] and [$56,751]," Lynam said. "A mare should not be covered by a stallion whose fee is any higher than a third of the mare’s purchase price."

Interesting, isnt it?

[Celeste]

it's like they have a class system for horses! like back in the old days, if you were a peasant, you couldn't marry into a noble family and vice versa. i guess they don't understand that breeding a mare to a superior stallion will produce offspring that are a few levels up from the mare and you get better quality stock all around.

[Dancinglite]

Very interesting article Sandra.

There are people that are breeding uncut PMU colts to again PMU mares and getting what I would call less than quality horses.

I have nothing against PMU horses and they are satisfying a need for those without the financial rescources to own a horse that is of selected breeding and therefore usually more expensive. As long as it is well cared for then it has done its job ( although not what was originally intended).

Without the proper breeding background I don't think that breeding within the PMU population is making any improvment to these animals as a whole. From Sandra's article the results of that breeding is the most likely ones to be abused.

[7HL]

Great thread and posts!

[indiekisses985]

That's interesting.. it's good to know, though.