A Sires Potency

[grullagirl]

Recently I've been noticing some stallions within the Paint and Quarter horse breed who can almost produce exact copies of themselves, both color and conformation wise.One of the studs that seems to pass most of his characteristics to his offspring is a Paint named Colonels Smokingun or Gunner as he's known.This horse is a sorrel overo with a bald face and blue eyes he's also deaf in both ears.This guy was an amazing performer when it came to reining and his offspring are proving to be very competent as well.One thing I have been noticing that is not good though is he seems to be able to pass on the deafness gene to his offspring even when they are out of non-deaf solid non-bred paint mares and the foals can also be completely solid too.This raises the question on whether or not deafness can be hereditary in the horse breed.

I was wondering if anyone knew of stallions who passed on most of their traits to there offsping consistenly whether good or bad and what you thought of that stallion being bred.

[grullagirl]

Heres some pics of the Paint stallion Gunner.
This stud is actually a cropout quarter horse and I believe he has no prominent paint horse bloodlines in his pedigree.

[Michelle Clarke]

I know there was just a study done on Paints and deafness...seems it is mostly bald face and white over the head, along with the tovero coloring. Interesting that he passes the deafness to solid colors though.

Within our breeding program, Charro seems to stamp his purebred foals and you can surely tell who their sire is. In our Quarter Horse program, the mares I picked are linebred and inbred. The bloodline was started over 70 years ago with one stud and two mares - no other blood ever. Charros' QH crosses mostly look like QH's and I belive that this is due to the mares breeding. Our Paso foal is the same (the Paso mare, heavily linebred) and the thoroughbred cross most resembles her dam. However, Fabio, is by a new mare who is not linebred and he is a good combination of both in my opinion.

When using the Lusitano stallion, Hipo (who is of the Veiga line - which is heavy linebred), our Hipo fillies look like him, except for Reina, who is more like her Kiger dam, but still has some heavy traits from Hipo that all his fillies have had. The only colt we have by him is pretty opposite, very sweet and easy going -but still really hot.

Now, one of the other Lusitanos we've used, Saphiro, our colt Gringo looks just like him. However, the colt we had by him and Chilli looks more like a Chilli baby and alot of his other crossbred foals, look more like their dams breed from what I have seen.

You can tell the Desi foals in our pasture apart from Charros' foals pretty easily, as they are not as consistant as the Charro foals; but they have a leggier look to them, which is one thing I like about them.

Erics' dad had a bunch of imported Paso Finos from Columbia and his main stallion was linebred...you could tell his foals a mile away. They were his spitting image.

I think it has alot to do with both the stallion and mare, depending on what traits are pretty solid and dominant.

[grullagirl]

One stallion that I noticed did not produce himself but produced the exact same gait he had.He was that Andalusian stallion Santiago that I saw at the nationals.All of his foals seem to paddle out on one of their front feet when gaiting.I think its very interesting that generally the less foreign bloodlines are introduced the more the foal tends to resemble the sire/dam at least in the quarter horse anyways.It actually kinda suprises me that the quarter horse has such wide range of looks right now conformation wise when their gene pool is so small.I would have thought they would have looked more uniform but I guess selective breeding can change that.

[Michelle Clarke]

The first reason is that the Quarter horse comes from a variety of breeds....thoroughbreds, mustangs, drafts, etc., which makes the genetic gene pool large. Bred long enough, you'll have throwbacks (mostly around the seventh and ninth generations and then on from there). Then you have breeders that are breeding for a particular use or look - ranch horse versus track horse and everything in between - which happens when you start mixing the ranch look and the track look alot. PLUS the allowance of pure Thoroughbreds still infused into the lines for racing....NOW the allowance of Paint to be registered either way - just a mishmash.

Even though certain horses are used over and over and over, the bloodlines are not consistant because of the begining blood being so mixed. Odd combination to wrap your head around for sure.

I think the interesting thing is that even though the Kiger is a wild horse and people can argue of being a mixed breed and not knowing what is really in there, the Kiger breeds pretty true. However, if the breed begins to grow again, you'll see different strains emerging more and more, depending on what people are breeding for - like you said, selective breeding.

[angelsdream]

Good thread. I do hear a lot of problems and issues within the quarter horse world - alot in the paints since people seem to be only concerned with the color and breed for the color only. I still don't agree with a stallion being bred just for color alone but such is the world today and people have that choice now where before there weren't that many stallions to choose from and most were working/showing stallions that proved themselves, but when the horse market started to boom and money was being made, everyone started keeping stallions.

From looking at photo's from the past round ups and kiger's that were adopted out years ago, I do see the kiger breed changing and it's from what people are wanting. Like what was said before - Selective breeding it goes back to - it's all in what the person likes and is looking for. I guess that can be good and bad. I mean it looks like mother nature did a great job by herself weeding out the problems but at the same time, there are weakness's when it comes to what we use them for - riding and working, thus selective breeding I guess!

[DianneC]

There is so much difference between a racing QH, a reining QH and a halter QH that the name doesn't mean much to me anymore. Good functional horses, some with good minds, some with good feet but like the Arab craze they have been overbred in my opinion.
It was interesting in Michelle's new page on their foals to see the differences and similarities of the crosses. It surprised me that you can pick out the purebred Kigers pretty easily.

[grullagirl]

I also agree that kigers breed pretty true to themselves.I can always pick out those kiger foals out in the pasture, if not in look then in personality.I agree with Angelsdream all the way that stallions should be kept for their color and the potential they might pass it on.I also noticed many people started to keep stallions when they really had no reason to.Alot of the horses end up in stalls untouched and untrainded because the owner didn't know what they were getting into.I remember going to a barn one time in Texas to look around and I came upon a beautiful tobiano paint stallion(he was hard to miss since he wouldn't stop squealing).Now that horse was probably the most insane stallion I have ever met, he was confined in a regular box stall surrounded by other horses and was literally climbing up the stall walls with his eyes rolling back in his head.I was pretty little and it was quite an ordeal to see this stallion.I ended up going to ask the manager of the stable about the stallions history and apparently a middle-aged buisness man had purchased him as an investment(bad idea) and wanted to show him as well as breed him.Now this guy apperently was just getting into the horse buisness and obviously found the stallion hard to handle, he passed him onto a bunch of trainers who found him just to untractable to even start,so there he was an 8 year stallion who had never been ridden and was obviously pretty pent up and unhappy.This type of scenario just makes me shake my head at these horse owners.

[sbutter]

What comes to mind when I think of really potent stallions are stallions that show themselves even in their grandkids. It may not be outright obvious in their initial offspring, but the talent can be their in the generation after. One TB stallion that comes to mind is Secretariat. He was a great horse himself, but none of his foals made a strong enough mark to make him a strong sire. It wasn't until his fillies had offspring go to the track that he made his mark. He is one of the top broodmare sires and it can be hard to get a Secretariat daughter, unless they have a weak pedigree and have shown that they couldn't produce a strong winner within their first foals.

Some stallions stamp their foals really well even when bred to different types of mares. Their are certain lines of TBs that you know will produce good bone or different looks, even though they are all TBs. You can almost always pick out a Saint Ballado mare or Swiss Yodeler offspring, since they all have their type.

As far as kigers go it is not as easy to find photos or info to compare stallions offspring to others, so it comes down to if you know the stallion personally or seen enough of kigers to know which ones have a unique look within the kiger breed. Of some of the kiger Dundee foals that I have seen, they all have his head, but those are just the ones that I have seen. My mare Calista has strong similarities to Geronimo (her sire) and I have yet to see another kiger stallion throw the same look.

[grullagirl]

I've noticed that horses who have an Arabian in their pedigree whether it be first or third generation they tend to show the influence of that breed.I was wondering whether anybody else had noticed that?

[Michelle Clarke]

The arabian breed is pretty dominant from what I have seen. Chilli is half arabian and all of her foals (except for Chach - who you could not guess had an arab in him) show that influence and she has had nine foals. Now, her arabian side is heavy linebred and inbred with full siblings mated...

[Michelle Clarke]

Doing research and picking the brains of many different breeders, the best way to solidify traits into a breeding program, is through linebreeding a certain percentage. Below is a chart that shows a good linebreeding program...now the foals that are picked to go on to the next generation for breeding, must obviously hold the traits you want to pass on. This is a program that I am following, especially for my future mares with Charro being the main stallion.

[DianneC]

Interesting stuff Michelle. When you are chosing which filly to breed to which colt in the A and B level, do you breed two that are similar or different? I would think most similar to the main stallion, unless there was something that the main stallion needed to improve his conformation. The reason that I ask is that I had most success with crossing opposite types, both being good. So my mares were mostly SK lines, and Charro's daughter. Very different type from Chinook.

[Michelle Clarke]

Yes, mostly picking like the main stallion unless, like you said, something needs improvement. I like crossing opposites for my sales horses to get that burst of vigour from the different types. Since Sage was such a different type than Charro, it will be interesting to see what those fillies produce, both within the linebreeding program and also outcrossing. They had two fillies, Tasa and Nova. Tasa has that Charro "look", but built a little more like Sage, but not quite as heavy. Nova is built more like Charro and she is going to be big, already 15'2 coming three this spring. I am breeding Tasa to Gringo this spring for her first foal; then to pure Lusitano for her next few, then hopefully I'll have another Charro purebred colt to put back to her.

[kigermustang1]

Many, Many.......MANY year ago, as a young girl, I had the opportunity to learn from a gentleman who had bred horses for 60+ years. The one thing that constantly rings in my ears is what he said about a stallion. If they cannot consistantly throw better than themselves they have no business be a stallion.

I feel that it is all great and good for a stallion to put his mark on his foals but I also feel that he should be adding something to the mix, something better than each of the parents have individually.

JMHO,
Karen