I have a dream

[vaquero7x]

Thank you for replying to my message. It seems that the 20/80 rule applies, which means that only a small group of breeders will actually have superior horses. I did not know that Charro was closed for breeding. In my humble opinion Michelle, you could open him to breeding to continue with the preservation of the breed especially since he is of superior quality. Registry politics should be secondary; the preservation of the breed is first. I wanted to tell you all that I once had one of my mares next to 2 Lusitana mares and it was interesting to see that the Kiger mare had better conformation and better hooves than the Lusitana mares. This was very encouraging to me. Have a great day!!

[Michelle Clarke]

I do appreciate what you are saying about Charro. Here are my reasonings. Charro is very special to me and I do not want to turn his life into a circus act; I have too much respect for him. I do not want to trust any vet to handle him and use a dummy to collect; I've gone to my local stallion stations and repro vets to watch them collect there stallions and no thanks. Chains, whiffle bats and yelling don't exactly make for what I want for my boys. When I do stand the younger boys here if they are worthy, I will invest and do it myself.

If I would have had people knocking down my door to breed to him, I would invest in all the equipment to teach him to collect myself and handle all the shipping here...but again, I don't want to take advantage of him. Charro has had some rough handling in the past before I got him and he is very slow to trust people. He is 18 this year and he enjoys his quiet life here at the ranch. Four years ago when it was really cold over the winter, he tucked up his testicles and in the spring only one came back down. I consulted with A&M and was told to leave it alone because they had too many instances of testicular cancer develop from surgically bringing them back down. So, we are running on a half full tank anyway!

We have two boys coming up from this year that are from good mares - Leza being the older, Iberian type and Joy, already being a Charro granddaughter, has a high percentage Charro colt; both are very good quality so far. I think the new mare, 'Cena, is another super quality mare and if she produces like the mare I lost - she and Charro will have some superior foals.

If folks would send their mares here to be bred, I would have no problem with it. I hope you can understand my reasoning - I am not meaning to come across as being stingy! I appreciate your compliments.

I totally agree with you with the registry thing; it is ridiculous that even some Kigers from the wild can't be registered. There are still some downfalls with the Lusitano, that is for sure. The higher quality lines are also pretty tempermental too and not for everyone. I still stand by the Kiger - they are the best overall breed I have been around; they have the whole package.