What makes a horse/bloodline "proven"?

[Michelle Clarke]

This is a subject often debated in many circles....I think it is particularly interesting to discuss this in relation to the Kigers, being as most bred parents are wild plus, as Dianne stated, we are only a couple generations from them - the breed is very young so to speak.

[angelsdream]

To me a "proven" horse is one that is "used" and "rode" and proven to be a great riding/driving/show horse instead of one that is just put out to pasture to breed and produce. The only true way you can know a horse's abilities/temperment/mind is by riding the horse. I see so many mares now for sale that were used as broodmares and have never been ridden which is soooo sad because not only will that mare have a hard time finding a good home because the person will have to put more money into that horse to break and train but could possibly end up at slaughter. I mean who wants to pay $2000 or more for a broodmare that has never been ridden, maybe in the quarter horse/Lusitano/TB world where the broodmare has top bloodlines, but not the mustang world. The market is full of broodmares for sale now. Also - how would you know a horse's temperment/abilities unless you road them first, and then you know what kind of horse they'll produce. I try to explain this to some of my friends who have "pets" and then fuss when they try and go out to ride there "pets" and they end up having there hands full and one day will get badly hurt, not to get off the subject but my point is any and most horses are wonderful if you just go out and feed them and pet them, its when you ask them to work you see there mind.

[desperatehorsewife]

To be proven, I believe a horse needs to be competitive against others in it's own breed, plus, in the case of our mustangs, against horses of other breeds. Which means getting out in the real world and not just showing a lovely head and flowing movement in a video.

To truly be competitive, a horse has to not only have the body and movement, but the mind. We're all guilty of barn blindness, so the only true test is to put our horses out there and show what they're made of.

This is one of the reasons I'd like to see us set up a point system for mustangs who enter the B level show system, competitive trail, dressage, etc. Not only will it open doors to our horses in the open show world, but it will give us a chance to really see what our horses are capable of, and whether or not they're worthy of reproducing.

I've long said we need not be breeding mustangs in captivity, and I still stand by that. Kigers are mustangs, and while they've been selected for specific traits, if you're just breeding for a nice horse...hey, $125 But if your horse can prove he's worthy against other breeds, then you've got a leg to stand on.

[Michelle Clarke]

I think this thread will bring up ALOT of issues here - but that's okay!

On the point of broodmares - Americans are stuck on having to ride/show mares when most other countries (let me speak for the latin ones I know of...) would not be caught DEAD on a mare - they are for breeding, not riding. I have spoken with alot of breeders in alot of other countries and they all say that a mares value is in the foaling barn - that's were she proves herself. Since the maternal line is so strong and does not change (ever), a good mare needs to really produce. Fillies get an exact copy of the maternal dna from the stallion, so agian, looking at the stallions dam is very important - you see what she has produced.

Just look at the Lipizzans - no riding mares there: Paso Finos in Columbia - if the mare does not make a good breeder, she "may" be broke for the grandkids to ride.

The QH world is split in my opinion - some mare are shown and campaigned, some mares are bred on bloodline merit alone. For a breeder to "prove" a mare, not only does it take money, but you are looking at a horse that will produce a dozen or so foals in it's life. A stallion is where breeders put their funds because a breeding stallion can generate more dollars, being able to produce more foals, obviously!

Even in other species: Spanish bulls are the only ones proven, cows are never tested in the arena - only by what they produce. Fighting roosters - hens are not put into the fighting pen - only the boys. Hens are proven by throwing consistancy: each clutch has to have 80-90% winners in the males...each clutch. BTW, they are so well bred, that they are all the same color even and possess equal traits 95% of the time. Incredible!

Enter the Kigers - alot of breeder deal with wild mares, which in itself is a challenge. The longer a mare has been wild, the harder they are. Having worked with Dave Seay (who did demos for the blm adoptions for years on the east coast), he said always pick a stallion to do a demo with. The crowd sees it as more of a challenge and the mares are very difficult to deal with - the more foals she has had, the harder to get anywhere with her, especially in a small time frame. They are crafty and wise!

Many breeders are not "trainers", so now you are trying to find capable professionals in your area to break and train these wild gals - very difficult. I think it is amazing as it is that so many breeders do deal with these mares and get them used to being at least semi-domestic and be dealt with on some level. If you have never dealt with one on a daily basis, you really have no clue what it takes. I know there is the occasional exception....

That is another reason why in breeding, you always breed up - choose a stallion that is better than your mare. Just because you can actually ride a mare, does not make her "proven". It proves she can be trained, it does not prove her foals can easily be trained.

Case in point: we trained a mare that came from Mexico - only mare I have ever known to be trained for the airs above ground, including capriole. Of course, the mare was bred; to a very nice stallion I might add. We also had the ummm, pleasure of training that filly. Nasty, argumentative, lazy, pregnant dogy, pissy....she would throw herself on the ground when you rode her too. Worthless as far as I am concerned.

While I belive that riding/showing a mare can increase the possibilities that the foals will follow suit, it is not high on my list in picking mares. Firstly, my mares have to have the conformation I am looking for, then they have to be tractable, meaning even the wild ones will try to figure out what you want and please, even if it is just by going where I ask them, letting me handle the foals and trying not to kill me if they need doctoring.

They have to be good in a herd - no nasty attitudes. They have to be good breeders with the stallion - agian, no nonsense in the breeding shed. They have to produce foals that follow suit: no bad attitudes within the herd, tractable/trainable and the conformation I want.

King Ranch had a good system for mares. Every foal's conformation on a 1-10 scale. A mare that produced a foal grading 5-7 was switched to another stallion. If the next foal graded a 7 or below she was culled, plain and simple.

[desperatehorsewife]

Michelle, a lot of what you say makes sense. Stallions by far need to be out proving themselves because they're often creating more offspring in a year than a mare will in a lifetime.

But I also tend to get really hung up on this: We, as mustang owners, have a greater responsibility to our horses than the domestic world in that there's a stigma attached. When the time comes that you cannot afford that wild bred mare, what are you going to do with her? Who else is going to want her? Breeding aside, I feel you owe her an education, or you should not have adopted wild. If you haven't got the skill, and you've not got the money to hire a trainer, then look into something captive bred. Simple as that.

[fantasykiger]

There are so many factors that go into why I would have chosen to breed a certain mare to a certain stallion, but the question is what makes a horse "proven"? In my mind only one thing makes any horse proven and that is performance of any kind.
Which is one reason I chose Steens Vaquero to be the sire of my Kiger filly and why my daughter bought one of his daughter's. Because he was 'proven" by a long list of accomplishments.
Good Bloodlines can be differant in my mind, when it comes to Kiger Mustangs. Foundation horses are important to me as well. You don't have to be a show horse to produce a quality I admire such as Mestena's gray coloring or Steens Kiger's conformation.
I greatly appreciate the efforts folks put towards showing and promoting their horses. I have not been so brave to get out and show and perform with mine.

As far as mares go I am a rider of mares. I do not own a stallion and sell all my geldings. I love my mares and I have been told I am brave to just ride mares. Anyway that is another topic. However, I held more value on what a mare produces when paired up with what stallion and her disposition, then how she performs. Although if she is a fabulous perfomer it is a bonus.

*everything past tense because I will no longer be breeding.

[angelsdream]

I understand that other countries have there own ways as each person has there own opinion and beliefs but as far as Americans being stuck on having to ride/show mares, Id say that it would only benefit the mare and the owner in the long run. If a person is showing that mare and she does well, wouldnt her offspring be worth more than if she was just a broodmare?? Bloodlines to me only go so far. Also, if a mare is road and broke before she is turned into a broodmare, if the time comes and the owner has to sell her, then it wouldnt take much to get her legged back up into riding condition, which then you could sell her for more as a riding horse, rather than broodmare, the owner and horse come out better in the long run. As the market stands now, the demand is for good riding horses.

[JoanMRK]

However, I held more value on what a mare produces when paired up with what stallion and her disposition, then how she performs. Although if she is a fabulous perfomer it is a bonus.

I agree Tiffany!

Excellent points everyone, this is a good subject and you all are speaking nicely and intelligently.

[sbutter]

I know with Thoroughbreds a lot has to be considered. It is easy to assume that if the horse is by a great sire and the dam is also by a great sire, that would be enough. There are a lot of TBs out there like that, that we wouldn't even touch with a ten foot poll (when we consider broodmares). The mare may be by Secretariat (great broodmare sire) and may be out of a great mare cross with that line, but if nothing is happening in the immediate family, we wont even look at her. It is interesting to see that a lot of the best racing mares don't go on to produce foals that are as the same caliber as themselves. We rather buy a mare that has never raced, than a mare that has raced a couple of times and didn't do anything (even if she has a good family). There are those occasional "freaks" that can run like crazy, but have absolutely no family to back them, and we avoid those too.

We go back to Kentucky each year to buy mares for our clients and ourselves and it is interesting to see how the market changes over the years. It used to be that you would take an "unproven" filly and breed her to a "proven" stallion and then sell her. Now they take fillies off the track and breed them to young "unproven" stallions that are hot and then sell. Many people assume that if a stallion was an amazing race horse, then he will be a great sire. The majority of TB stallions are "flops" and it is a small fraction that actually "prove" themselves as great sires. The higher end stallions also get the best mares. Usually, if a stallion moves from Kentucky(where the best mares are) to another state, it is the kiss of death. There are occasional stallions that don't do much at the track/get an injury so they are "unproven," that go on to be amazing sires. There are weanling fillies that go through sales that sell for huge prices, just because of their value as a broodmares (this is even if they have an injury at the sale that will keep them from racing). Usually, with these kinds of fillies it is very easy to see why they sell for that price even if you don't look at their lineage and just focus on their immediate family.

When we look at pedigrees for broodmares we like to see a lot of females in the family(full sisters,half sisters), because we can see what they were bred to and see if the family produces quality race horses. If she is the only girl in her family and all her brothers are done running, then it is a dead end as far new updates in the family. But if she has sisters, then their foals will go to race and the family will continue to upgrade (if they prove that they produce good race horses). There are also mares that have an amazing pedigree and a great immediate family that can't produce themselves out of a paper bag. Meaning they have been bred to the best stallions for years and yet none of their babies can run (they may look great,but just can't run for some reason). So, with TBs, the colts are valued for racing and the fillies are valued for producing.

So when I look at kigers, yes they have been around for a long time, but they are "new" as far as bloodlines go. When I first started getting interested about kigers, I was curious when certain stallions were being touted as "proven." Because of my background with TBs I wasn't sure what a kiger stallion had to go through to be "proven." A lot of kigers haven't been shown or out in the public eye. As far as I have noticed the "proven" kiger stallions show that they produce foals with good minds and good conformation, that are easy to train and fun to ride. Looking at this from an analytical point of view, what would draw me to this breed from what I said in the last sentence? There are already a lot of breeds of horses out there that fill that and more. Is it because it was a "new" breed that was "in?" When I think of kigers that were out in the public eye, that proved themselves, I think of Kiger Cougar. Just going off of the fact of what he did, it made me sad to find out that he wasn't used as a stallion and produced lots of foals (I don't know what his temperament was like, conformation, etc.) again looking at it from the TB point of view. I wish there was some way we could invest more in our kiger stallions and get them out there, so they can prove themselves in the ring or wherever they show. I rather have five good kiger stallions that have gone out and proven themselves and then breed good kiger mares to them, than have a bunch of the "proven" kiger stallions that we have now. I am not so much worried about the mares as I am the stallions, since the stallions tend to be the part of a breed that draws people to a breed. I try to be an optimistic person, and so I am glad that a lot of people are getting out of breeding kigers as just another "pretty" horse. I hope that it gets down to the core of serious breeders that know what they are doing and produce horses that will turn heads. I just hope it doesn't kill off all of the breeders.

I guess another point to look at would be to see where we want the kiger breed to go. Do we want them to be just great riding horses or should we aim higher? Should we divide them up into categories like other breeds have done? What drew me to kigers was their intelligence and their potential to do great things if people have a goal in mind. At this point some of those are far off, but can be attainable if pursued. I love this kind of topic and hope more is talked about and discussed.

...I just remembered something, there are TB stallions that produce ugly babies that are known to be awesome race horses. They may have faults that typically would make people pass on them, but people reconsider since none of their "siblings" had problems racing with those faults. Eventually breeders use those offspring as breeding stock and breed the bad conformation out, but they still can retain that certain "something" that their grandsire had. This is harder to do and only responsible breeders should be allowed to do this. For instance, if I had a beautiful TB mare that produced great babies (conformation), but they lacked that certain something. I would breed her to a stallion that may be ugly but was proven to pass that on to his offspring. Of course, I would only do this if I was planning on/ financially capable of keeping the next couple of generations. I would not want to add to the problem and prefer to eliminate risks than to take them. But if you have a limited choice to choose from you do the best you can. I don't know if this can safely be applied to kigers and would prefer not to, since it is very risky and typically a no no. Just food for thought.

[desperatehorsewife]

Very good points, sbutter.

I think the reason we're not seeing many mustangs, be they kiger or not, in the competitive world is that it becomes quite expensive to campaign a horse; it's by far cheaper to go for a trail ride, then tout their horse as having a good mind and head to the breeding shed.

Kiger Cougar was selected personally by Bobby Ingersoll based on his conformation. He knew what he wanted to do and adopted based on his desired outcome for a performance horse. I wish that anyone who's considering breeding when the adopt would do the same, and give up the breeding dream if their horse is unable to perform.

[dazzlingduns]

Kiger Cougar. Just going off of the fact of what he did, it made me sad to find out that he wasn't used as a stallion and produced lots of foals
*************************************************************************

The public's perception of Kiger Cougar differs greatly from the circle of people involved throughout Cougar's show/ promotional career. I know Cougar very well. It is alright for you and others to show disappointment about Cougar being gelded, but myself and others in Cougar's circle feel very much different.
I was asked to take Cougar to prevent him from being exploited for greed, and to provide him a good home with a stable envorinment and the opportunity to finally socialize with other equines after 12 years of isolation as a non breeding stallion.
There is more than one side to every story and I will leave it at that. Cougar was one of the first greatly recognized Kiger horses and he will always be known and remembered for that accomplishment.
Melissa

[sbutter]

TB stallions and even race horses can be owned by a syndicate or several owners. They do this to reduce the costs of racing and breeding. Obviously when you go in on a partnership, you want to have like minded people that are all aiming for the same goal. I don't know how common this is in other breeds, but it is pretty common with TBs. I don't know if some kind of program or even just a few breeders can go in and do something similar with a Kiger stallion. Maybe each person in the partnership could provide different services. Even if it was done with two Kiger stallions it would be a start. TB breeders have come up with some pretty interesting ideas to counter the poor economy and have tried to encourage breeders from going into a depression. Sometimes you have to isolate the problems and then try to break them up even more and think out of the box to achieve the answer.

Maybe it would be a good idea to list the problems that need to be fixed with the kiger breed from most important/need to be addressed as soon as possible to not as important/ can be put on back burner until the time comes. It could start with general ideas like getting kigers out in public eye to more detailed, like ways of reducing costs of showing. Should we focus on showing mares and stallions or help support two kiger stallions that should be campaigned? I think with all the financial problems, we will have to start relying on each other to support this breed instead of the individual breeders.

This has been done with TBs and it enables anyone to be apart of the "magic." People can buy in on a part of a race horse for what ever percentage they can afford and they have the excitement of being an "owner" of an amazing race horse. It allows the people who could never afford to have a horse of their own to be a part of the action and history making of a great race horse. The breeders behind this somewhat new idea are sacrificing the money that they could be making, for the fact that they are helping the industry by generating interest in racing.

[Michelle Clarke]

Thanks for all that great info on the TBs...what I personally prefer to see in mares in line/inbreeding and what was produced with an outcrossed stallion. My guess is that the horses that do so well on the track have those "hybrid vigour" genetics and that is why they preform instead of produce most of the time. Whenever I see a nice young stallion, I always say "let's breed to HIS sire....". That is the way it is done most of the time with top breeders in latin countries.

The point you bring up also is interesting because it shows that just because a horse is proven (meaning accels at something) does not prove it will produce. Again, a perfect example of picking broodstock vs performance stock. To me they are too seperate things, but like was mentioned, there are those that can do both.

Being as the Kiger breed is so young, I also belive it has yet to prove itself. I really wish that breeders would focus on breeding for certain things: such as a working ranch horse, a more dressage type horse, etc. Each type has it's own look and abilities that are possible to breed strong, yet stay within the breed standards.

On the other hand, I do belive that they have more to offer than just a good versatile horse that is easy to train and fun to ride. They have nice gaits without being gaited; they are very structurally sound; they are completely bonding to their humans and they are unique.

Some good points coming out...

[sbutter]

The public's perception of Kiger Cougar differs greatly from the circle of people involved throughout Cougar's show/ promotional career. I know Cougar very well. It is alright for you and others to show disappointment about Cougar being gelded, but myself and others in Cougar's circle feel very much different.
I was asked to take Cougar to prevent him from being exploited for greed, and to provide him a good home with a stable envorinment and the opportunity to finally socialize with other equines after 12 years of isolation as a non breeding stallion.
There is more than one side to every story and I will leave it at that. Cougar was one of the first greatly recognized Kiger horses and he will always be known and remembered for that accomplishment.
Melissa
********************************

That is the part that I never herd about Kiger Cougar. Our goal as breeders is quality not quantity and quality of life. It is sad to think how greed can drive people to exploit animals. I am glad to hear that he has a good home. I would rather geld a stallion than just see him stand around and become neurotic. Sometimes people forget that these are animals and not $$, they just need to be allowed to be a horse.

[canadiankigers]

I have been sitting back, watching this thread with great interest and I have to say that this is one of the best threads to date. So much great information has been shared and it has given me a good perspective on what others consider the definition of "proven" to be.

When I go to look at a horse that is advertised as "proven" I expect to see some sort of validation that the horse in question has preformed or accomplished something weather it be as a broodmare, breeding stallion or riding/driving horse. To me "proven" means that a horse has accomplished and succeeded at something beyond question and that proof of the accomplishments can be produced.

Kelly