There's been a discussion of breeding on the UK icelandic horse society members list.
This comment was made by our current breeding leader. and I wondered how people here would feel about it?: "I would like to clarify a few misunderstandings. Nick wrote: A cautionary note here is that the FEIF breeding assessment is based around the goal of a competition horse. The Breeding Goal is not a 'competition' horse but to quote from FIZO, the general aim is 'to breed a versatile, sure footed and safe horse with good clear gaits and an excellent temperament.' If everything were bred to those goals the "nice family horses" and the " comfortable travelling horses" will be a think of the past. If we breed from two excellent 'competition' horses we do have a chance of producing a good competition horse but we have a much greater chance of producing a 'nice family horse' and the 'good travelling horse' For example:- Austria has been importing top level competition horses from Iceland for many years and has been breeding from these, yet at the World Championships last year not one of their horses in the senior team was bred in Austria. Austria has produced very many 'family' horses with good gaits. If we choose to breed from horses with only 'average' abilities the quality of the gaits will slowly decline. (Simple statistics from a normal distribution) Mic wrote: Fantastic training is not a heritable trait. but what is a heritable trait is the willingness to learn and please the owner. (Otherwise known as good character and temperament.) Good training does maximise the potential of a horse but if the horse does not have natural talent then it will not get the perfect 10 for all its gaits no matter how 'fantastic' or long the training. Mic contends that little emphasis is placed on some of the more serious conformation faults such as crooked legs, poor hooves, cow hocks etc - if the horse has enough speed and high action, these can increase the overall mark substantially so that conformation faults are overshadowed. To some extent I agree the system applies 40% to conformation and 60% to the ridden abilities. This bias was introduced because we actually want a good riding horse with clear gaits so the weighting was adjusted from 50:50 to 60:40. The overall total mark makes the headlines rather than the marks for the individual attributes. I know of two first prize stallions, one in Iceland and one in Europe, who got very poor marks for their legs and yet their performance under saddle is impressive. However many breeders are waiting to see the prepotency (which particular attributes are passed on) before using them. A horse with good conformation is more able to perform well, yet a horse with poor conformation is very likely to break down. For example a horse with upright pasterns transmits much greater force through its joints, or a horse whose movement is not straight adds significant stresses to the tendons and ligaments and horses with sickle hocks are predisposed to spavin. It is important to look at the individual attributes given to the horse in its assessment. It is possible to see which ones have poor legs - then you look further into the comments to see what was poor about the legs, e.g pigeon toes, dishing, plaiting or too thin and weak tendons. Good tendons are highly marked while poor or weak tendons get marked down. Before we breed we should all be looking at the individual strengths and weaknesses of both parents. We could make up our own 'assessment system' - sport show results? - no indication of conformation and the use of heavy boots, pads etc. or we could choose on the basis of 'nice' colour - but it tells us nothing about the gaits, temperament or conformation. If we do not use a system it is like 'pinning the tail on the donkey'. We have an excellent internationally recognised well documented system of assessment and we should use it to help us make informed decisions. Are the odds of pinning the tail in the correct place on the donkey better or worse than winning the Euro lottery:-)" Mic (Michelle) Rushen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solva Icelandic Horses and DeMeulenkamp Sweet Itch Rugs: www.solva-icelandics.co.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
