Linebreeding

Leopard Rock Sport Horse Appaloosas

LINE BREEDING,

THE IMPORTANCE OF MARES IN A BREEDING PROGRAMME &

THE MISNOMER OF THE ‘APPALOOSA SPORT HORSE’

“The Home of Sport Horse Appaloosas in Africa”

The Darley Arabian Byerly Turk The Godolphin Arabian

Website design and maintenance Leopard Rock

Leopard Rock Sport Horse Appaloosas

South Africa

Tel: 082.714.5811

International: +2782.714.5811

E-mail: info@LeopardRockSportHorseAppaloosas.com

Nearco, the Italian Thoroughbred , who was linebred himself, and described by Thoroughbred Heritage as "one of the greatest racehorses of the Twentieth Century" and "one of the most important sires of the century." He is possibly the most important Thoroughbred to appear in Warmblood pedigrees. He appears too in the pedigrees of Mamma Mia, Lexy and Diana. In the case of Legacy, Nearco’s sire Pharos appears both top and bottom. Wap’s Rolls Royce dam, Sweet Colin xx (Fergie) is herself triple bred to Nearco.

LINE BREEDING

Firstly, consider this: The Thoroughbred as a breed originated from just three stallions. The Godolphin Arabian, the Byerly Turk and the Darley Arabian*. In fact, recent research found that, in 95% of modern Thoroughbred racehorses, the Y-chromosome can be traced back to this single stallion*!

Possibly the most important tool a horse breeder has at their disposal are the pedigrees of their breeding stock. After everything else has been considered (from conformation to coat colour and absolutely everything else possible in between!) - the intelligent and competent use of a pedigree is what separates a skilled horse breeder (i.e. a breeder with an ‘eye’ for a horse) and someone who simply breeds hoping the result will be successful.

The most respected and successful Thoroughbred breeders, amongst others, have throughout time employed line breeding of their finest animals as their key tool to create equine masterpieces. To this end, we have purchased three line bred Sport Horse Appaloosa fillies with the intention of crossing them with our stallion Many Moons, who is completely unrelated, who himself is prepotent and passes his exemplary traits on to his foals. A colt with the most outstanding pedigree and movement has also been recently imported so that we have both male and females linebred from these bloodlines so that we have endless options as to how to keep the bloodline alive and thriving for generations to come.

The purpose and point of line breeding is simple: to produce horses who can pass on their [superior] traits i.e. homozygosity. One line breeds in order to set the desired characteristics by increasing homozygosity, which allows a horse to pass on their traits generation after generation. Line breeding sets the ‘type’ (i.e. phenotype) and genetic material (i.e. genotype) thereby allowing the horses to reproduce themselves accurately and reliably. This entrenches (by doubling up or tripling up - depending upon the extent of the line breeding) the desirable traits when one is developing a breed or a type for a specific purpose. In our case, that is for the Olympic equine sport disciplines of dressage, show jumping, eventing as well as in hand showing (conformation classes).

This should only be practiced with superior quality animals [such as in the case of the stallions Wap’s Spot 2 and Reflection exhibit in themselves and their extended pedigrees] with no conformational defects or heritable abnormalities and that, in the case of a sire, he is prepotent and his offspring bear all his good attributes. It goes without saying that one uses both the conformation of the said animals as well as the pedigree when making breeding decisions. It is not sufficient to go simply by pedigree alone, or by phenotype alone. The two are inseparable.

It is safe to say that to breed a great horse one needs great parents. However, of absolute equal importance are the grandparents and their parents, and so it goes on. In fact, every single horse in the pedigree is important—the closer up it is, and the more it is line bred to, the greater its importance. That is why we have researched our horses’ pedigrees to the Nth degree to ensure that we are breeding with the best sport horse type [Appaloosas] available. Apart from requiring a very high standard of conformation, we require our horses to have excellent temperaments and sporting talent, which are both characteristics of this particular line (due to the line breeding), and of our stallion Many Moons.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MARES IN A BREEDING PROGRAMME

Knowledgeable breeders research their mare lines as carefully as their stallion lines. The following illustrates the importance of the dam line in the pedigree: The sire can only pass an X-chromosome from his dam on to his filly foals and none to his colts, and the mare passes an X-chromosome onto every single one of her foals - both male and female. Therefore, the mare is a major influence in the makeup of each and every single foal she produces. She is not simply a vessel in which to carry the stallions genes. There is a reason why one refers to all foals out of the same dam as the ’half brother or half sister’ of one another, whereas foals from the same stallion are not. The moral of the story is: Choose the mares in your pedigree very carefully!!

At Leopard Rock, our mares are bred to the hilt and we do not accept unsuitable mixed breed or grade mares to be bred to our stallions.

CROSS BREEDING, OUTCROSSING and the misnomer & MISUSE of the TERM ‘APPALOOSA SPORT HORSE’

When cross breeding to a non-Appaloosa, the resulting foal will always be far less than 50% Appaloosa genetically. Because many of the so-called ‘Appaloosas’ used do not have a large percentage of Appaloosa genes themselves (probably only a maximum of 35 - 40% Appaloosa, if that) as they are the result of cross breeding to start with, once these horses are cross bred to a non-Appaloosa their offspring is probably a maximum of 20% Appaloosa. Not enough for them to even be classified as Appaloosas at all! The mere fluke that they might have Appaloosa colouring is no guarantee that they can perpetuate [any] Appaloosa characteristics whatsoever should they in turn be bred with.

Just as there is more to an Appaloosa than a name, the same goes for a Sport Horse. A genuine sport horse needs to be able to compete successfully in one of the equestrian sports in the adult divisions at a high level, be it dressage, eventing, show jumping, hunters etc. An Appaloosa sport horse is, theoretically, a horse which is an Appaloosa genetically and which also has the ability to compete in high level equine sport. Only the highest quality crosses to excellent quality Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods should be categorized as Appaloosa Sport Horses. Anything else is simply a part-bred Appaloosa!

In summary: One cannot simply cross an Appaloosa with a Thoroughbred or a Warmblood, or a mix thereof, and hope to create an ‘Appaloosa sport horse’. To the same end, mixing and matching various different breeds and conformation types will never create consistent quality which can be relied upon generation after generation. Multiple crosses simply create ‘mongrels’ which have no reliable phenotype or genotype.

There is far more planning and highly selective breeding which needs to happen. First and foremost, the chosen breed needs to be of the absolute HIGHEST quality possible and meet all the necessary criteria. Culling of inferior horses from the breeding programme must be carried out. Mediocre Warmbloods and retired Thoroughbred racehorses with soundness issues which one came by as ‘throwaways’ are NOT what one should ever consider to use as an outcross!

GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

Line breeding: Breeding related horses that have a common ancestor appearing at least once in the first three generations of both parent¹s pedigrees.

Out crossing: Breeding two horses of the same breed but of different types, strains or varieties.

Cross breeding: Breeding horses of two different breeds in order to create a hybrid.