Selecting Stallions for Breeding

Appropriate conformation is important to allow the horse to be stabilized, powerful and maneuverable as well as maintain soundness over the animal's lifetime. It is not guaranteed a horse with uneven muscling or bone structure will be lame, but there is a chance and most owners do not want to take the risk on a potential lame horse. Additionally, there are horses with structural problems that go on to be great champions but the chances are not as great a horse with perfect conformation . However, understanding and observing conformation is one of the most reliable skills to predict both athletic and soundness ability in a majority of

“There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” -Winston Churchill. Horses not only inspire their riders, but also the spectators. The art of equestrian is generally disregarded as a competitive sport. Being a rider not only takes raw talent but also devotion, skill, concentration, knowledge, and strength. With a variety of riding styles, it’s difficult to express which one is superior to the others. There is tension between the horsemen with different riding styles; each believe their accomplishments take more skill. Western Pleasure riding and English Hunter Jumpers are two distinctive techniques with diverse characteristics, but

The horse (Equus ferus caballus)[2][3] is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Selection is based on previous performance including race record; pedigree and phenotype to which play an important role when evaluating racehorses with conformation which is subjective to opinion or experience (McIlwrath, 2004). Foals in the racing industry are purchased through auction sales and stud farms and are based on their conformation, way of going and pedigree although conformation criteria differs from foal to 2-3 year old through musculoskeletal changeability. What has to be considered is the sire or dam who have produced winning progeny and has made the most prize money through races ran (O 'Mara, 2015).

Percherons and Quarter horses each have different physical features. Both the Percheron and the Quarter horse have straight profiled heads. While the Quarter horse has a short and small refined head, the Percheron has an exceptionally broad forehead, small ears, and large eyes. Both Percherons and Quarter horses have very deep and broad chests. Although the Quarter horse has strong legs and flat knees, the Percheron has clean and heavily muscled feet and legs.

Percherons and Quarter horses each have different physical features. Both the Percheron and the Quarter horse have straight profiled heads. While the Quarter horse has a short and small refined head, the Percheron has an exceptionally broad forehead, small ears, and large eyes. Both Percherons and Quarter horses have very deep and broad chests. Although the Quarter horse has strong legs and flat knees, the Percheron has clean and heavily muscled feet and legs.

Thesis : Paint horses are the most veritile breed because they have the breeding to be race

The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) recognized a stallion named Impressive as the origin of HYPP. Born in 1969, it soon became known that Impressive was, like his name, impressive. He quickly rose to the top of the halter horse standings and he became one of the top-producing sires, with many of his offspring becoming champions themselves. Impressive seemed to have it all: an excellent pedigree, terrific disposition, and exceptional conformation. Impressive was originally bred for racing but he was not cut out to be a racehorse. He was originally bought as a yearling for $20,000 but three months later he was sold for double the original price. He won 31 champion ribbons in the halter ring. The vast majority of Impressive’s offspring

Between 1884 and 1911 imported stallions, as well as some mares, were introduced to the wild herds. The horses established breeding colonies, and were rounded up regularly to be sent to the mainland. Today, there are 2-3,000 horses on the island, divided among different stallions. The horses’ coat color is mainly bay, followed by chestnut, but there are also some palominos, browns, and blacks. The horses stand around 14 hands, and are still acknowledged for being one of the toughest breeds in the world.

There is little evidence of how horses were managed within the first years of domestication (Dierendonc). However, in most horse husbandry systems today horses are kept confined and solitary with very little social contact. This can be seen as optimal to ensure physical health, to prevent injury or to allow exact individual monitoring (Dierendonc, 2006). However, these systems often ignore the basic needs of the horse, e.g. social contact, foraging and locomotion needs, often resulting in abnormal behaviours. The start of stereotypic behaviour usually is related to chronic stress due to mal-adaptations to cope with the environment (Hausberger et al., 2009).

People have been breeding horses to obtain a certain appearance for a long time. People have preferences in how tall their horse is, what its conformation is like, its muscling, and even its color. Horses have been bred to display solid coat colors as well as coats of mixed colors. Frame Overo is a very appealing coat color type that consists of two different colors marking the horse. Frame Overo is a color associated with paint horses that have white patches on their abdomens that do not extend to the midline of the back, where they are a darker color such as brown (Metallinos et al, 1998). As appealing as these coat colors are, breeding two frame Overo horses for their coloring comes with great risk. Less than twenty-five percent of offspring produced by these animals inherit a lethal genetic disease known as Lethal White Overo or Lethal White Foal Syndrome ("Frame Overo").

This lab took place at the Linn Benton Horse Center, and it was an introduction to halter horses and how to judge them. We looked at three stallions; two were halter horses and one wasn’t. We assessed their balance, muscling, and structural conformation in the way that a halter judge would.

The science behind evaluating racehorses is deciding which faults make a direct impact to the horse’s career. The requirements needed for a horse to succeed starts at the conformation of the foal/yearling. To which conformational faults are passed down from parents, however, faults may or may not have consequences to their racing career, and therefore different trainers/bloodstock agents may have different inceptions with regard to acceptable faults (TOBA, 2015).

Alumni of these projects discover occupations in various stallion related positions, including outbuilding supervisor, riding teacher or steed mentor. Numerous occupations in the equine business require information of the business notwithstanding equine science.

Due to the large size of horses it can be dangerous to work with ones that are hard to handle. The term “Imprint Training” is popular in the horse industry meaning early handling of foals with to focus on improving their behavior, learning ability, and for them to gain confidence in the world around them (Lansade, 2004). This imprint training is believed by many horse people to help horses and make them easier to work with when they become older (Lansade, 2004).