My new hero!
Jul 27 2007
Check this out – it was written by a vet.
http://www.robertmmiller.com/inheritnceig.html
25 comments to “My new hero!”
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FHD, What a great poem.
Wow, you couldn’t get a more appropriate poem for the subject matter of your blog. Nice find.
*Bowing* “We’re not worthy”
“Well said man well said”
Robert Miller is wonderful… We watched one of his imprint videos in college and he actually bit the ear of an unruly young colt. It worked… just like mom would do.
I am sending this poem to everyone I know!!
Fantastic!
Smart, smart man.
Fantastic! He really nailed the issue with that one.
Thank you FHD & thank you Dr. Miller. Perhaps this blog is proof the gene pool is not getting shallower by the minute (one can only hope).
The comment about the ‘Appazebrastang’ was too funny and got me wondering if you’ve ever tackled the issue of the ‘Zorse/Zonkey’?
http://www.sportpony.com/Zorse.htm
Check this stallion out and read the comments.
http://www.horsetraderclassifieds.com/show.aspx?adnum=65691
Another one that should be gelded!
Love this blog, very informative
Oh dear lord I am sorry for this comment.. but that lady screams trailer trash to me!
He looks like a nice future gelding.. though I would like to see more pictures.
Awesome poem FHD, so fitting! If you don’t mind I’d like you to critique my mare, I only have the basic knowledge on conformation and know that she’s decent but I’d like to get an experts opinion. She’s an Andalusian/Quarter Horse (her father was a very successful Andalusian stud). Let me know if you’ll do it, you can post her on your blog if she fits in with any of your next postings (good or bad!)
And, I hasten to point out, Dr. Miller is a big fan of mules.
For those of you who are interested, rather than annoyed or bored by my incessant cheerleading for the mule, here is something you might enjoy reading:
http://members.aol.com/brayhaven/bj2.htm
And the main page of that web site has some nice looking mules:
http://members.aol.com/brayhaven/bj.htm
Great poem by Dr Miller….boy do I have a website for FHOTD to check out
I do not know how to email it, sorry….but I would like to.
Hey, just a little thought on good gene pools gone awry (sp?) Just down the road from me, there is a man who bought some great horses, an own son of Khemosabi that was the spittin’ image of him out of a great mare, and some great mares. Then grain and de-wormer and farrier’s cost too much, and his money went up his nose, (if you know what I mean) as long as the grass was good they were fat and sleak, but every winter they were emaciated. Every year, even under those conditions, I watched him get a nearly %100 foal crop. Then they would die off from pneumonia in the April rain and malnutrition in August. Then the old mares started to die off and he bred the daughter’s to said stallion, then the granddaughter’s. The SPCA was called in on too many occasions to mention, but as long as they “had shelter and water” nothing could be done. (Not to mention a few greased palms). For 20 years I’ve watched this and everyone is powerless to stop it because of old family ties and money. These horses now look worse than any mustang ever did, and they’re sporting some of the best arabian blood this country has ever seen. But the inbreeding (he calls it “line breeding”) has taken it’s toll, and even now, with three, sometimes four crosses back to the same stallion, when approached he still wants $5,000 for a baby. And, there they stay, to either die or be bred back to their brother, uncle, or nephew, because the poor old stallion finally died too.
Oh, did I mention, none of them are broke to even lead?
That’s a pretty horse…
…who needs to be gelded
He seems a little narrow between the legs, though some of it may be awful photo quality. Can’t people do better than that?
…yes, because I really want a stallion stealing the hair ties out of my hair. That’s an excellent little trick to teach any horse, especially a stud. And what are all the question marks for? Are they to make sure everyone knows they have no idea what they’re talking about?
Great poem.
I like to consider myself a micro-breeder. I planning breed one mare (arabian soon-to-be approved GOV and/or ISR) once every other, to every 2 years. I insist on doing it this way because I want to see how the offspring grows up, and I can tweak the program more easily.
The mare herself came from a “puppy mill” styled breeder, who bought a Lexus over feeding her herds. I got this one for free (unless you include the vet workups, the feed and the shipping). She’s going to get a year off from mum duties to go through the inspection (and saddle trained and get back into shape I refuse to have a horse I can’t ride) because I feel that to make the resulting foal and mare more valuable she needs to be apart of this system.
The goal: I will breed for FEI dressage quality, however, I want it friendly enough that a JR/YR can get on and work with. Make the resulting offspring socially valuable so it will always end up in a home, and not a meat truck.
If she doesn’t pass, I’ll give her to the rescues to be adopted out as a pet. But for a polish arab, she’s got a decent hip, compact body and a nice shoulder and would probably be welcomed into the pony books.
The reason for the long story is this: I’m tired, very tired of seeing people breed (and breed some strange totally-off-the-wall crosses) before they actually look at the mare and get the mare some street-credibilty.
On the board I frequent, there are several breeding mares who wouldn’t pass muster with the verbands. People who put the cart before the horse.
So FHOTD- would you please delve deeper and go beyond breeding for color and do something on warmblood/sporthorse verband inspections?
kelly – if youre aiming for FEI dressage horses, why are you breeding ARABS?
i mean this as a sincere question, as it seems you ARE putting thought into your program.
Hurray for Dr. Miller. Well said.
Lifelike, I’m not breeding arabians, or at least full ones;-) Yes, I know arabian/half-arabian doesn’t exactly scream FEI dressage prospect, especially with what they’re breeding now.
Let me back up for a minute and explain some reasoning:
Part of breeding is breeding for a purpose, lots of people who I’ve come across breed for everything (and breed for the moment rather than for the generation) rather than one paticular thing. This is paticularly true of actual BREEDS.
It’s easy to say the resulting foal is great for h/j/eventing/dressage/reining, it’s very hard to develop an indivdual who will excel at one thing. Takes a few generations of tweaking plus the right village to raise.
The reason for this cross is because the majority of warmbloods still have a lot of older type in them, breeding to a fairly modern type (D line hanovarians, KWPN, et all– depending on stallion) to something more typier (tb or arab) would most likely result in most ideal for the sport from an ammy perspective.
So-
I’m theroetically breeding for GOV oldenburg. The GOV book is the German Oldenburg book (ISR is american), meaning whatever they approve over here can stand up across the pond.
The mare is (hopefully) going to be oldenburg approved for the Weser Ems (Read: German Riding Pony)book. A growing section of the book which has some honest-to-bob good stallions in it but not as many good mares who are willing to submit to the testing.
This mare, who’ve I seen and what I’ve seen her produce is one of the few arabian mares that I actually like. She has a hip, she has a decent shoulder and loin. Her personality is friendly and practical. And next year while she’s prepping for inspections, she’ll be showing.
In theory, inspection and approval opens a lot of doors. Both for breeding and for continual value.
Not a lot of respected warmblood breeders will look at arabians, however if the horse goes through the system, becomes approved — even for the auxilary books it shows that the breeder is willing to prove that the mare has what it takes and the resulting foal will go into the books.
Inspection itself is like submitting a PhD thesis for review. It’s hard to prepare for and you never really know what kind of comments you’re going to get from the panel. I think it’s worth it, it’s an independent, honest evaluation of the mare and what they believe she could contribute to thier breeding pool.
But in the end, I’m breeding for myself and for four to six generations down the line. I always have to look towards marketablity for cash flow purposes.
heheh my misunderstanding. you certainly are putting thought into things! sadly, a knowledgable person utilising an injection of quality arabian blood into warmblood lines to bring refinement (as has been done historically) is in the tiny minority when compared to the many people who want fullsize barbie horses to sell for purposes they are utterly unsuited to.
sorry for briefly thinking you might be the latter!
I found a horse of color that with a $100 stud fee will “compliment her faults”. ; )
“I have a welsh pony x paint horse stallion
for stud service. He is 12.3 hands and coming four year old. His mother
was a liver chestnut colored welsh pony mare and his father is a homozygous
black and white paint stallion. Stud service is $100.”
Here is a link to his photo.
Scout
Oh, quite understandable and I understand where you might see it because I’ve seen it happen again and again and time after time.
But I appreciate the questioning, we all need to be questioned once in a grand while especially over matters such as these.
Although I can’t wait to show the results.