Just because it’s stunted, doesn’t mean it’s a stud pony prospect!
Aug 29 2007
Ad text:
Cozmo is a stud pony.
(No, Cozmo is a fugly stunted stock type 2 year old who needs to be gelded)
He’s very figity.
(It’s amazing how they don’t magically get gentle when you ignore them. Turning them out with goats doesn’t make them tame, you know.)
Will take alot of time to gentle him down.
(He’s had plenty of time. It will take a lot of WORK, which you are clearly not willing to sign on for, hence the reason you’re ditching him for $200 on the Internet.)
Gelding might help.
(Ya think???)
Or would make a great stud for a pony farm.
(GOOD LORD NO HE WOULDN’T!)
OK, Mr. Brain Donor? Your little Quarter Horse or solid Paint or Appy or whatever he is is only small because he got poor nutrition and is full of worms by the look of him. He was not destined to top out at whatever pony sized height he is (which you are afraid to post). Not only is he 3,000 miles from being “stallion quality,” but there is absolutely no reason to suspect he will sire ponies, when he was genetically destined to be a normal sized horse and you just screwed it up. The only way any foals of his are going to be ponies is if they, too, get turned out with the goats and ignored.
C’mon folks, I’m not exactly talking Mendelian genetics here…I’m starting to think everybody who didn’t finish high school is out there breeding horses!
147 comments to “Just because it’s stunted, doesn’t mean it’s a stud pony prospect!”
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But isn’t a Percheron X TB an AWS??? I think so…
I wish I could find a good link for this “couch horse” but all I can find is what you found 4thehorses . It seems this one is a “rare” breed too , just like the Morocco Spotted horse! LOL!
Things like this really hack me off.
I saw two rescue fillies that a friend of mine is keeping for someone. They are supposedly yearlings, but they are the size of sucklings. You can tell that they are supposed to be full-sized QHs. It is heartbreaking that someone would starve BABIES like that. One of them would have made a nice looking horse if she would have had a good start in life.
They also had a 6 year old QH gelding that was rescued with them, he could have been the poster child for this blog. I wish I had brought my camera. What a poor, misbegotten creature he was. not one straight leg, head like a claw hammer, ewe neck, nest, back a mile long, no croup to speak of, and wicked upright shoulders. But hey, he’s BUCKSKIN!! Snort.
I still like my cigarette smoking, beret wearing, couch sitting horse…I need to draw this horse before I forget it!
Too Funny!
Those two websites have the exact same blurb about the breed’s “history”….
On the concept of stunted horses magically turning into genetic ponies, allow me to cut and paste the following internet conversation I had with a notorious grade horse breeder:
“evil_c:
If Minion doesnt make 16.2hh as he was meant to then there is always the possibility if me having gained myself a very well bred PONY stallion! Pony stallions here are few and far between, but one with Minion’s bloodlines but who may never grown over 15hh would be a good thing for us.
me:
I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but I don’t think the fact that his end height has been altered by an intervening circumstance will change the genetic material he passes on to his kids. So, even though he’s pony sized, he’ll still pass on horse-sized genes.
Similarly, if Michael Jackson were to spawn his own children (are his kids his own?), they would be black with big noses, despite the fact that MJ is now a very white man with no nose.
evil_c:
I am aware that his genetics will still mean he throws larger foals than himself, but people dont look at genetic make-up often when choosing a stallion, they look at the stallion’s height. The foal grows inside the dam to a suitable size for her so not to cause problems when born, but people tend to look at a stallion and say “cant use that stallion, hes too big for my mare” whereas with a 15hh stallion people with a 14hh mare would consider using him instead of his 16.3hh and 17hh siblings of the same breeding.”
Um, WHAT?
“people don’t lok at genetic makeup, they look at height.”
Possibly because they can’t SEE the double helix, but the CAN see how TALL the horse is. Probably they are using the height of the stallion as a clue to what his genetic makeup is likely to be, so if there is a great big, environmentally caused disconnect you should tell people about it.
“people tend to look at a stallion and say “cant use that stallion, hes too big for my mare” whereas with a 15hh stallion people with a 14hh mare would consider using him instead of his 16.3hh and 17hh siblings of the same breeding.”
Guess what? Genetically, they’ll STILL think, “can’t use that stallion, he’s too big for my mare.” Because genetically he is THE SAME as the 16.3 hh horse they didn’t want to use!!
I mean, WTF??!
that.poor.baby.
FHotD stated:
“On the plus side, if someone rescues him, he is young enough to make up the height and mature out normally sized. Would not surprise me a bit. He’s only two.”
I took in a four year old this past Spring who was 14 hh and *maybe* another quarter inch if you counted the winter hair she’d not had enough nutrition to shed out like a normally fed horse.
(She’d been “set free” and abandoned. They’d reportedly not fed her before that, cause they didn’t want her to “get too big” for their afraid-of-horses daughter.)
I consulted a horse nutrition specialist, ante’d up a bunch for vet care and good feed, nothing real fancy, just top quality and tons of it–and the end result is she is now, several months later, 15.1 hh. (630ish pounds to 1025)
And hey, guess what, we’re in a drought–she hardly even got rained on!
>>Similarly, if Michael Jackson were to spawn his own children (are his kids his own?), they would be black with big noses, despite the fact that MJ is now a very white man with no nose.< <
Hilarious but true!
Wow, you were having a battle of wits with an unarmed person in that conversation…
4THEHORSES- THANKS FOR THE RESPONSE! I know what you mean about Off the track Thoroughbreds! They even go for well over 2000 in my area and make wonderful jumpers, eventors, and even sometimes hunters! I wouldnt choose to have one though, have seen a few at 6-8 years old that are not fit to jump because of all the early abuse before their knees were even closed up! Why dont they race horses at 4 or 5, just kills me! A two yr old is not old enough to back, never mind the hard abuse of racing! I cant even watch horse racing anymore, makes me sick!
The only auction my naive-self has ever been to is the Chincoteaugue Pony Swim, where the cheapest go for 800 and this year, one went for 17,500! No kill buyers there! The only thing I dont agree with is they separate mom and baby at 2 months, which is far too young. I bought one of those sucklings this year and have fed him milk pellets, mare and foal feed, green pasture, hay and grow foal supplements, so he is getting a great start at life and is already spoiled rotten! The vet doesnt think he is going to be a pony, with this good nutrition, he will probably top out at 15 hands! HAGN all!
URGENT!!! ALERT!!! SOS!!! Re MORGANS!!! PLEASE READ!!!! About the site mentioned showing cremello Morgans, PLEASE go to morganhorse.com or Google up American Morgan Horse Association Shelburne Vermont, or the UVM Morgan Farm. The other “fantasy-foundation-colors” site is NOT mainstream of Morgandom. As with any breed, we have a few shirttail relatives who wouldn’t be happy hung with a new rope. The so-called Foundation Morgan contingent is determined to gut the existing legitimate registry which effectively kicked out a few evildoers (Snow, Ekstrom) and closed the books through first bloodtying and then even more stringently with DNA. The gene pool is closed. Your Morgan is in or he’s out depending on DNA testing. The Morgan Horse magazine/journal and The Morgan Connection magazine have zillions of pix and articles about true Morgans doing everything from reining to trail to park harness. Of course, big-time breeders and trainers have pages of flashy color advertising. Of course BYB Morganites get a few multi-farm black & white ads in a few issues. All are devotees of the Morgan breed. DO NOT be sucked in my fringe elements bent on destruction. The Pride and Product of America is alive and well coast to coast and in Australia, Sweden Canada, etc. I know because my own trainer has jhudged internationally and seen fine Morgans. Yes, there are some color breeders doing okay work, but in Oklahoma City in October at Nationals you’ll see 99% bays, blacks, chestnuts doing everything Morgans do. I’m going to cheer on friends in the carriage and classic divisions.
Morgans are not fantasy fairy horses but flesh & blood gorgeous and sturdy Jacks-of-all-trades. I’ve been actively involved in the breed for 50 years and know whereof I speak. Please, FHOTD, when you put up a few Morgans to critique conformation I look forward to the opportunity to add what I can to the conversation.
Thank you for your time.
French Couch horses?
What about Stonewall/Knabstrupper Warmbloods?
http://www.7181515.com/stonewallmaximvs.cfm
Does this look like anything you’d want doing dressage? Even the Mennonites pull their plows with better built horses!
I’m sure some Amish farmer is just waiting to get his hands on one of these. Just think of how jealous his neighbors would be of his spotted plow horse!
I’m thinking that the link-posters could do with an HTML lesson. For those interested in doing it the right way, consult this page.
-the original WTF
PS- since I’m too familiar with the moron “do it for me because you’re nice and I’m stupid” mentality of people who live on the internet and expect free tech support, you might have a short HTML faq on photo and link posting included, with some coding shortcuts. Not that it will matter, they’ll just continue to screw the links up as truncated text and wonder why it turns out that way (while witch-hunting people with rudimentary HTML knowledge), but hey- it’s worth a shot. Some of the smart folks have already figured out colors and typefaces, so there’s hope.
im pretty sure FHD already covered couch horses (french or otherwise) in this entry:
http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/
2007/07/in-honor-of-4th-of-julylets-look-at.html
*cackle*
Re: farmer’s wife morgan comment:
Cremello Morgans? Gray Morgans? All colors Morgan?
I am happy that FW mentioned the UVM Morgan Horse Farm in Middlebury, Vermont. That is the place where I first saw Morgans years ago.
On some “ranch” websites the horses are presented as some magical creatures. . . with the long manes and tails, galloping in slow motion to music. Are these horses ever used for riding or driving?
If not, what does a buyer actually do with these “for sale” horses?
Oh. . .horses as an “investment”?
I like the FHOTD horse-art at the beginning of this blog…and the word “snarky” is gone !! yes!!
“Snarky” evokes meanness to me. It also signals “opinion,” and we have seen lots of “opinion” in horse breeding. A poorly conformed horse sold as a breeding stallion, for example. Lots of opinion and no standards.
and some people find computers and the details of their innards insanely boring and a topic to be ignored as much as possible
wow, contacting the people who fhotd writes about could be seen as being humane in relation to the horses but also misconstrued and seen as stalking in some case’s.l hope you guys that do contact people through here be very careful with what you have to say and limit your contact so as not to be seen as stalkers or something equally bad
hmmmmm, maybe these ‘stunted’ horses you’re all talking about are ‘inbred’ you can find the pro’s and con’s of inbreeding at the addy l’ll pop on the bottom of the page, just remember byb’ers tend to breed everyone willy nilly due to not understanding culling(gelding) of inferior stock.Anyway hope you guys get something from it and theres plenty of information on the subject of inbreeding online if interested enough.Inbreeding can and is a good thing in certian cases but an extremely bad thing in other cases, inbred or not they all need to be FED!http://www.netpets.com/cats/reference/info/inbreed.html
http://www.netpets.com/cats/reference/info/inbreed.html
full addy sorry all
Farmer’s wife,
Going through my pictures here is a Morgan gelding I photographed last year. It isn’t my horse but feel free to critique it. It would be helpful to know what to look for when taking pictures of a breed.
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/KayFellows/?action=view¤t=Pb034304.jpg
Here is one more of him.
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/KayFellows/?action=view¤t=Pb034308.jpg
to be an investment by definition, something has to appreciate in value.
with the exclusion of those rare horses occupying an upward trajectory on the training or breeding scale of financial value, equines simply dont count. theyre a huge risk, they hit a peak, they lose popularity, they get old, they die.
and even million dollar grand prix horses are worth jack dead.
arab sheiks buying jumper foals at auction for record setting prices are making a RISKY investment. purchasing a yearling racer with unquestionably brilliant bloodlines is speculation at best.
everyone else is indulging a personal hobby.
To WTF…ahhh, yes, I totally missed that you can use html tags in this box. That would be VERY useful. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for making that observation, Ja. I’ll be putting the word “snarky” back. I only had 500 letters and wanted to give the puppymills blog a plug, but just in case anyone is not clear: The point of this blog is MY OPINION and YES, IT IS SNARKY and MEANT TO BE THAT WAY.
I just don’t get why people who don’t like that come here. There are plenty of places to have a polite discussion on conformation on the web if that is what you prefer.
That Poco Bueno colt that someone posted is the pride and joy of another online forum. That ranch had 5 foals this year, and I think three are already sold…pre-weaning.
It’s interesting to see such a violent backlash!
Personally, I just thought he’d grow into his body and that his ears were a bit long…looking again, his shoulder looks pretty upright too.
Go see the one advertised as stud quality!
http://horsetopia.horse-for-sale.org/classifieds/ad233111
OMG! A yearling filly that isn’t weaned!!!!
OK, horsey question…I board my horses at a less than ideal location. I am learning about horse care at a rather accelerated pace, due to the fact that there’s pretty much no one around here to ask…
Anyway, one of the other boarders has a 20-25 y/o QH-type gelding. Sweet, sweet horse. His feet have that ring on the sole that I have come to associate with founder. Serious founder. They are warm to the touch. An arch shape, about a 1/2″ in from the wall. Raised about 1/4″.
Could this be ANYTHING ELSE but founder?
There is one “trimmer” that came around and insisted it wasn’t founder…and since he was an older guy, the owner was inclined to believe him. The hore can walk (sometimes) but I’ve seen foundered horses walk on exposed FLESH before.
The horse is about 200lbs underweight, and being fed a steady diet of grass, low-quality hay, and sweetfeed.
Anyone else horrified by this, or am I overreacting?
Kay said…
Farmer’s wife,
Going through my pictures here is a Morgan gelding I photographed last year. It isn’t my horse but feel free to critique it. It would be helpful to know what to look for when taking pictures of a breed.
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/KayFellows/?action=view¤t=Pb034304.jpg
Here is one more of him.
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/KayFellows/?action=v
Kay,
As a photographer of horses and many other subjects, I thought I would pipe in on your photos. I can’t necessarily critique the horse’s stance as that may be a breed preference. What I would like to critique is the the time of day that your photo was taken, and the background. I apologize ahead of time if this information is already known to you, but maybe it will enlighten others that read through here.;-)
Time of Day:
Since I don’t know exactly what time of day you shot this, I can only say that the lighting is a bit harsh, so possibly taken very late morning to mid-day (?). The shadow on the horse’s neck from the angle of the sun to the lens is a bit distracting. I usually recommend that people take their photos early in the morning or late late afternoon, when the sun is not so harsh. This is also known as the “golden hour”. When it pertains to horse photos, I usually try for a somewhat overcast day to have more even lighting and less shadow effect. Granted, you won’t have pretty blue skies in the background (if you’re including them), but the colors are more realistic.
Background:
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with the background in general (no poles protruding from the subject’s body, no junk laying around, etc.), I’ve discovered that when you are taking a photo of a dark horse against a pretty green background, that if the photo gets converted to B/W for print ads, the details around the horse tend to get lost or blend into the background. I try to find a light colored background (but not stark white) for dark horses and vice versa for light horses. As long as the print is not being converted to B/W, then it’s really not an issue, but certainly something to consider! Happy shooting!
Cendra91 – Simply amazing. 10 years old, needs ground manners, isn’t used to a bridle, and has her 1 year old filly at her side? Simply amazing.
The icing on the cake for me is when they mention the last time the feet were done. Like that’s some kind of milestone. To me that’s like mentioning the last time they were brushed… or fed…. feet need to be done all the time – at the very least every 8 weeks, many times much more frequently than that. These people that say, oh her feet were done two months ago, like that’s recent, make me want to puke…. why mention it? If you’re taking proper care of the horse, then that should go without saying….
*grinding teeth*
sarcastabitch – while it’s not 100% accurate to diagnose founder sight-unseen, it sure sounds like it to me, or white line disease. The heat in the feet is a big indicator.
Can they detect a digital pulse? That’s another sign. They may walk around, but see how he stands, is he stretched out so as to take the weight off the front?
Horses are great at masking pain and many have a very high tolerance for it, especially a horse of that age. He’s probably learned to ignore it best he can. Poor guy.
No, you are not over-reacting. Suggest that they get another opinion and for God’s sake, take the horse off the sweet feed.
farmerswife – so what you’re saying is, I CAN’T get a mystical unicorn fairy Morgan to cross with an equally mystical, poops golden nuggets AWS-approved Friesian, and create a new and magical breed of fugtaculicious equine?
DAMN YOU AND DAMN THE EVIL FATES!
behindthebarn said:
“If nothing else, embarrass them into never leaving their mobile mansions again. With a little luck, maybe they’ll die of starvation when their peanut butter and generic cigarettes run out.”
Come on now BHB – I live in a mobile mansion and love peanut butter (had gave it up to lose weight)… **grin** Your description did make me giggle, though.
Now, about all the hatin’ on cross breds…I just think we need a break to appreciate cross-breeding for FUNCTION and not “creativity”.
*******************************
My little guy’s daddy was Perch/Clyde/QH/Paint (varying percentages) and his mommy was a solid Paint/Perch/QH
He’s a good-looking, fantastically conformed little using horse. I backed him once at two, and now he’s back out getting manners beat into him by the rest of the herd until we’re ready to start more intensive training next year. Sweet ground manners, and we just figured out how to lunge to the right, so I don’t call him my little NASCAR anymore.
Mind you, he was GELDED the INSTANT his little you-knows dropped, but still!
Definitely rather have my fugly-pedigree, good horse than the purebred FUG shown on that Paint filly!
******Thus concludes the break for happy-fun time…return to snarking******
Oh, and for the record, I DID NOT breed my little guy, but the breeding program he came from used to be a PMU…their grade stock horses were so popular that they continued breeding them well after the PMUs started shutting down.
Graywolf,
Thanks for your input it is always welcome.
In regards to the parked out stance this a show stance for Morgan, Saddlebred, Arab, and maybe TW I’m not sure about them.
I know the time of day wasn’t optimal, it was the time that the owner was available to pose the horse and I tried to use fill flash but it didn’t work completely. I do prefer to shoot either at low sun or on overcast days.
I really appreciate your advice on the background. I’m always anxious to learn whatever I can.
KD said…
behindthebarn said:
“If nothing else, embarrass them into never leaving their mobile mansions again. With a little luck, maybe they’ll die of starvation when their peanut butter and generic cigarettes run out.”
Come on now BHB – I live in a mobile mansion and love peanut butter (had gave it up to lose weight)… **grin** Your description did make me giggle, though.
KD, I’m also a peanut butter loving mobile home dweller and I’m certainly in no danger of starvation. A couple weeks of it would probably do me a world of good. But I’m with you, the description was hysterical. If we didn’t have a sense of humor about ourselves it would be a miserable existance. LOL
Hey knock off the mobile home comments. LOL I lived in manufactured housing for a lot of years. Being a single mom it’s all I could afford. My homes weren’t mobile though. Mobile means you can just hook up and go. LOL There were no wheels on my homes. It’s people like these trashy BYB’s that give manufactured housing dwellers a bad name though. Alot of horse people in these parts live in mobiles/modulars because it’s the only way they can afford the land and horses. Nothing wrong with that.
Okay, mine doesn’t have wheels either. I’ll just refer to myself as trailer park trash, that works for me.
For awhile I actually lived in a van, this was several years ago, but strangely enough my horses lived in a nice barn. LOL
The sad thing is Fugly horses are being bred by people who DID graduate from high school. Most public high schools are too busy pumping kids full of totally useless (and IMO destructive) political correctness to even gander at simple Mendelian genetics.
sarcastabitch said…
That Poco Bueno colt that someone posted is the pride and joy of another online forum. That ranch had 5 foals this year, and I think three are already sold…pre-weaning.
It’s interesting to see such a violent backlash!
Personally, I just thought he’d grow into his body and that his ears were a bit long…looking again, his shoulder looks pretty upright too.
Go see the one advertised as stud quality!
Super! Ignorant people will ALWAYS find people more ignorant than themselves to follow and adore them. ALWAYS. Which is why, of course, there are things like gangs… and of course the NFQHA.
Why doesn’t the owner test the other ‘stud quality’ (much uglier and with an even poorer pedigree… if that’s stud quality?) one for HERDA?? That’s what I want to know.
Dusty R, your post on the Stonewall stallion made me laugh. I had a Stonewall mare for a few years…of course, had no idea what she was at first, since she was a solid bay. I bought her as a kid’s horse project….definitely not the most athletically built horse, as Max shows, but boy oh boy did she have a personality and “try” to die for.
http://www.tiny.cc/Q4bxd
I showed her for awhile as a hunter and she did pretty darn well. Then sold her as a family horse to a family that nearly worships the ground she walks on.
LYNNDEEPOO said, “The sad thing is Fugly horses are being bred by people who DID graduate from high school. Most public high schools are too busy pumping kids full of totally useless (and IMO destructive) political correctness to even gander at simple Mendelian genetics.”
You got that right! That pretty much sums it up, I believe.
I would like to thank everyone here for increasing my vocabulary. Sometimes when you get really pissed off you just don’t have the right words to express yourself. Now I have extended my vocab to include some great words that have already come up in various appropriate situations. When I was looking for a parking place yesterday at the University I teach at and discovered that more that one ASSHAT had parked taking up multiple spots I found that with the proper term for these people I felt much better about the situation. Also when a lady cut me off later that day I felt much better after issuing her the appropriate name of FUCKTARD. Visiting this blog is an education in more ways than one!
ja said…
“Oh. . .horses as an “investment”?”
and
lifelike001 said…
“…to be an investment by definition, something has to appreciate in value. “
Never invest in anything that eats…
- Billy Rose
political correctness to even gander at simple Mendelian genetics.”
Not gonna argue…of course, Medelian genetics really only gets you going on simple inheritance of (I always forget how to say this) genes carried on reproductive cells. Mendel and his pea plants…only works for simple traits.
Still though, it would be a very good start!
Speaking of what they teach in schools…
I remember a teacher trying to tell us that “throwbacks” were a legitimate genetic term, and they happened regularly! Thankfully my Dad was a genetics major and taught Biology for years and years…he “erased” a lot of what I “learned” in school…we had another teacher try to tell us that a zygote from a plant could conceivably combine with the zygote from a mammal…creating some sort of plant/dog hybrid. Another fun one was where he insisted that a male/female set of twins could be identical (not the result of two separate ova and sperm)…identical except for the crucial Y chromosome!
Meh. I guess they tried, at least.
Wow, sarcastabitch. That’s…some teaching there.
From Sarcastabitch’s post:
“we had another teacher try to tell us that a zygote from a plant could conceivably combine with the zygote from a mammal…creating some sort of plant/dog hybrid.”
Oh dear god. Please, do not let this get out. We’ll have the idiot breeders creating Pugazaelas, Pekeraniums, Beaglonias, and WanderingJewadoodles.
Just got a chance to look at the first Youtube of the pony attacking the dog. Lots of posts on that site said the animal is not in pain so why put him down? Well, how do we really know he’s not in pain? Perhaps that’s part of his ornery disposition and NOT his balls!!! Although those could be paining him also. Speaking of balls, I DID watch the other Youtube of the way-too-big-kid riding the mini. And getting bucked all around. Maybe if his little testicles are damaged, he won’t be able to reproduce (hope, hope, hope) and the stupidity that makes his elders breed these horses will be lost on his generation as he’s the end of that line of humans!!! COME ON DARWIN!!! Where’s he hiding when you need him???