Posts Tagged ‘HYPP’
In Defense Of the Backyard Breeder
Hey All,
Somehow my previous post was put up before I had finished it, much less edited it for content, so if it seems awkward and well, unfinished, I apologise. Guess that’s what happens when you don’t hold the reins of the horse you’re riding.
Anyway….
I’ve been thinking about the BYB a lot lately.
When I hear the term I immediately think of run down barbwire pens, rusted out sheds, packs of roaming dogs and unweaned two-year-olds breeding their mothers.
BYB has expanded to mean anybody with a stupid or useless breeding program. I’m guilty of it myself.
10 acre farm producing 5 friesian/pintabian/walkaloosa crosses every year? BYB
Rich man breeder wannabe with 700 unregistered running on 10,000 acres in Montana? BYB
The term has become rather broad, which is probably what got me thinking about it.
What I originally thought defined the BYB was somebody who had a mare in the backyard they liked enough to want a foal from her. This horse owner would find a local stallion to breed their mare to and have a foal.
The problems which arose came from a lack of understanding of genetics, inbreeding, raising and training a foal, the risk of losing the beloved mare, the foal or both and whether there would be any value to the horse once it was on the planet.
My first quality horse was the result of a BYB. A girl who showed well inthe “morning classes” at our local riding club decided to breed her mare to a local, extremely popular (in our club anyway) paint stud. The resulting foal was a cute, decently built minimal white paint colt. I ended up buying him. An Oklahoma Star grandson on one side and a Leo grandson on the other, he was a better bred horse than I could possibly have hoped for, considering I was a poor college student.
Oakie was sweet, easy and willing. He survived our treating him more like a dog than a horse, broke out nice and became a handy little guy. By 6-years-old he had been diagnosed with navicular and by 8 he was dead from a bleeding disorder that was exacerbated by the medication I gave him for the navicular.
There is some argument whether or not navicular is hereditary, but his dam had navicular. The sire ended up finally being gelded because the blood disorder kept cropping up in his foals. This should be a good argument against BYB’s, but the paint stud couldn’t of had more than 15 foals on the ground before the blood clotting issue was discovered and he was gelded. The mare wasn’t bred again.
Professional breeders are still cranking out HYPP horses without apology.
Navicular doesn’t seem to stop many professional horsemen from breeding their horses either, especially when they only need a horse to make it through futurity season before they retire to the breeding shed.
I see crooked legs, too long pasterns, and bad temperaments, not only being ignored because a horse was a high dollar winner, but eagerly being sought after by hundreds of horse owners who buy from a show record and bloodlines alone.
I see an ever shrinking gene pool.
Your average, responsible BYB’s is going to breed their horse because it’s sound, gentle, fast, or pretty, something redeeming in their eyes. If the cross doesn’t work out, it won’t be repeated. I have a hard time faulting this approach. Good legs, kindness, talent on the trail or in a gymkhana, these are using horses and should be bred.
If only the very elite horses are bred then there won’t b e any Regular Joe family horses to pick up for a decent price and have live in the backyard.
My other thought is, how much damage is the BYB really doing to the horse industry?
If a responsible, caring woman keeps a few mares on 5 acres and breeds one or two a year, she know her horses. She understands the mares faults and weaknesses, but also knows the strengths and quality she wants to pass on. If she breed two horses one year and can’t sell them, chances are she will stop breeding. If you only have five acres you can only stuff so many on the property.
If a family owns a mare who has raised the kids, done well in Pony Club and has never offered to kick, are they wrong to decide to breed her? And what if a new fugly does hit the ground. It’s one foal compared to the hundreds produced by some of the larger QH ranches in the west.
Breeding,mare care and 3-4 years of waiting before you can ride is not going to lure a family with two horses into breeding hundreds of unneeded horses..
So how bad is it?
Is the BYB such a terrible thing, or has it become a scapegoat for an industry run amuck?
Part 461 of the blind leading the blind!
We all come across scary trainers all day – people who don’t even know what they are doing themselves and are doing a bang-up job of passing their ignorance on.  If I put up every one, this blog would be about nothing else, but this one, Crystal Rivers, is special in that she has made a real project of documenting her poor training online. Yes, youtube is full of her students – who have not mastered riding on the flat – flying over jumps and careening around corners on the wrong leads.
I don’t know if these riders are youths or adults but I’m sharing this solely to illustrate the abysmal quality of the training. Any of these riders could be a good riders with a competent trainer, but sadly they are wasting their money on someone who…
doesn’t appear to know leads (that’s her yelling at the student) and
is letting this person jump SO far beyond her ability that a bad accident seems inevitable
It’s the Flying Nun without her habit!
There was a video of someone jumping an oxer backwards, but apparently that got removed already. However, she left the still on her web site. How scary is it that someone who claims to be a professional trainer put this picture on her own web site and does not know it is wrong? I’m endlessly amazed at how people memorialize all their oopses on the web – and NOT by saying “hey, look at me having a dumbass moment, ha ha, I jumped the jump backwards.” No, I’m pretty sure this student thinks she is doing the right thing and that it’s exactly what her trainer told her to do. Eeek.
But hey, she can break a “rouge stallion.” What is that, a stallion who tries to dig into your purse and pull out your makeup?
Oh, and in case you thought she was limited to being a crappy trainer, she’s also standing a stallion called Kid’s Fascination with NO mention of his HYPP status. His daddy was N/H. He’s got Mr. Impressive on his dam’s side, who was N/H. Anybody want to make a bet he might be N/H too? Gee, why is his status never mentioned anywhere? For a $1250 stud fee, I’d like to know what I’m breeding to. For that matter, I’d like to know has this horse ever accomplished anything (someone on APHA want to look him up?) The only mention of him online is when he sold at auction for $2300 as a yearling. Lady, for $1250, a person can breed to nice N/N world champion and AQHA/APHA champion stallions all day. I could make a list a mile long. Yours seems to have accomplished “being ridden in the same arena with mares.” Woo hoo.
Classy choices for broodmares too…what exactly is this straight shouldered, long backed, funky hipped thing and why did we make more of it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgD16hj_QEs
You knew there was going to be foal jumping if I looked long enough, didn’t you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3bwOpPoH-w
*sigh*
And now she apparently thinks she is a reining trainer.
The person who sent me this was miffed that Ms. Rivers had, of all people, been selected to teach the equestrian program at Liberty University. To that I say: good grief, isn’t that Jerry Falwell’s pet university? They probably think the Lord will protect them as they fly merrily over fences, miles above the tack…good luck with that.
Anyway, this just leads me into a bigger rant, and one that I’ve had before: STOP RUSHING YOUR STUDENTS!  Here’s a simple guide for learning to ride hunt seat:
1. Learn to walk and trot with correct position and quiet hands. Learn to steer, to look ahead, to execute maneuvers like circles and figure 8′s. Learn your diagonals reliably.
THEN…
2. Learn to canter and learn your leads reliably.
THEN
3. Refine your position to the point where you can be competitive in a flat equitation class; learn to pick up diagonals and leads by feel alone. Learn to trot and canter without stirrups and maintain your position. Master a quiet and efficient simple lead change. Learn to ride in a half seat position without losing your balance.
THEN
4. Start jumping cross rails and learning flying lead changes and move up from there.
If trainers actually followed this progression, the way they used to, we would see an exponential decrease in the number of hunt seat riding accidents. I do not understand, nor will I ever, why or how you would consider permitting someone to jump who cannot post without their stirrups. How do you think they will stay on when the horse chips in and pops and they lose a stirrup? The answer is that they won’t. If one of your MAJOR goals when teaching someone to ride is NOT “keeping them on the horse and injury free,” please stop teaching. Now.
Yes, I have heard the complaints that the parents push you into it, and that if people do not see progress fast enough, they will go to another trainer.  So what? Let them go. For every student you lose because you aren’t pushing fast enough, you can get five more who appreciate your commitment to safety. And when your students whip the butts of the pushed-along-too-fast students, you will have a waiting list! Slow and steady really does win THIS race. Peppering youtube with dozens of videos of riders who have been pushed too far for their abilities doesn’t make you look cool. It makes you look like someone from a Jackass movie, except that the neck you are risking isn’t your own — and that’s about as uncool as it gets.
Chase Community Giving has a new program on Facebook where they will donate to a deserving charity this Christmas. Nominate your favorite horse rescue – just do a search for “Chase Community Giving” and you’ll find the app. Click on the tab for “Chase Giving” to search for your favorite nonprofits. The BEST part is that you have TWENTY votes so you do not have to pick just one rescue to help. You can spread your votes around for different animal rescues or you can also use some to help other types of nonprofits. How great not to have to make just one choice – KUDOS to the Chase people for that!
A question for the owners of HYPP positive breeding stock
How do you live with yourselves?
News story about teenage boy with HYPP horse
“…hands tucked in his pockets, the 15-year-old trudged to the corral to pass his hand along the horse as it wheezed, ducking its head as it struggled for each ragged breath.”
So this kid works for TWO YEARS to save up money for a horse and the family all bust their butts building it a barn and someone sells them a HYPP positive horse for $850. Awesome.
(If you don’t know what HYPP is, click here for the facts)
“The previous owner refused to accept the horse back, and insisted it had never showed signs of the condition before.
Aaron’s brother Jeffrey had his own conclusions.
“What a jerk,” he said.”
Jeffrey, you hit that right on the head! By the way, there is a legal duty to disclose HYPP status. Get a lawyer and go get the jerk.
“”When he’s really bad, we usually come out and be with him, but we try to be careful because he could fall,” Andrea said, adding that her 5 and 8-year-olds are now forbidden from the barn. “The vet’s concern is someone getting seriously hurt, because that’s a very big animal.”"
No kidding. So how do you explain to your five year old that they can’t pet the horsie because some irresponsible twit bred on a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT avoidable genetic defect that might make the horsie fall over on them?
*sigh*
So this young man, who desperately wanted a horse, and who worked for two years to have one, showing a level of dedication most boys his age only devote to reaching the next level in their video game, is now going to have to watch the vet put Scamper out of his misery at the ripe old age of twelve.
What a heartbreaking tale. And again, this is not a disease that strikes out of the blue. It happens because greedy people keep breeding positive horses.
Like all of these:
http://www.diamond2be.com
http://www.triplecranchllc.com
http://www.rdreamappaloosas.com
http://www.clarkrassi.com/main.html
http://chrisarentsenquarterhorses.com
http://www.bertonqh.com/index_bqh.htm
(I know I’ve posted Sir Cool Skip like a million times but geez, he just looks ridiculous, like someone mated a horse with a bulldog.)
Look, it’s CREMELLO! You can get guaranteed color along with your potentially fatal genetic disease. Woot!
http://www.mbshowhorses.com/ImShowFine.html
If no one ever bred a horse again that was not N/N, there would be zero symptomatic horses within a generation. That’s all it would take.
But no…keep collecting those stud fees. And think about a 15 year old boy having to watch the vet put his first horse to sleep. Think about his mom trying to explain to the 5 year old what happened to their first horse.
You asshats.
Excuses, excuses or "Why would you even admit that on the web?"
Advertising a horse should be like going to a job interview. You want to arrive on time, neatly dressed, with several immaculate copies of your resume, some knowledge about the company, and some mental organization about how you are going to answer the typical questions. The last thing you want to do is run in there with a run in your nylons, 10 minutes late, with a coffee stain on your resume and no clue what you’re doing. That wouldn’t be the way to sell yourself, and this ad is not the way to sell a horse.
“Gorgeous reg. QH gelding. Successfully shown in pleasure classes and trail ridden. Has been owned by a friend of mine for several years. The folks that were showing him have a new show horse they are spending all their time with. He is n/h but has no history of any problems. Our vet, Dr. Harvey, felt comfortable with the fact that if he hasn’t had any problems at 12 yrs old then he most likely would not develop any at this point. Big stout legs, chest, and rump!”
FHOTD in: My guess is Dr. Harvey would have kittens, big furry ones, if he knew they were saying he was pretty much promising a HYPP positive horse wouldn’t have an attack. Any vet should know that predicting the likelihood of a HYPP attack is about as reliable as predicting where the roulette wheel will stop. We have plenty of reports of horses having their first significant/noticeable attack in their teens, sometimes with serious consequences to the horse or the rider if he is being ridden at the time.
“This gelding had been without water for at least 1 day when we took these photos due to the caretaker of my out of state horses being suddenly hospitalized. He appeared a little dehydrated but went right to drinking plenty of water and eating.”
You did NOT actually admit that on the web. *sigh* Why not just change your name to Careless Acres Sport Horses? While pretty much everybody in the horse biz has experienced either a farm sitter gone lazy/stupid/drunk or an emergency like this, most of us managed to find out and fix the problem before a day or more had passed where the horses got no care at all. Second, we did not run right out and post the near-disaster on the web for all to see. When you screw up at work, do you run to the web to tell everybody how you f’ed up? Of course not. But not these folks – they not only have to tell everybody in the world, but they have to immediately take pictures of the drawn-up, dehydrated horse and use THOSE for advertising! Heaven forbid you WAIT a few days til he’s looking better. Not that this poor guy is ever going to look good. He is, conformationally, the reason people tell me halter bred horses/Impressive breds don’t ride. They really don’t all look like this calf-kneed, camped out, put-together-out-of-spare-parts train wreck.
Did you get her a fake ID and a new SSN too?
I’ve frequently extolled the benefits of buying a horse with registration papers from a major breed registry, one of which is the opportunity to know your animal’s genetic history. You know if there are any genetic defects the horse is afflicted with or at risk of passing on and you know the bloodlines so that if you choose to breed, you can make a good decision. You can verify the parentage via DNA so that you know you got what you paid for and nobody switched papers on you.
Sometimes, however, a registered horse suddenly becomes a mystery horse because the seller is trying to cover something up. A breeder whose stallion produces a high percentage of parrot mouthed foals may dump those foals at an auction with no papers, for example, in order to cover up her stallion’s flaw. Or a stolen horse may be auctioned without papers to decrease the odds that he will ever be found again. In today’s case, we have a mare selling without papers to mask her HYPP positive status.
Blog on HYPP if you don’t know what it is.
In August 2007, I blogged about a “sport horse” breeder selling a HYPP N/H AQHA mare. She admitted the mare was N/H in her ad but claimed she was “asymptomatic.” I pointed out all the problems with that argument – there’s really no such thing, plus she was breeding her to a Clydesdale to create more potentially HYPP positive ticking time bomb grade horses. ‘Cause the only thing more fun to deal with than a halter-type QH having a seizure on the ground is a part-Clydesdale doing the same!
Now this same mare is being marketed as a beginner safe trail horse. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to put a beginner on a trail horse who may fall over without warning. Hell, I do not want to get on that myself!
The ad states “Not registered due to her color, though she is 100% QH; no papers will be provided, no registration possibility whatsoever.” Oooh, nice try on the lying! It is true that in 2001, the year this mare was foaled, perlinos were not yet eligible for AQHA registration (that started in 2003 – prior to that, they had to be registered with APHA). But what Sheila the Sleazy Seller is really trying to hide is the mare’s HYPP N/H status.
In fact, she is so determined to do so that she has invented a whole new pedigree for the mare – one that has no cross to Impressive and could not possibly result in a HYPP positive horse! According to her Craigslist ad “papers are not available now or ever.” Of course not! Sleazy Sheila probably already burned the evidence.
As I frequently note, I do not make people put these things on the Internet! Compare the pictures between my original blog entry and the EquineNow ad – that is indisputably the same mare. It’s the same seller. Only now, two years later, the bloodlines are different and the papers have gone poof? What a crock! If you can’t sell them with their flaws, just lie about them – problem solved!
This is the sort of thing that makes honest horse breeders and sellers tear their hair out. Some poor beginner family is gonna buy this mare. And maybe they will get lucky and the mare will remain asymptomatic. Or maybe they will wind up having an experience like this one described on Bringing Light To HYPP:
“On Saturday, July 19th of this year I found myself in the back of an ambulance with my daughter in a neck brace strapped to a board. What possibly could have gone wrong to cause her horse to behave in such a manner. She was loping slowly, Dottie’s head dropped suddenly and she seemed to “suck back” to try to stop herself. The local website reports “It was the worst crash I’d ever seen” and “the helmet saved her life”. Thankfully, my daughter’s neck was not broken. She fractured her shoulder in two places and had a cut inside her mouth down to the jaw bone. A sort of explosion in her mouth from the impact. The next few days were a series of doctors appointments. Orthopedic surgeon first. Oral surgeon next. We were told she needed oral surgery to repair the cut in her mouth.”
The owners soon learned that Dottie was HYPP N/H. Her first attack put her young rider in the hospital. Dottie was eighteen years old and to the best of everyone’s knowledge, had never had a previous attack. There is no such thing as asymptomatic…there are horses who have not had an attack YET.
Now, Sheila, it was one thing to sell a HYPP N/H mare in foal, like you were trying to do two years ago. That was merely a sign that you were yet another irresponsible breeder who was knowingly perpetuating a potentially fatal disease. But falsifying the pedigree and lying about a known HYPP status is a whole different thing, and if that mare’s next owner winds up hurt or dead, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do. You can bet I’ve screen capped the evidence.
