Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Breedin' Babies to Babies Again!

This was one of those ads that looked so, almost boring to write about. Once I started digging though... holy cow!




Holly is 2.5 years old, she has great ground manners, loves people, She does not spook, she is very curious about everything, she has a natural cattle drive instinct. Nothing seems to bother her. She is ready to start in any direction, Or just have her as a broodmare. She was breed to a Breeders Trust Incentive Fund Stallion last month. (Me in: That would have been in April she was bred.) I have ALL paperwork in order. Both pedigrees can be view at allbreedpedigree.com


Holly's registered name is "Kenos Strait Holly"
Cory's registered name is "Let It Rock"


Pictures are from January, she has since slicked out. 


I don't usually go into pedigrees, but I am feeling the bloodlines today, so lets check it out. 


The mare is a paternal granddaughter of Strait From Texas, and on her dam's side? Not a single horse I recognize...great-grandsire is Kenos Justin Time? Anyone know that horse? Google was no help with that name. At any rate, one of 4 grand-parents were decent. 


Oh, and ABP.com lists her year of birth as 2007 - that would make her 3, not 2.5 years old? Hmm. Either a mis-type, or .....???


Ok, on to the Stallion she's bred to. OOOOOMy. This boy was foaled in 2008! HE'S the 2 year old! He's also a son of Zipparock, not a name I know, but google is our friend, and Zipparock has a yearling lunge line paint world championship, a bunch of WP world show points, and was a top 10 finalist in the Western Pleasure Derby. So, the 2 year old colt is basically pleasure bred paint. 


On the Dam's side of Let It Rock, things are decent here too. Dad is AQHA sire "A Special Assignment", who seems to be doing pretty well for himself, both in the show and breeding rings. A Special Assignment is sired by Barpassers Image, who is a pretty decent name to have on one's pedigree.  


In other words, we have a possibly very nice colt that the owners are breeding to just about anything just to get his name out there. Thing is he'd make a much better sire if the owners of Let It Rock would just let the horse grow up a bit more! He's got the names to back him up, let him get out in the show ring for a year or two, let everyone see what he can do, and then start selectively breeding mares! Instead, we get a stallion owner who is breeding to anything that has owners' who will send in a check. 


You guessed it, she's nothing to look at. 


Comparing the two pictures, the top one looks like she's camped under quite a bit, but below, not so much, so maybe she's just standing funny. I hope. 














Neither picture shows me a mare that should be a lifetime broodmare at the tender age of 3. 












But how, oh how, did I guess we had a back yard breeder here? How did I know? 










I found a picture of Let It Rock. 










This is the picture she is currently using to advertise him.  


Standing at Stud is a beautiful sorrel overo stallion. His pedigree includes Zippo Pine Bar, Dirty Rocki, Barpassers Image and Sirtain Opinion. This Stallion, is kind, gentle and good to the ladies. Since this is his first year, he is being offered at this introductory price. He has pasture bred my 2 mares and he was a perfect gentleman.


She doesn't even mention the one stallion (besides Barpassers Image) that would make mare owners stand up and take notice.. and thats A Special Assignment, dear old daddy! 


No mention of course of future training plans. No 'He's going to be promoted on xyz circit'. Its just "He's got balls, so we're gonna let him use them!"


And I find this.
http://www.equinenow.com/horse-ad-272941

That would be dear little camped under Holly up there. Same owner, both mare and stallion. I should be surprised, but of course I'm not. 


This beautiful filly has it al. She is gentle, calm, no spook has brains and is ready to go any direction you want her to. She stands tied all day, great for the farrier, leads, loads, picks up all feet, no attitude. Loves people and attention, she is like a big puppy. She would be a great 4-H project. Asking $1,250 OBO. The only reason I am selling her is that I have too many horses right now and not enough time. 


I couldn't find a date where this ad was posted for the mare, but I'm guessing that it was posted BEFORE she pasture bred said mare to mr. studly? The equine now ad also has Holly's year of birth as 2008. I'm still rather confused about that...is it 08 or 07? Makes a big difference when you're talkin' young horses. (The bold is my addition, btw.)


EDIT: A commenter who has spent time with the stallion owner, was kind enough to post in the comments that Holly apparently was not bred intentionally, but rather some neighbors were messing around on her property, and left some gates open. This means, that Holly is mare #3 to have been bred to said 2 year old stallion this year.


She has that paint mare listed for $1500??? Yea Right!


She also bred this little filly...Though I kinda like her markings, I think $1800 is a bit steep, yes? 


Its not that I'm looking to stir up trouble here. The lady that is selling these two fillies and standing the 2 year old also runs what seems to be on the surface a reputable dog kennel, breeding AKC large Terrier Type dogs (Airedales, Bouviers Des Flandres, Welsh Terriers and Toy Schnauzers).  On that site though, nothing about the horses - the horses she has too many of - in very sharp contrast to the puppies she creates every 10 or so weeks! 


This drives me nuts whenever I see this. I can't help but be aggravated when I see the hypocrisy here! Its Ok to breed puppies like clockwork because you can get hundreds, if not a grand for them, but when you do the same with your horses, you have to get rid of them because you have too many and not enough time? WTF people? Even in todays world, its still a lot easier to place a dog than it is a horse. And yet she is still advertising that her 2 year old colt really needs to make more of himself because he can!? 


NO NO NO! Stop! AGAIN and AGAIN I keep pounding on this. WE DO NOT NEED MORE MEDIOCRE, BACK YARD HORSES BEING BRED AND RAISED WITHOUT PEOPLE TO BUY THEM! STOP BREEDING YOUR FUGLY 2 YEAR OLD COLT! STOP PASTURE BREEDING YOUR FUGLY CAMPED UNDER MARES THAT DON'T NEED TO BE BRED AS 2 / 3 / WHATEVER AGE THEY ARE!


I wish I could send this to every single person I feature here. You think they'll listen? NO. They'll come back spewing every reason why they have every right to breed whatever horse they happen to have their paws on. I have no issues with selling horses. Its crap like this that drives me bonkers. "We can't sell the mare by herself, so lets breed her and they can raise the baby so we don't have to!" Thats exactly what I hear in my head when I see stuff like this.


I still believe Ron White should be made president for his one simple statement "You Can't Fix Stupid."


ps...this was going to be my fugly stallion post, but I changed my mind when I came across a better ad... one that is fugly in all sorts of ways, and I can't WAIT to post it on friday!

17 comments:

  1. The only upside to the foal is that her grandfather is at least N/N.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "You can't fix stupid."

    AMEN! Thank you, Ron White.

    A friend was talking of breeding her dog the other day, and she commented that c-section was an okay option because she wanted to breed her smaller female to a larger male (comparable to breeding a draft stallion to a Welsh mare). HEAD DESK!! I wanted to grab her by the ears and shake her, to be honest.

    Sorry, didn't mean to rant off topic. The backyard mentality just drives me off the deep end, and this post hit it on the head. sigh...

    svet

    ReplyDelete
  3. svet/anon- don't be at all surprised by this, but a lot of horse people are of the belief that you can breed horses of any size and the resulting foal "Will only get so big while in the womb..."

    When shopping for a stallion for my pony mare, I was consistently told I could breed her to pretty much anything... Um, yeah. I wanted to add a little height, but NOT 16h worth. The foal may only grow so big inside, but it still has to come out. I like my mare, I didn't want to lose her.

    I found a pony stallion a little larger than her to breed to. Problem was- she never took. She was enjoying being at 'camp' and the extracuricular activities, but lacked a folicle at the time. It was nothing on her part or the stallions, it just wasn't meant to be. The stallion has produced foals since and she produced two fillies. It was just a fluke.

    Sorry to go so off topic CL Queen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Getting back on track- for the colt being so well bred, you would think they would have cleaned him up, stood him up and taken better photos to advertise him with. Doesn't sound like PR is their strong suit.

    Same with the mare- clean her up, stand her up, take some decent photos and offer her up that way. Bet the results are different.

    ReplyDelete
  5. no worries regarding going off topic.

    If every person out there actually got their animals cleaned up and decently presented, then I wouldn't have a blog!

    ReplyDelete
  6. svet - the mentality drives me insane too, as if you couldn't tell :).

    But Its not always small mare to large stallion that causes foal problems - like CnJ's little mare some mares are simply just not meant to be bred at the time we want them to be. Case in point, when I was working for the paso fino ranch the first time as a teenager, she had a mare who was at the time her top mare, and her first stallion whom was a rather nice representative of the breed. Of course she wanted a foal out of her then favorite mare and her stallion, just one, so for three years straight, we bred those two together on every cycle she showed. Each and every time she'd come up NOT pregnant. Finally, on the third year, on the third breeding, she took.

    I left halfway through her pregnancy that year as I was 18, was a year out of high school (I graduated at 17) and was attending college full time. When I went back to visit some 24-26 months later, there was no sign of Nieve or her foal.

    Something had gone seriously wrong during the last month of the pregnancy. The foal was determined to be stillborn, and for whatever reason, a C-section was not feasable. The vet's only option was a fetalectomy (?) - where the foal is cut into pieces and pulled part by part out of the mare. Last ditch effort to save the mares life sorta thing.

    Neither the mare or the foal made it through the surgery. Looking back, she realized that the three years of "No's" should have been a very large clue that Nieve was never meant to be bred.

    But those with this mentality that breeding horses is all rainbows and unicorns and fluffy clouds cause you just let the two in a pasture together and 11 months later you have a baby horse - and its all good and wonderful and etc - They don't think about the possibilities that could happen. They don't think about the little 3 year old mare that might not even have her knee plates closed together yet, and the added 100+ pounds of pregnancy weight will cause stress on her legs that NO baby should ever have to have. They don't think about a 3 year old mare being the human equivalent of a 15-16 year old female.

    A teenage girl is perfectly capable of carrying a baby to full term and caring for it - but study after study on teenagers that have had babies show they are at increased risks for a list of medical problems later in life ranging from cancer to osteoporosis.

    Horses are the same way! People just don't think, they don't read, and they don't listen.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I find it humorous that people will sit behind their computer and talk S**t, but never find out facts. I was at this persons house (for several hours) over the weekend about their stallion. This person told me the story of all her horses. First, the pictures are just aren't the best. The "mare" listed was not intentionally bred by this person, nor was it an accident (kids across the road thought it would be funny to open gates). the mare with the new foal was a rescue, she had abcesses, was starved, horrible feet, (I seen pictures) she was bred when she took it in. She also has another rescue horse. But yes the stallion is available for stud, but not to just any mare, I had to give her a copy of my mares pedigree and bring pictures. All I am saying is sometimes things aren't always as they seem.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Says the one under the name of Anonymous.

    1) did YOU even READ what I wrote? I said nothing about the stallion NOT being a stallion, simply that I think breeding him at 2 years of age, without training, without showing, without .. WELL ANYTHING other than throwing a halter on his ass... was ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC.

    2) We have a serious issue in this country right now with low quality horses being produced faster than we know what to do with them. This stallion, in a few years might produce the best offspring the world has ever seen... but mare owners that are actually committed to breeding their mares to a quality stallion that will IMPROVE on the MARE AND THE STALLION won't ever even LOOK at him without him actually doing anything other than being a penis on hooves.

    3) I never said anything bad about the filly, just that I felt that $1800 was a bit steep for the price.

    4) Sorry, but I do find it hypocritical that she claims to have too many horses to take care of while breeding 4 different breeds of dogs to the highest bidders. There's a major overpopulation problem with dogs and cats too right now. Maybe she should stop breeding the dogs for a while as well, you think?

    5) As to Holly, whether or not she was 'intentionally' bred or not... there's still 2 other horses out there that this 2 year old, untrained, BABY HORSE, still bred INTENTIONALLY. There is no excuse for that in my book.

    6) Again, if she claims to have too many horses to take care of, why is she taking in rescues?

    Facts are fine. However, I have all the 'facts' I need here. Plenty of people that own stallions have been known to blow copious amounts of smoke up mare owners butts just to get a stud fee sale. Are you one of those mare owners that will breed to anything at all cause its cheap?

    Whats YOUR reason for wanting to breed to this unremarkable stallion? His bloodlines? Sorry, but Barpassers Image sired a whole bunch of stallions that you can get the same bloodlines from - but oh wait, they won't be as cheap, and might not take all mares in.

    Please, continue to defend her and your position. I am waiting to hear it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Blogger dropped part of my comment?

    5) As to Holly, whether or not she was 'intentionally' bred or not... there's still 2 other horses out there that this 2 year old, untrained, BABY HORSE, still bred INTENTIONALLY. There is no excuse for that in my book.

    Should have also had >> When looking at the CL ad side by side with the equine now ad, she mentions of course the mare has been bred to her stallion. No other information was given. On her ad for the stallion on equine now, she states that she pasture bred 2 mares.

    I put 2 + 2 together. A simple disclosure that the mare was "woops" bred would take a lot of heat of of her in this. Details would not be necessary, but most horse people understand 'woops' breeding, especially when its a 3 and 2 year old being bred together!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks, CnJ & CL Queen, for your comments.

    I agree the seller would do well to present some better pics of her horses. The filly (at 3, I just can't call her a mare) would probably look a LOT better. Her coloring is eye-catching; I'd like to see her legs better. The colt is also striking; more than just a head pic wouldn't hurt.

    Sorry I posted as Anonymous earlier. I didn't have a Google account set up. I've set one up since then and will try to get this post in under that id. Meanwhile, the Anonymous post from the person who visited the seller wasn't me. Tho' I'm glad that person got a few more details and shared them here. Maybe she/he can give the seller some advice?

    ta!
    svet

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't have issues with people posting as Anon, I would have disabled that option otherwise. :D

    I DO have a problem with people telling me I'm hiding behind a desk talking s**t when they are hiding behind the Anon name themselves. Just bugs me is all.

    I do not hide my identity, if you know how, you can easily figure out who I am, but I choose not to advertise that information due to privacy concerns. I don't go to extreme lengths to hide it either.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The foal is past cute! Want! Can't have.. Those are the worst pictures I've seen in a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  13. You are right, a better ad regarding all the horses would help. The owner has been training the stallion and she showed me what he can do. He has been under saddle (no rider) he has had quite a bit of ground work, she told me her intentions were to send him to a trainer in another year for western pleasure. Not having time for Holly and getting rescues, Holly was her daughters horse and her daughter left for school. The reason I went to look at this stallion, has nothing to do with the cost, I do like his breeding, I think he could complement my mare, plus this horse is only 15 miles from me and I would rather not ship my mare off and I am not into the whole frozen semen thing, I have not made my final decision on a stallion at this time, he is one of several I am looking at.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anon ad poster defender
    >> The "mare" listed was not intentionally bred by this person, nor was it an accident (kids across the road thought it would be funny to open gates).<<


    You know, the vets have shots that take care of that... Quite simple in fact to have handled it before things progressed too far along. They would have known the dates of the whoopsie breedings and could have checked the possibles and treated them accordingly.

    Handing the parents the vet bill may go a long way to ensure it never happens again! If it doesn't- small claims court is your friend. So is calling in law enforcement and pressing charges for tresspassing, as well as other charges if any of the horses should get hurt in the process.

    Sorry but I'm just not buying the story as you have presented it. If she has too many and is selling some of them so as to better afford the few she keeps, maybe she shouldn't have taken in the mare she 'rescued' and instead gotten a rescue group involved.

    Breeding a two year old stallion is also not a good way to start the horses career. Having handled and dealt with a number of stallions in my career with horses, not all of them can handle it at a youg age- some of them can't handle it at ANY age. Put the horse in training, get some accomplishments under his belt and then offer him up at stud. Not only will you have mare owners seeking him out, you can command a higher price and reasonably GET IT.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Mandy -

    Now had you come out with that first, instead of blindly defending her, you would have gotten a completely different reaction from me.

    I still don't understand why she's breeding before training, but I guess some people just still don't believe we're in a bit of a crisis regarding our horses nationally.

    ReplyDelete
  16. The pregnant filly looks like she has calf knees, and the way she's standing makes me think her front legs/feet hurt.

    As for being a "reputable" kennel, I don't think so. "AKC compliance certification" means ONLY that she hasn't broken their rules.

    Red flags: she only gives us kennel names (nicknames), not registered names. There is no pedigree information, and nothing about health and/or DNA testing for hereditary problems. (If a breeder ever tells you, "Oh, we don't have any problems in our bloodlines," run away.)

    And, just like her baby stud, there's no show record. Good breeders put show pictures on their websites, along with the reg. name and titles, like "CH OTCH Vanity's Golden Image MH MXF PAX RAE." Here's one that looks like a decent kennel. I found it on Google.

    http://www.jovalairedales.com/home.htm

    And - Her Airedales are NOT show quality, nor are the Welsh and the Schnauzers. I've sat through enough Terrier groups to know the difference. I don't know enough about Bouvs to comment.

    And she mentions CKC - somehow I doubt she means the reputable Canadian Kennel Club. It's probably the ConKC (as I call it), the Continental K. C., which was started by a bunch of breeders who got banned from AKC.

    From ConKC's website:

    "2.Dogs over 6 months of age which have no previous Registration history may be registered by providing 2 witness signatures attesting to the purebred status of the dog along with 3 photos..."

    I.e. if you and your ignorant neighbor think the dog you found in the park might be an Aussie, you can get papers for it! And then breed it, and sell the puppies with "papers!" Ain't that just grand?

    Rantin' Ruthie

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you for the information there. I had NO idea about all of that. How Interesting!

    ReplyDelete