Sport Horse Breeding Great Britain
Reviews
Potential Competition Horse Show
June 28th 2008 saw a fresh venue for the SHGB in the NW Potential Competition Horse Show at Warren Farm Equestrian Centre, Formby where Sally Greenwood and her Team made every effort to meet the requirements asked of them to stage our Show.
In spite of super going and a pleasant June day, entries were rather disappointing, but most classes were definitely quality rather than quantity.
The In Hand Sport Horse classes were numerically stronger than the In Hand Hunters and while the Working Hunter entries were lower than expected, David Norlander built a most attractive and challenging course incorporating the natural features of Warren Farms' bank and step up and off. This made for a very good competition and the successful competitors will have felt very pleased to find that their horses rose to the occasion and jumped well off the superb going and springy turf while spectators were in a prime viewing spot on the surrounding mown banking.
The Lodden sponsored Burghley Young Event Horse Classes were the strongest and most competitive of the day. An exceptional "top ten" line up provoked much head scratching for Judge, Mrs Ann Hooley before she was able to make her final selection in a couple of nail biting finishes. Several knowledgeable onlookers felt that they will be seeing the SHGB in the NW featuring strongly to the fore at the final in September!
President, Mrs Shirley Hindle and Chairman Mark Fitton along with the Committee are very grateful to all the Sponsors whose financial help is invaluable in ensuring the success of the Show in these days of ever increasing overheads for everyone, thank you all very much indeed!!
Thanks too, to all the helpers on the day and to Sally and James at Warren Farm. The Committee is very aware that there were some teething troubles on the day, and would very much appreciate feedback from members along with any volunteers to assist in future ventures.
Sport Horses - The Way Forward
William Micklem, F.B.H.S. travelled over from Ireland to open a fascinating evening arranged by the Committee of SHGB in the NW in February.
Williams' extensive knowledge and enthusiam for the breeding of competition horses was clearly evident when he shared with over a hundred members and friends his insight into the huge effect that the T.B. has on the Warmblood horse. Over and over again, he made clear that far from always being Continental bloodlines, time and time again, T.B. blood is immensely strong, and in fact, so many of the perceived W.B. stallions are in fact 3/4 T.B.!! This is due to the influence of such as Hyperion, Cottage Son, Ladykiller etc. whose input is evident in many top pedigrees.
In a recent article in Horse and Hound, William covered his subject in great depth and proved the wisdom of studying the W.B. bloodlines with great care.
Norman Allen, (Member of R.D.S. Equestrian Committee) was the next speaker. Norman stands stallions in Ireland and is a sucessful breeder of competition horses including Test Flight which represented Ireland in the European Eventing Championships.
Norman felt that the day of the giant was over! Too many big horses have been bred and as the main market is for easy to ride and keep horses the time is here to think hard about the input of native blood and to breed quality smaller horses. The use of the T.B. on I.D. and Connemara or other native mares generally produces temprement and soundness and the resulting offspring crossed again to the T.B. sire could produce the ideal competition horse.
Along with William, Norman emphasised that the main riding market is female, around 15 to 45 who ideally need an easy horse to slot into a busy life.
Breeding technology has moved on rapidly we were told by Tullis Matson of Twemlows Stud. Fresh, chilled and frozen semen is now easily available to all mare owners, thus accessing the finest bloodlines in the world. Covering mares is increasingly done by AI reducing the risk of infection and injury as well as offering the opportunity for a stallion to inseminate more than one mare from only one collection.
Twemlows also collects and stores semen from rare breeds and is thus able to extend the gene pool of some of our endangered bloodlines.
Embryo transfer is becoming more sucessful and allows competion mares not only to continue to compete, but increases their ability to procreate as it can clearly enable them to have more than one offspring per year.
Tullis admitted to being a technology freak, but his well illustrated talk made sure that everyone was left buzzing and longing to find out more information!
British Eventing Team Vet Jenny Hall was sadly let down by her computor failing to oblige, and even the expertise of Tullis failed to make it work!
Jenny spoke about the conformation of the limbs and the importance of correct alignement especially in the lower limbs and joints.
Last, but by no means least, David Tatlow spoke forcibly about what he believes our "sport horse" should be. Look from the feet upwards and go from there. A well conformed horse will move and last and can be suitable for any job. The feet must be well shaped and a pair. He wants the horse to move freely from the shoulder and decried the artificial extravagant trot which seems to be fashionable today. David emphasised the value of a short cannon bone ensuring the strength of the tendons, a well sloped shoulder, along with a well set on head and neck to encourage a good natural head carriage. The hind leg should be set well and that there is no such thing as a false curb.
David believes that there are particular stallions that seem to be prepotent in producing type and would always travel to see horses of particular bloodlines.
David finished by lamenting the fact that many experienced people, judges and horsemen in particular, were less than generous in passing on their knowledge to the younger generation and we thereby run the risk of losing so much expertise for the future good of the horse. He urged all to share their knowledge and experiences which is vital to maintain and further improve standards of judging.
Questions and discussions followed a fascinating evening and the general conclusion seemed to be that we should be trying to breed smaller, hardier horses with good easy temprements in preferece to giants!!
Sue Stewart
Swan Farm
St Michaels-on-Wyre
Preston
Lancashire
PR3 0TT
tel/fax: 01995 679341