Friday 13th, January 2006
The 2006 breeding season has started. 01/13/2006 01:47 PM
It is high time to take breeding descisions
for this year.
We are not expecting any foals this
year, but we have mares that we would like to cover if we can find good
matches. Good matches for our mares are stallions that we think can take
us one step closer to our breeding goal. We look for breed typical stallions
that also have certain traits we need to success according to our breed
plans.
We are considering to cover two mares
in the USA, both by Almaz. We are also looking for a stallion in Europe
to use on one mare, by Osman in Sweden, not this year but next year. The
mares have all some strong points; strong, correct bodies, very good legs,
good type, good size (above medium size for Teke mares) two graded elite
as young mares, one is not graded yet. They have been easy to train and
educate up to their present levels. None of them have been tested on the
race track but they have been trained under rider through our training
program for youngsters. The weak point is that they have a little bit of
short movements in walk and trot that we would like to improve, galopp
is good to ok.
When the not so interesting pedigrees
are culled out we can still without leaving the computer look at the relatives
to the stallions, brothers, sisters etc, what do they look like, how did
they perform, and of course the offspring, what do the offspring look like,
is the stallion an improver. Without BLUP-index or other indexes or official
sources within this breed we have had to build our own databases and "KaraKum
indexes" for as many stallions we can follow.
If we think that the stallion might
be an improver of the breed, we look closer at his features (we are still
at the computer), good legs and good bodies are not bred by coincidence
but can be destroyed by mindless breeding, breeding stallions must
have good bodies and legs.
Head and neck, IS important to us, the
head and neck to a great exctent make this breed what it is, a Teke with
a big, heavy, simple head is nothing for us.
Size, we will want to know as well,
we do not mind a smaller (than breed average) stallion but he will have
to balance his size with another asset.
The body, legs (not always, legs cannot
be judged from the side only on a standing horse), head and neck can be
judged roughly from a few different pictures.
Constitutional tests can also be checked
from our office, does the stallion have official performance records? What
has the stallion been doing?
What kind of performance is in
his pedigree. Has he got close relatives that have excellent performance
records?
Performance records of the offspring
if the stallion is older is also of interest.
We have now hopefully a few interesting
stallions in front of us and now we must decide which ones we will have
to investigate closer.
The ones that have been graded can be
easier to pick from. The elite grading will tell us that the stallions
have no bigger weaknesses according to the stud book management. A class
1 stallion can be a big question mark, it might have something undesireable
from the breed managements point of view, but maybe not for us. We make
the selection and take the consequences not the stud book management, we
must be more careful as breeders, than the stud book management is.
When we had the stud farm in Sweden,
we had no choice but to import stallions ourselves, many stallions have
gone though our stables, not everyone have been bred, and some only once.
With lack of official records of many
important triats of this breed like mentality, rideability, movements and
genetical soundness, it is important for us to really see the stallions
ourselves.
To meet with the stallions, hopefully
see it under rider, like the ancient Turkmen tradition says, is ever so
important.
We value our mares and we would never
forgive ourselves for breeding them to a stallion with a bad temper or
any other defect that we do not allow into our breeding program.
So let the journey begin, I'll grab
a big latte, might even make one for Todd, and get started with the
US stallions.
