From: Cindy
Dear Jessica:
This is my first time to send in a question, even though I have been enjoying the list-serve for many months. Thank you for all the wonderful information!!
I have had several things go wrong with my horses lately. I
won't bore you with the long story, but the ending, as it stands now, is
that I do not have a sound horse to ride. An aquaintance/friend has
made me an interesting offer. She has a mare that was "accidentally"
bred to a colt that is out of the same stallion the mare is out of.
The mare should foal any day now. My friend has offered to let me
have the foal. Assuming the foal looks healthy and strong when it
is born, what should I look for relative to inbreeding problems?
Would it be crazy for me to take this foal, probably adding to my "crippled
horse farm" as my husband calls it, or is it possible that this horse could
turn out to be just fine?
I would appreciate your advice.
Thanks,
Desperate in Kansas
Do you want a colt, and are you prepared to deal with one? In other words, when that foal is ready to be weaned, do you have a pasture with safe fencing and another horse or two or three for him to play with? Are you ready to take on the responsibility of teaching this foal, and training him to have nice manners, to stand quietly for the vet and farrier, to do all the things that a young horse needs to learn how to do while he's growing up for the first few years?
What are your plans for this horse -- do you have something in mind
for him?
Have you had experience raising and training foals, or would this be
your first one? And in three or four years when you start riding him, will
you be able to turn him into the kind of horse you'll want to keep and
ride for another twenty-plus years?
Now we get to the breeding questions. Is this foal's breeding likely to make him really well suited for your needs? IOW, if you want a cutting horse, are his parents both good cutting horses and the parents of other good cutting horses? If you want a jumper, are his parents good jumpers, etc.?
A young foal is always a gamble -- ask any breeder-- but if you would kill to get a foal, any foal, from this mare, and if the stallion is the one you would definitely choose as a sire, then at least you've started out by stacking the deck in your favour. If you look at that mare and try to figure out how you could get her away from your friend, because she's everything you ever wanted in a horse, then it might be worth taking a chance on her foal. If she isn't what you would want, then why would you want a foal from her?
Finally, can you afford it? Free horses, especially free foals, can be very deceptive, and very, very expensive. Before you have a horse you can ride, you'll have been supporting this foal and giving him pasture space for at least three years -- that's a lot of shots, a lot of hoof-trims, a lot of feed, and then there are the usual little cuts and knocks that have to be treated... IF, after three years, the foal has become a nice solid three-year old, has a nice body and a nice mind and seems likely to stay sound, then you have a lot of training to do.
Add up the expenses of raising a foal to the age at which he can start to work, then add in the expenses associated with the next couple of years of training. Consider, too, that if the horse you really want happens to come into your life while you are waiting for the surprise foal to grow up, you may not have enough pastures to go around -- or your husband may get fed up with the ever-increasing cost of running a "crippled horse farm". I think you'll find that it will be fairly high, and you might do better to wait out those years and save that money and then go shopping for the horse you really want -- or take that amount of money and go out and buy the horse you can ride right now.
If you figure all of this out and you still want that particular foal -- and I do mean WANT that particular foal, not "are willing to take him just to see..." or "want him when he's born because all foals are cute", then go for it.
The inbreeding shouldn't be a concern, as long as both horses are outstanding individuals of compatible type. You can do the math yourself, with a pencil: the foal's dam and sire are by the same sire, which means that each can pass on SOME of the same genes IF the genes are dominant, in which case you don't need to worry, or IF they are recessive AND both sire and dam inherited the SAME recessives AND pass them on.... which is highly unlikely. In other words, they're no more closely related than a lot of good horses that are the result of carefully-planned breedings. Really nasty problems are usually the result of recessives popping up, so I wouldn't breed this one -- if it's a filly -- to a close relative and create another generation with a bit too much shared genetic material. It's entirely likely that this foal will be just fine, especially if the parents are both exceptionally good individuals and the mare has been well looked-after during her pregnancy. The real question is whether you want a horse you can ride, or a project foal you can bring up! I'm guessing that you, like any other horse-owner, won't find it easy to justify the expense of having both. ;-)
Jessica
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