Pedigree Thoughts..

Well now that I have established why you cant ride papers, lol, I wanted to share my thoughts on pedigree and what I have learned about them.

We try to refrain from breeding grade - prefer to select our mares specifically for our stallion and base our selection on three main things: pedigree, confirmation and temperament. Being proven as a producer is also the top of the list. I am also pretty obsessed with leg set and like our horses to have straight legs and good feet, with well balanced confirmation.

Back to pedigree. Jay has all the talent with training, so in order to contribute as best I can, I developed a habit of studying pedigree and learning about histories behind breeding programs.

I read that our current generation is obsessed with pedigree, now that we have access to shipped semen and AI - we can be alot choosier than previous generations, who often had to haul their mares long distances.

Like many other people, we have our favorite lines that work for us. There are two types of pedigree that we like: the up close and personal types and the foundation type. The up close and personal would be like our Big Mama, Sompin Lika Wrangler, who has 4 AQHA legends right on her papers. She is a daughter of Rocket Wrangler. Her papers read like a whos who of AQHA racing legends.

Clayboy is what i would consider foundation - every line in his pedigree is filled with solid horses... all tracing back to three basic ancestors ... King, Old Fred, and Three Bars. They are intersect at some point. He also goes back to Joe Reed, Midnight, Question Mark, Plaudit and Leo. His high quality comes from the many generations of "good horses" in his ancestry. "No holes" means they are all basically great horses!

Then we have Zandy, who is similar to Clayboy, except her ancestors are not as well known, but very popular locally for ranch and working cow. She has that Skipper W influence.

When buying a horse, I make it a priority to learn everything I can about their pedigree history. The fun thing about Clayboy, is he is the type of Stallion that really outdoes himself, depending on the mare! So if you choose a great mare with a strong pedigree, he outdoes himself everytime. If you cross him with a mediocre mare and hope he makes up for all her deficencies than your not going to get the best babies.

We hand picked Clayboys mares and the outcome has indicated that we were on the right track... these babies are larger, gentler, more muscled and balanced. They are extremely easy to handle, people orientated and athletic.

We know we only have Clayboy for a short time as he is getting up there in age, so we are trying to produce babies that will rodeo one weekend and show the next. We dont like all the specialization that is going on today - and feel that it is possible for a horse to be able to compete in halter, pleasure and high speed performance. Why buy three horses when you can find one that does it all?

I still believe you cant ride papers, but the pedigree for us, provides a blue print for what we are trying to produce.