Picking a pedigree ....

A horse's pedigree is a chart of ancestors of the horse, presented in a reverse round robin chart.
The male side is usually on the top and the female is on the bottom. The father is the sire and the mother is the dam (or in some cases, distaff). There are the father's parents and the mother's parents and then their parents and so on back as far as the chart displays.

The reason for the chart is to check what family or strain or breeding the horse comes from. It can be quite useful to know this, particularly for a breeding or racing horse. It can be useful when purchasing animals as it lets you know the quality of the animal you a buying. It can be useful knowing the potentiality of a foal and even for picking which stallion to breed to your mare.

When selecting a horse to breed with, whether the male or female, it is useful to look at the pedigree and to go and look at relatives of the breeding animal, say the grand parents, their other offspring, brothers and sisters to the parents and also their children. The more you can see, and preferably in person, the better idea you will get of the potential foal/s from the breeding/s. If not, get whatever photographs, videos and dvd's you can of these horses.

The pedigree should not be the be all and end all of the breeding selection, but it can help in determining what the final outcome will look like.

It is also useful to go to a breed society and learn more about the breed, whether it is the same breed as the horse you have in mind for breeding or another breed. The more you know the better informed you will be when you make a decision.

It is also useful to read books. The authors are usually long time breeders in the particular breed you are interested in and are considered experts by their peers. It is a huge subject that I have barely tickled on here.

Grooming

Sorry I have not blogged here for a while. I have been flat out with my course, work and other things life has a tendency to throw at me when I am not looking.

This is a more personal aspect to horses and their well being than normal, in that I am going to talk about her ladyship, the ex-racehorse.

She is quite arrogant and has found it a long time to learn to trust us. She will be going fine and then just take umbrage at something, and we are back to square one. Sometimes I get so annoyed to think about what must have happened to her as a racehorse.

She misses her son; of that I have no doubt. It has taken her till two weeks ago before she would venture down to the yard where he died. She had a good smell all around and settled to graze for a while and then went back up to her own paddock. We have not been able to get her a companion because of the Equine Influenza outbreak having put a stop to all horse movement. So she is very dependent on us for company.

I try to keep her groomed nicely, but mostly she wont stand still for it. Since she isn't going anywhere, I usually do not fuss about it. But on Sunday she was scratching great wads of hair off her back with a tree branch. I put her lead on, grabbed the rubber curry and began the circular rubbing that makes it so effective. I could not believe how much hair came off her. She has been shedding since early July, and with all the rolling and scratching she does, I felt most of it must have been gone.

After the rubber curry came the cat brush with metal bristles covered with plastic on the tips.
You would have thought she had died and gone to heaven with the long nose and twisted head she made. She thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then the soft bristle brush. She was sleek and shiny after that. To look at you would just think her summer coat is painted on it is so fine. And very soft. Her mane is unmatted and her taill is just touching the ground, suitable for keeping off flies for summer.

So if you see signs that your horse might be itchy with old shed, even if you think it is all gone, maybe a rubber curry will prove differently.