Assumptions About Bloodlines
Horsepeople have a lot of interesting tendencies, and here's one of them: making assumptions about bloodlines based on personal experience with only one or two individuals from an equine family. As in....
"The Doc Bars are hot. I had a Doc Bar granddaughter, and never did get her to calm down."
"Don't get a Driftwood if you don't have a lot of patience. They make good horses eventually, but they're hard-headed, like my gelding."
"The Dynamic Deluxes are busy-minded. I had two of them, and I swear, they sat up nights thinking of trouble to get into."
"Quincy Dan-bred horses are beautiful, but have a screw loose. My Quincy Dan mare walked by the same mailbox every day for years, and spooked at it every time."
I'm not sure where this stereotyping originates, but I find it odd that horsepeople will take it at face value when it's about horses, but will stand up and bristle if someone paints all Italians, all Irish or Polish descendants, all people of color, or whatever, with the same brush.
I just keep thinking about the equine full siblings I've raised--horses that couldn't be more different from one another in the temperament department if I'd planned it that way. Foaled in the same stall, handled exactly the same way, they exhibited their unique ways of behaving before they'd even dried off and stood up for the first time.
Just an aberration? Did I raise one baby typical of its bloodline, and another one that's a freak? Or is there more room for expression of individuality within a bloodline than popular wisdom might have us believe?
posted by Juli Thorson @ 10:23 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
While I agree that full siblings can be as different as day and night, I also believe that there can be tendencies, including behaviors, that manifest in bloodlines.
With that being said, I don't think anyone should go throwing accusations around if they've only had experience with one or two individuals. If one or two individuals are all there are that is one thing, but one or two out of a hundred is another.
I think those kinds of statements aren't just bad for the bloodlines, they are bad for the breed in general.
Have heard the same things about Doc Bars...mine can be super focused...thinks he's Mighty Mouse.
Have also heard the same of the DD's (Dynamic Deluxes). And the same of the Quincy Dan's...I did see a yearling mare of Quincy bloodlines who was a nut case.
For all of this I won't take it at face value...I want to see for myself what these horses are doing or not doing. Each one is an individual.
While I believe that horses are individuals, they're are still charactistics that seem to go with the gene pool.
This has been proven to be true otherwise some horses wouldn't have the outrageous stud fees they do, and they're wouldn't be million dollar sire and dam lists. Trainers who work with lots of horses verify some of these charactistics ARE consistent with the DNA.
Just as in humans, siblings that have been seperated at birth and raised totally different from each other, decide to find their birth siblings years later and are amazed how similar they are. How people choose to charactize or 'judge' these traits can be both positive and negative, and that is where one has to decide for themself what they like and dislike, and what may seem like an apple to one person, is an orange to another.
Juli, I think in the case with your two siblings, they may be as different as night and day on the ground, but once you start riding and putting pressure or demands on them, I think you will find they mimic each other or their parents.
From personal experience, I have found that my colt that I own both the sire and dam and am now riding has traits from both, and 60% is consistent with the bloodlines.
I remember a UC Davis study published about 15 years ago, where they studied the same thing we're discussing. Their study was done on race horses since there was such a large offering of individuals to study. They had various degree's and percentages of what was passed down to thru the gene pool. The number 1 trait to be passed was length of stride, or i.e. performance ratio to that of siblings and parents, and that was 73% similarity.
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