Sport Success Starts with
Breeding Sound Horses

Sound horses are the result of breeding similar phenotypes together. This is of the utmost importance in breeding a sport horse, because with the exception of perhaps the Trakehner and the Cleveland Bay, the sport horse is not a pure bred horse. The ones that stay sound and are the most successful are bred from similar stock in parents.

Many Americans have confused a Draft cross with a Warmblood. Technically, you may call this cross a warmblood, because it is a cross of a hot breed: Arabian or Thoroughbred, with a cold breed: Heavy Draft. But in the Sport Horse world a Warmblood is a type of horse developed in Europe and bred to excel at Olympic sports. The Europeans created these horses from a base of their coach horses or cavalry mounts and added Thoroughbred, and occasionally other breeds. They are not "pure-breds", and most of the stud books are still open. The Heavy Draft (Shire, Cydesdale, Percheron, Belgian etc.) usually did not enter the equation, and if one or two did, the Europeans will try to hide that fact. Why? Because the heavy draft conformation is not suited for success in Olympic type sports, it is designed for pulling heavy loads at slow speeds.

For the production of talented, sound performance horses it is a more successful practice to breed animals similarly suited for sport. For instance, if your goal is a sound sport horse and you have a Thoroughbred or part-Thoroughbred mare, you would have more luck crossing it with a European Warmblood or a Cleveland Bay or an Irish Draught (different from draft), than using a heavy draft sire.

For sport success, unless the Thoroughbred is a pure staying type it usually needs an injection of Warmblood, sport horse or like type to insure substance and uphill balance. Many of the modern racing Thoroughbreds tend to be built "downhill", with a lower neck carriage and a body too narrow and light in substance to stand up to the demands of these sports. This makes them conformationaly at a disadvantage for performance and staying sound in the Olympic style sports (jumping, eventing, dressage).

The old style Thoroughbred, such as our old American line of Lexington, could run 4 mile heats, three times a day with only a 1/2 hour off in between heats. As the distance of races was reduced the conformation of the horses that succeed changed also. Many of the modern American distance races are not more than 1 or 1 1/2 miles: classic type races. The shorter the length of the race the horse is bred to run, the more you will find it's balance is downhill- the racing Quarter Horse conformation (1/4 mile sprinter) is an extreme example of this.

The above is a generalization, and is not a hard and fast rule, and breeders should note that not all sprinting Thoroughbreds are unsuitable for sport horse stock. Each horse is an individual and many Thoroughbreds with sprinting racing ability are very well conformed, balanced and can offer some valuable type to the gene pool. If you don't think that is possible take a look at this page:

Lauries Crusador- the Hanoverian Thoroughbred

I am not trying to confuse you, but feel very strongly about this Thoroughbred issue, having been mislead myself by well meaning Warmblood societies. Thoroughbred mare owners are often discouraged with a negative attitude when they present their mares at Warmblood Inspections. What should be understood, is that it is not (or should not be) a blanket dismissal of the Thoroughbred, because Warmbloods need Thoroughbred lines. There is no sport horse without the Thoroughbred contribution.

We as breeders need to learn to assess our breeding stock, whether Thoroughbred or Warmblood or other, as individuals, looking for good riding horse qualities and potence for sport ability when making our breeding and culling decisions.

American breeders should take note that contrary to common opinion, we do have staying lines in our domestic Thoroughbred. One example is the Fair Play line (Man O'War, Discovery, War Admiral, Intent, War Relic, Believe It etc.) is considered one of the best staying lines anywhere. And this line is sound and plentiful in our American horses.

Stamina Lines in the American Thoroughbred

Phenotype Extremes

Therefore, in breeding sound sport horses the prospective mates you choose should not be too different in size and type from your horse. Most of the unsoundness in modern riding horses is because of unconsidered crossing of widely divergent phenotypes. Many people think they will get a compromise between parents in their foal, but more often the result is miss-matched joint couplings, with a large bone joining with a bone too small for it, and that is a recipe for unsoundness.

"It is ill-considered outcross matings which dissipate a valuable gene pool, not well thought-out inbreeding." (Porter)

Also, a loosely bred horse (not bred with balanced lines) will usually produce inconsistent types.

Outcrossing is fine, and sometimes it is the wise thing to do when you have built up the sport lines in your herd and want some fresh abilities. It is important in selecting individuals for the cross, that they are not only of similar type to your stock, but are tightly linebred themselves so they are able to transfer that new talent to your herd. If you use a individual for the cross who is not well linebred you may get a inconsistent and unharmonious phenotype, and therefore a tendency to unsoundness. If you do outcrossing right you could end up with a super star like Landgraf.
Sport success starts with breeding sound horses.

(Article originally published on the SporthorsePedigree.com website 2003, republished in the Salt Block Gazette July 2007 & is updated here.)


An example of a sound out cross stallion- Bratt Z