Horse, Dog, Cat, Rat.
In a series of posts I would like to compare and contrast the major groups in the mammalian fancy: breeders of horses, dogs, cats, and rodents. While these groups have major fundamental differences I believe the comparison is informative and will help explain why the canine fancy exists the way it does and to cut through some of the situational ethics that are claimed to be universal. First up, the horse.
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Grazing horses. Daniel, WY
Although the cultural ethic of keeping pedigrees and anointing certain breeding schemes as “pure” and imbued with special powers is as old as documented human history, purebred dog culture has inherited much of its structure and character from horse culture which in turn acquired its manner from the genealogy-fixation of the nobility.
As the royalty and nobility were highly concerned with their own pedigrees they spent considerable time and resources to both establish their blood ties to famous heroes and even gods–to fortify their political legitimacy–and secure marriages to prominent families followed by incestuous pairings to maintain the bloodline and consolidate power.
As we move down the social heirarchy from nobility to the aristocracy, the consequences of and ability to engineer human eugenic breeding schemes decreases but horses make an apt substitute for social climbing and conspicuous consumption. The association of European nobility and horses is ancient and most clearly rooted in the Equestrian order–literally the “Horsemen Class”–within the Roman Empire from which the knights and cavalry were exclusively drawn. The ordo equester was hereditary like the patrician class above them, but over time and under the strain to grow the cavalry, upstart knights who could afford their own horse and equipment were drafted into their ranks.
We no longer have hereditary political castes, but the financial investment required to husband various species of domestic animals still creates a plutocracy of sorts.
The wealth-driven hierarchy of the animal fancy.
Horses are still the pinnacle of guided breeding efforts. They are historically the most utilitarian, giving man the first means of distant travel and massive physical power. They are also incredibly costly to purchase and maintain given their size, fragility, level of domestication, housing requirements, and accessories for use. They are larger and stronger than humans, have not been as intimately domesticated and subordinated, can not share living quarters with people requiring special boarding, must be trained and broken for use, and require task specific tack for riding or plowing or racing, etc.
They are widely used as a work implement, for sport and entertainment, and for companionship. All of these endeavors are costly given the amount of specialized training. The competition and gambling events bring even more money into the picture.
As far as breeding, horses have a long gestation period of 11 months and give birth to foals that are very large compared to their body size making delivery potentially hazardous. They most typically give birth to only one foal and mares are best able to start breeding when they mature between five and seven years of age. This means that even the most active and well-off breeders will only be able to preside over a handful of generations in their lifetime.
Whatcha doin?
Pedigrees go back for centuries whether it’s to the three founding sires of the Thoroughbred breed–the Byerley Turk b.1679, the Darley Arabian b. 1700, and the Gondolphin Arabian b. 1724—or the mythical five favored mares of Mohammad. Even in racing where it’s ultimately performance that matters, the pedigree of hopeful prospects plays a significant role in evaluation and early betting.
Although inbreeding and linebreeding are used, a survey of the top winning horses shows that it’s rarely to the excess we see in the lessor species. Horses considered to be closely bred rarely have COIs in the double digits and most horses that are considered “inbred” and “linebred” would be viewed as out-crossed in dogs.
Although the popular sire effect and limited sire lines is in full effect in closed stud-book populations like Thoroughbreds, the time between generations works against rapid genetic loss to some degree. Even though entry into breeding is limited by the high cost, Thoroughbreds are covered by thousands of breeders so no individual breeding program can sway the entire population like they can in rare breeds of dog or cat.
Horse husbandry is prestigious because quite often the players involved are already rich or accomplished. Many of the activities with horses have hundreds of years of tradition and documentation behind them and horses have played a crucial historical role in warfare, industry, exploration and human survival. Horses are often deeply entwined with national and cultural identities adding even further to their mystique.
All of these factors combine to make horse breeding a game of the very rich, and even horse ownership a luxury for all but a few.
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The time frame for breeding age and the 11 months gestation time does tend to make a geometric difference for the inbreeding factor. I looked up the horses that ran in the “triple crown” — several are linebred. The requirement for “live siring” in the race horse also precludes some of the intense breeding practices seen in dogs. The world of the halter and the minature and possibly some of the color breeding requirements in horses are probably the most similar to dogs as at least the first two are pretty devoid of functional requirements. It’s when the animal need not have any function that the worst cases of bizzare conformation breeding in dogs tends to occur. But the horse doesn’t show the plasticity of the dog in terms of modification, which makes some of the comparisons difficult. How inbred are minature horses?
That is a good observation. I wonder if when a breeding culture “gets bored” so to say, the breeders tend to challenge themselves and each other with more and more impossible conformations, health complications and “acquired taste” kind of looks.
This is an excellent subject I haven’t seen covered elsewhere. As a former horse person, I am well aware of the expense and difficulty of raising horses and only gave them up for lack of proper resources as I aged. I knew this stuff you are talking about, but never summed it up in a cogent way, as you have. Good work. I am looking forward to the rest of this series and hope it provokes lots of discussion.
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The other thing that’s important to understand about horses is that there was a definite class cleavage between who owned saddle horses and who owned draft horses.
We know that before the advent of the automobile, people had horses as their mode of transport. But most people had horses or mules to pull carts or plow fields.
Only a very small number of people had saddle horses to ride. In the South, the landed gentry made sure their boys learned to ride, but in the North, virtually no one knew how to ride a horse. During the Civil War, the South had better cavalry units for that simple reason alone.
Now that horses aren’t our main mode of transport, the vast majority of horses owned are saddle horses. These animals were a minority for most of human history.
This actually plays out nicely in that film War Horse, where the tenant farmer buys a thoroughbred to plow his turnip field.
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Other variables that make horses different from dogs are lifespan and the cost of transport for outbreeding and the acceptance of AI.
Should you happen to extend your boundaries to take in birds, you’ll find some of the most shocking cases of all. Rare colour mutants are much treasured by fanciers, and a single mutant is often used to start a new colour line via backcrossing. Birds, of course, includes hundreds of species, and these vary greatly in expense, reproductive characteristics and ease of keeping. None have much status. The saddest segment is perhaps the large parrots, who are highly intelligent, often very demanding, and have lifespans similar to humans. And then there’s show chickens . . .
Birds and reptiles and exotic small mammals all have these problems. There is a lot of inbreeding to create strains of albino Burmese pythons and other morphs.
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There’s a lot to compare/contrast with the exotics, but they didn’t fit so easily on my prestige-vs-cost chart, so I’ll have to tackle them separately. Mammals first, I guess. They fit most closely with dogs in regards to popularity, companionship, competition, and domestication.
For example, the rare and exotic nature of exotics plays havoc on the price; many exotics are “new” to the scene and we have no “inherited from Victorian England” traditions like we do with horses, dogs, and rodents; their biological differences also make breeding comparisons to dogs less clear. Many exotics are basically captive wild animals with very little domestication.
Certain strains of birds and fish ARE old friends in the animals husbandry business and have deep histories of cultivation and selection. Falconry, Pigeons and Koi come to mind first.
I think one of the things missing here is the simple fact that many of our light and heavy horse breeds (even some of the British ponies too) were developed by the aristocracy, but not necessarily with an aristocratic use in mind.
The very plebian fact is: horses were, up until fairly recently, a big military and agricultural commodity; the better draft animals your peasants could use, the better off your nation or fief was…and the same animals could be pressed into military service (or used to breed animals for the military) if the need arose; lovely riding horses were an aristocratic priviledge, but cavalry was still considered an important aspect of any military force up through the beginnings of the 20th century (and while by that time it was obsolete, up until then it had been useful) — we can see some of the proclamations of Henry the VIII pointing towards rulers realizing the need for some sort of breeding program for native horses (and with this there were great successes — the Prussian stud at Trakhener — and near disasters — ol’ Henry was pretty hard on British native pony breeds, which became a bit of a mistake, as they were quite useful animals it turned out).
I would disagree with quite a lot of this in fact. Horse breeding cannot all be lumped into one model the “racing industry”, nor can assumptions be drawn from looking at just this one industry.
Warm blood breeding on the continent of Europe is very different. Just for example…mares are owned by very averagely wealthy farmers mostly, the state in many parts, regions, provinces (states) or whole countries own studs where sires are kept, mares can be subsidised on attaining premiumship status. Registries are completely open. Performance testing decides a horse entry into specific stud books for a region. They can be any “breed” and regular sharing of studs between registries occurs. There are many registries. Its not all one breed the “warm blood”. Each region of a country has a specific type they promote, smaller countries their single type……many different arrangements in different countries.
Yes you get extremely well off breeders but they are not the majority in warm blood registries. Most foundation mares were working farm horses owned by farmers. Each region or country had populations of horses. They didn’t shoot them all because they were heavy plough horses and they now had tractors they changed them with introducing lighter sport horses other breeds etc as markets and needs changed. The breeding is still by and large on these same farms big and small. Some became very rich as a result others were very rich and yet more will be coming very rich, but most breed their couple of mares each year and send them off to be performance tested hoping for the best. Holding back a mare and keeping note of trends.
Warm blood breeding is far far bigger than the race horse industry.
Obviously a complicated history of the evolution of pleasure/work horse to war horse to farm horse to sport horse and etc. Wars the combustion engine, needs markets all playing a part.
But no horse breeding is not only a game for the very rich. In America perhaps?
Sorry for the lack lustre response but its a very broad subject. (:
Warmblood registries are not completely open — they are usually open to outcrosses from other warmblood registries and TB and Arab, but that’s it (and then the horses have to pass inspection). Granted, it is better than a completely closed registry, but it isn’t open.
And even in Europe it is very much a rich person’s game (the breeding of warmbloods), which does have some control through the state owned studs, but in order to get a non-inspected/registered on performance merit stallion approved one has to have the money to campaign him (mares are not really a factor in this equation). Plus the cost of buying and owning a horse in Europe is pretty high, so it’s hardly something in the cost range of the working class (in fact, I’d say it’s probably easier in some regards to simply own a horse here in the States if you live in a rural area, but these horses are not a factor in the breeding industry anymore).
There are many things about the European system of breeding that I like a lot; just not sure if they would work here in America without some alterations — namely, I don’t see the culture working here in regards to state control of the breeding.
And there are drawbacks: I can remember about 20 years ago, when the Hanoverian Verband was concerned that many of the old lines were getting lost due to overconcentration by breeders on the more modern types that were so popular. That’s just one specific incident.
Sorry Jennifer I only found your post a week later Im still trying to find a post I was meaning to respond to on this blog but for some reason I can’t. Could be no new post were made so I all but lost it in the depths of the blog. I didn’t get a notification reminding me where it was [blush] sure all my own doing. But this one also went the same way. “Notify me” seems to be switched off on my side?
Yes stud books are more or less completely open. Only recently just for example there was an Andalusian sport horse added to the Dutch warmblood Stud book. It is quite rare that breeds outside of the warm blood sport horse are accepted after performance testing because many don’t have the desired size and or ability etc so you would never find a Friese or a Haflinger for example making an entry. It is though more common for the ones you’ve mentioned.
I also disagree about unregistered horses that have proved themselves at a top level in any discipline. These horses especially gain very easy entry into stud books based purely on performance. There is no campaigning necessary the results speak for themselves. In fact stud books clamour to not only accept them but be the first to do so, claiming them as one of their own as it were.
You can’t possibly call registries that will happily accept other registries horses closed or even partially so. An approved Oldenburger stallion or Selle Francais just for two examples can be accepted into The Dutch warmblood, the Swedish, the British, the Wesphalian, the Holsteiner, the Belgian and etc registries as can a Trakkener a TB an Arab, Zangersheide even an Akhal Teke……
There are obviously histories involved, and nothing is static in the warmblood.
The Zangersheide is a good example it was produced as a direct result of the reticence of some registries of the time had towards including unregistered performance proven horses into their stud books but here namely the Dutch. This led to a stud being started directly across the border in Belgium (retribution most definitely) where horses were freely registered based on performance alone as well as breeding.
At this time the Dutch were still more preoccupied with transforming their countries stock from heavy horses and carriage types so conformation was very high on the agenda. Of course they weren’t daft the clever people that they are when it comes to livestock breeding as they were introducing top sport proven blood/stock from other countries but only those that also passed their conformation wish list. This however did leave some very good proven performance horses closer to home in the cold as they didn’t pass muster on conformation. It might have been an older type or a u-neck, flat croup, size anything, there were always issues etc.
This period of the Zangerheide break did serve very much to opened up the discussions on pure performance based entry. A lot of history is swept under the carpet and forgotten or reinvented but I was living in the Netherlands at the time for twelve years in fact and it was a very hot topic. Eventually the Dutch decided it was a good idea after all. It doesn’t happen these days much anymore as most sport horses excelling at top level are registered with someone. But of course a draft horse doing well at national level dressage is unlikely to make it as no one would use it on the continent though they very well might in the UK.
Livestock breeding is in many ways very different to dog breeding but especially show breeding as commercial interests are high on the agenda including warmblood breeding. However many “rare breed” livestock registries are in fact in the same situation as many pedigree show dog breeds with their genetic bottlenecks, obsession with pedigree purity, rigid standards, exaggerations, ill-health and overall breed weakness. The same that strive to preserve seem to only serve in fact to destroy.
I don’t think some dog breeds shouldn’t go extinct.
On the topic of wealth and warm blood horse breeding, I disagree too. I’ve spent years and years travelling around Europe looking for prospects. There are circuits that serve circuits at every level the majority not the high end. What most Americans get to see is an over priced end product at an auction or training yard, whether its a foal or a three four year old prospect. Europeans love collectives that serve both the breeder and breed at all levels.
That three month old foal selling for 500 000 dollars at an auction could’ve just as easily been born on a farm with three mares as a stud farm with 500.
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