I think about Banter all the time. I think I saw him in ’92. I had (and still “have” though he is on permanent loan and always watched over) an enormous Thoroughbred Hunter/Jumper who was a love as long as I was on the ground but once I was on his back it was another thing. So, one hematoma the size of NJ, one concussion, 3 broken ribs later (all different accidents because I always got back on) I went to see Banter. He had just been standing stud out at Craver Farm for a while. His owner lead him past several mares (at least one was in heat). I got on and Banter looked down at a garden hose on the ground. He went backwards faster than I did when a Moray Eel shot out of its cave one day when I was diving. I got right off. Stupid? In the extreme. He was so perfect. And that glow! I have never seen that again.
But Joe–I think I’m on the verge of buying a Tunisian colt. Don’t want to say too much yet, but if I do I will be posting about him.
Thanks for sharing your memories of Banter.

Am very much enjoying your informed comments on this and other threads. One thing, though: Shouldn’t the “beauty” of being a horse owner be accompanied by “danger” and also “responsibility”? Shouldn’t so-called improvement always fall within the boundaries of what is best for the general health of the horse? I am thinking of a reference Jeanne made earlier on another thread to horses whose heads were so narrow they had not enough room for their teeth. Or perhaps are you assuming that true asil breeders always put the well-being of the horse first because the true asil breeder is him or herself already a breed apart? Just so you know, that question is a request for info, not a challenge.

I finally was able to access your pictures online and comment.

I would be interested in seeing a picture of Selene at age 8 or 9. Until then it’s tough to figure out what a horse will look like.

About consistency and uniformity, I think it is tough for a breeder to judge if their own horses look similar or if there is variation. Of course I think that all my horses look different! I am sure others disagree.

It does seem to me that closed breeding groups that are heavily inbred do have their own “look.” You could see a horse and say, “that horse looks like a Davenport horse” or a Babson horse, or a Doyle horse, or whichever closed group you want. Of course within the groups, all the horses are different.

I think you could argue the same thing about the Arabian breed in general. Why do Arabian horses , generally speaking, have their own “look.” I would argue it is probably because the horses have been inbred over thousands of years. That’s why the Arabian horse makes such an improvement in other breeds of horses when bred to them. As Jeanne paraphrased Charles: you can not breed Arabian horses without inbreeding.

By definition, “Asil” Arabians are a closed group. Hence, they are inbred.

Anyone ever wonder why being “Asil” is important as a practical matter? I would argue that part of the reason is inbreeding.

If you introduce new genes to an inbred group, as the group continues to inbreed, science tells us that these new genes will continue to come out many generations later even if the non Asil blood is “small.” As Michael Bowling said: “inbreeding actually creates phenotypic variability.”

And to further develop Jeanne’s point, I would take it even further: breeding in a closed group is the ONLY way you can make sustainable improvements in future generations. The question is figuring out what closed group you are operating in: your own group of some particular importation, stud farm, region of desert Arabia, or the wider but yet still closed group of the “Asil” Arabian in general.

Lyman

http://davenporthorses.org/2009/09/nuns-fret-not/

Do you mean within a closed herd? Certainly, IMO. It might be difficult in some cases because you are restricted to the gene pool you’ve got. Selection is always important, whether you are outcrossing or inbreeding. It is the same. If you have a feature that is lacking in your closed herd, you may not be able to develop that, but very few features in Arabian horse breeding are single-gene, yes/no, on/off types of things. Sometimes you can work your way slowly toward improvements. Charles wrote an article, years ago, about breeding within a closed herd: deliberately choosing a restricted set of possibilities for the future. It is called “Nuns Fret Not,” after a famous poem by William Wordsworth. I’ll hunt it up for Edouard to post here.

Did the Bedouin tribes generally keep many mares and just a few stallions as a matter of practice?

I am sorry, I can’t see your photos. I am in China at the moment and they block major portions of the internet here. For some reason, I can’t get to the site you referred to. It may use some type of photo sharing site that is blocked for whatever reason. I will have to get another program that gets around the blocking because it looks like the government has blocked the program I was using.

I will have to comment later on it.

Lyman

Is it possible to “improve” with a closed herd?

Have a great day everyone!
Ralph

I agree with you that a horse that exhibits undesirable characteristics (whether or not these are the result of inbreeding) is not going to have a whole lot of influence on the breeding group as a whole. I’m not thinking of “undesirable” characteristics, however, just different.

Let me try to do a worked example with pedigrees and pictures.

Sire: Ascendant
http://davenporthorses.org/pedigree/A/ASCENDANT2e91e.HTML
Photo at the ripe old age of 28: http://davenporthorses.org/photos/Modern%20Horses/1970s/ascendant.jpg.php

Dam: Petit Point CF
http://davenporthorses.org/pedigree/P/PETIT_POINT_CF82466.HTML
Photo nursing her first foal: http://davenporthorses.org/photos/Modern%20Horses/1990s/Petit%20Point%20CF/petit-point-cf.jpg.php

So I hope you can agree, although I don’t have a lot of photos to choose from (I’m kind of appalled at how many side shots of my own mare I *don’t* have–) that these are basically the same kind of horse; medium neck set, nice hip, ought to look good in a Western saddle.

The sire has one granddam, the significant mare Ceres. The dam’s pedigree is a little poem to Portia, another significant mare. If inbreeding *doesn’t* produce variation, I should get something pretty consistent, right?

(If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.)

Result: http://davenporthorses.org/photos/Modern%20Horses/Selene-25-July-2009.jpg.php

Upright in the neck, hinged at the poll, and in general rather more like her grandsire Monsoon than either parent.

So now we ask, what are our standards? Do we hold with the old cattlemen who valued consistency in a breeding herd so highly? Or do we prize this sort of variability in phenotype as a visible token of existing genetic diversity, which we have to treasure as we do our lives, if we want to see these closed breeding groups last another hundred years?

I must admit, I am really not that familiar with Davenport bloodlines, although I have seen many Davenport horses and I must admit, they are very beautiful horses. But I really can’t comment much more than that at this point as to the particular attributes of different horses.

I do think that in that in some sense, ALL horse breeding practiced today is in some sense selective.

To own horses is to spend lots of money on horses. To breed horses is to spend even more money on horses. People don’t breed horses unless they are trying to propagate certain characteristics in the offspring which they determine, and which others will determine is worth something. To me, this is fundamentally selective in nature.

So the nuance between “selective inbreeding” and just plain “inbreeding” is, while a very important understanding and difference, I quite frankly, think is academic.

In a practical sense if you are inbreeding, you are practicing “selective inbreeding.”

I believe in the power of the market. I think the market is going to do a pretty good job of purging a horse from influence in bloodlines that exhibits undesirable characteristics as the result of inbreeding.

For your consideration.

Lyman