01/19/2022
Last summer I was trying to educate my dad about the new ways of the west. How we needed to breed to this, buy that, do this to keep up with the new market. He’d nod his head and say “sure”. So I drug him to a couple horse sales to show him exactly what we needed to do. Big time studs bred to high powered mares.
We got there and looked the horses over and he didn’t say much. And to my dismay the sale didn’t go as I planned.
On our drive home I asked him what he thought went wrong, in theory, on paper, both of those sales should have been super hot.
His response, there was no program. It was strictly papers to papers without much thought past that.
I’ve learned a lot from him about sticking to your guns and staying true to your roots. I’ve jumped from train to train trying to produce what the market wants, while he’s stayed true to what he believes is right in his eyes of a strong, intelligent, versatile horse.
We’re a ranch family. What’s most important to us is a strong build, athleticism, and a brain.
There are always going to be some crosses that don’t work as well as others, but the predictably my dad has from riding the same lines, generation after generation, has given him an advantage. We strive for those things and Tigh, over the past 50+ years, does not waver or compromise, he is a true “breeder”.
“Breeders and Raisers”
Written by Ralph W. Nemeth
Horse raisers flourish, but the true breeder stays rare. The horse raiser is flawless in his faith to the dollar, and in his worship of public opinion. He jumps anxiously, or crawls, according to what he can afford, on every bloodline bandwagon that comes by.
The breeder is an unshakable horseman. He has a natural eye that is not fooled by color or flesh, and in the end he is faithful only to his own imagination. The breeder may be happy with the product of a mating, but he knows if he is completely satisfied he is not looking close enough. He is always not quite sure, a calculated guesser. He knows there is always one that can run faster, jump higher, move freer, stop harder or hold up longer- and he thinks he knows where this one might be.
In a period of time long enough to improve a strain of horses- say 20 years- the public will change its mind a half-dozen times. The horse raiser changes his ideas to keep up with the public opinion. He improves nothing, develops nothing. Unless very wealthy, he is forced to buy mediocre horses of a popular strain at an inflated price.
During these 20 years the horse breeder- slowly, stubbornly- improves his horses, getting a lot of pleasure from the process. If his eye and imagination are good, he develops an outstanding horse of its type. Or, through the same eye and judgment, he purchases a horse, a sleeper, and later he'll be called lucky.
So it is, usually, that the horse breeder ends up getting what the horse raiser always wanted- people at the barn door.”
www.t4horses.com
