It has recently been announced that top dressage stallion, Totilas’s stud fee will be reduced by £4128! This is a huge price drop and makes you question why?
One of Totilas’s sons won the KWPN stallion competition. With such impressive stallions with the Totilas blood line, it is possible that Totilas himself will become less popular and his stud fee has therefore decreased to help attract more mares.
Credit FotoImage via Wiki Commons
However, I think it is very interesting that this stud fee has decreased not long after his dressage career came to an end due to bone edema.
Bone edema is essentially swelling of the bone and can have many causes. It is often linked to arthritis and navicular disease. Some of these things may be heritable in Totilas offspring.
I am therefore wondering if the price slash was to make up for the news that he is retiring due to injury and potentially disguise the fact that this problem could be passed on to his offspring.
Last Updated on 07/08/2018
http://www.j-evs.com/article/S0737-0806%2814%2900263-9/abstract
Sharon May-Davis’ research into hereditary malformations of vertebrae and ligaments in sport horses is a must read for anyone who rides or breeds TB’s and TBx’s
I think hereditary problems should be addressed when breeding all horses. Racehorses are often put down due to problems, but I feel this is better than the large number of pleasure horses which suffer
In the USA, the aggressively pro-slaughter American Quarter Horse Association, which claims to be the most popular pleasure horse in the USA if not the world, has repeatedly flooded its gene pool with problem animals ranging from navicular in their early history to inheritable muscle disorders more recently. They continue to exist because they have an open stud book and register TB’s as appendix.
Personally I am a great fan of TB’s. However the more people who know what is happening behind the scenes, the more pressure can be put on unscrupulous breeders, as well as opening the doorways to acknowledging and supporting conscientious ones. The breed should not suffer for the greed and short-sightedness of the few.