I'm seeing spots...and all kinds of other shit.

Today's Darwin nominees...or at least someone who is gonna get a manure hat.


Parents, parents, what are you thinking?







OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming...today I'd like to talk about the latest craze: Spotted Saddle Horses. These may be Paint and Tennessee Walker, they may be Paint and Saddlebred, they may be Paint and PMU Mare. Like many of the "new" registries, they will take anything and unknown parentage is okay! It's just gotta have spots, because spots make it valuable and are useful for distracting the buyer's eye away from the myriad of conformational defects and the fact that someone has bred a fugly grade mare to a stallion with spots and now has, unsurprisingly, produced a fugly grade foal with spots.




Wow. Get a load of that head. That is one heck of a honking roman nose/pig eye combo, even for this kind of horse. Here's a hint: this is not the kind of horse who is shown to his best advantage in a bridle with no cavesson.

This girl appears to be a barrel race rider and the overall effect is that of a guy named Possum who has hotwired someone's Porsche, painted it camouflage and installed a horn that plays the theme from "The Dukes of Hazzard." Picture this horse in a normal Saddlebred color with someone on him saddleseat and a big blinged out browband distracting the eye from his huge convex nose. Better, right? Spots do not always make everything better. Really. I know you tobiano breeders find this hard to imagine, but it's true!






Oh...my. OK, in this case I almost do have to agree the spots make it better because they may save this unfortunate looking filly from a spot in Mr. Kill Buyer's doubledecker. Other than the spots, she exactly resembles hundreds of yearlings I have seen go on that truck over the past 20 years. She toes out fore and aft (there was also a butt picture helpfully taken and posted to show how much!). I think her head is actually longer than her neck. She has a very short croup. While it's actually hard to see the line of the shoulder because she's so narrow that there's little to no definition, I can already see it's not going to be a pretty one. If you can afford a nice arena like this, you can afford better breeding stock. Try to find some.







Have $3500 burning a hole in your pocket and no idea what to do with it? Why not pick up a horse you will have no idea what to do with, either? Gah...look at this mare. This is the most pronounced lack of a butt I've found since the earlier posted appaloosa filly.

She's got a big honking head, and her legs have big bones but no muscle. She, too, toes out significantly. Is this a SSH trait? Has there been an infusion of duck into the breeding program? This is another "mystery bred" SSH who has "papers" but no pedigree... the real mystery is why someone put her dam and sire together in the first place.