I've said before that I don't have a problem with a rescue also having a breeding operation. Let me give you a hypothetical example of that:
Let's say Gretchen Jackson, who we all know has done a lot to stop horse slaughter and is a great, loving and caring owner, with boatloads of money, decides to start a Thoroughbred rescue. Every rescued horse gets all of the care they need to return to health, training and evaluation and is placed in a carefully screened home - she shows herself to be a textbook perfect rescuer. Gretchen goes to a horse auction and rescues a skinny mare who looks like death. A tattoo search reveals that the mare is a stakes winner of over $250K. The mare is conformationally correct and sound -she just fell into the wrong hands. Gretchen rehabs her and decides to keep her as a broodmare. She receives excellent general and reproductive care and lives on a beautiful facility. What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. Lucky mare, as far as I'm concerned!
Where I take issue with rescues breeding is exactly where I take issue with anybody else breeding...when they are breeding mixed breed fugly crap that is likely to need rescuing itself. "Indelusion" on my message board found this sterling example of what NOT to do and I'm sharing it with you all today!
Here we have your typical, low end breeding stock Appaloosa. She has an upright shoulder, a long back, a "nest," and all the muscling of a housewife who spends her days on the couch watching the Oxygen channel.
Here is her sale description - it includes almost everything I bitch about here - breeding crappy grade horses, not knowing if mares are pregnant because you are too damn cheap/ignorant to call the vet, ditching horses because you can't afford hay, even though you bred MORE HORSES which is why your damn hay bill is so high, blah blah...
"Brood mare only
15.1 hh. 20 years old. Brown/Black. Good weight .Good teeth.
Solid black Appaloosa mare (branded but no papers ) may be in foal to my Arab
has had 8 foals all coloured. We are retaining last filly from B&W clydie sire.
Both her filly foal and the Arabian stallion "Reverence" are here on view
$1000.Neg.
we are cutting right back so we can cope through this summer."
It is interesting that now you have the mare on your sale page, when it still states on your rescue page that you are going to be keeping her
In case you were wondering what the Arab might look like, here ya go. Yes, he's kind of a cute little shit, with the emphasis on little. We are breeding grade Araloosas why? I just saw one in the "canner" pen at Moses Lake. I could have sent you that one and saved you the trouble, and that one was leopard spotted!
No comment on the lack of tack and the presence of spurs on the unbroke three year old Arabian stallion. The Darwin Award was invented for a reason.
Here's a view of the stud's conformation. Again, he is kind of a cute little shit but he SCREAMS "geld me, please!" His shoulder is as bad as the mare's and the hip/croup could not possibly be further from the Arabian horse conformational ideal if he were a sheep.
as he spent too much time with his front half in the air anyway and 27 is a bit old to fix, so i worked with him instead of fighting him"
Do ya think he might stop rearing if you took the long shanked bit out of his mouth and tried riding him in a bitless or a plain snaffle? Just maybe?
I wonder if there is an extra special gold merit division of the Darwin Award? I mean, she certainly gets the most points for trying to qualify!
But hey, she's out of the rescue business: "I will no longer be rescuing any horses, due to our lack of finances from
the drought and loss of over $600 per rescue once they are rehomed or sold on to a new "for ever" owners."
She's parent of the year, too. Here's her kid barefoot in the foal pen, sleeping on a foal. Because that is safe/healthy. You know it.
