You have a mare.  You think you might want her to have a foal.  You are in the process of looking for the right stallion to breed her to.  Just a reminder here, you have the choice of the mare and the stallion, but God is the ultimate designer.

At Faithwalk Farm, we try to always improve the breed.  We have a special love for the spotted horses because of our first spotted horse, Sun's Top Gun.  We have learned a lot since that day in April, 1996 when he became ours.  We hope to always contribute to the breed, making wise breeding decisions.  Breeding just for color is not what we do.  We breed for quality and if the color is there too that is so good!  Some horse people will tell you to ignore the color and just get a good horse, I personally think you can have both.  It is our job as breeders to make that happen.

This information is like the editorial page of your newspaper;  it is my opinion.

You bought your mare for a reason.  Obviously, she appealed to you and you liked what you saw.  Now you would like for her to have a baby and you want the best baby possible.  You have to be able to look at your mare objectively.  Be honest here.  Even though we love our horses, there are faults inherent in all of them.

The first thing I look at is the over all conformation of the horse. I like a high set neck, meaning the neck is set where it looks like it is coming straight up out of the withers.  I like a strong shoulder as this indicates the reach the horse will have.  Try to picture an angle coming from the front of the withers down to the front point of the shoulder, if you extend that angle out to a straight line in the front, that is the reach of the horse.  The more laid-back the shoulder, the more reach your colt will have.  I like to see straight front legs on a horse, not toed-in or toed - out, coming in a straight line down from the shoulder to the ground.

There needs to also be an angle in the rear hocks in gaited horses. A straighter rear leg usually means there is less reach in the hind quarters thereby a tendency to produce a trot rather than a walk. From the hip down to the hock, there should be a nice curve.  There should also be a nice curve to the croup (the point of the hip back to the tail) which means that the colt will be able to reach under himself with the back legs.  The farther he can reach, the smoother the walk will be.  If a horse has a straight croup, in my opinion it is a fault especially in a Walking Horse.  Sickle hocks or cow hocks is a term that means from the rear view a horses hocks look like they point toward each other a little bit instead of straight out.  In any other breed this would be considered a fault BUT because of the walking gait and the desired long stride in the hind quarters, I do not consider it a fault in the gaited horse.  Many times in a horse with a long stride there is an over reach, meaning that the hind foot will set down in front of the front foot in the running walk.  Nature has compensated for this by turning the hocks in a little bit allowing for the back foot to set down just outside the front foot.  This is a very good reason that your farrier needs to be well acquainted with the gait.  When not shod properly, you might hear a click when the back hoof hits the front.  The back foot can actually step on the back of the shoe on the front and pull it off.  When not shod properly, the bulb of the front feet can be scabbed or cut from the back feet hitting there.  Another hazard off an improperly shod walking horse is that the back foot can actually catch on the front foot, causing the horse to stumble or even go down on his knees. Even if you choose not to shoe your horse, the trim and angle of the hoof is very important.  For your safety and the wellness of your horse, please use a farrier with knowledge of the breed.

Back to conformation, I always  look for a long pastern.  The longer pastern gives the horse a little spring in his step, think of it like a shock absorber on your car.

I love a pretty head and fine ears on a horse.  There should be a kind look to his eyes and a nice width between.  I call the ears "bat wing ears" meaning that they curve in toward each other with a fine point on the end.

The back of the stallion should be relatively short.  The shorter the back in my opinion, the stronger it is.  The back tends to be a little longer in a mare and that is okay.  It gives more room for her foal.  If you have an exceptionally long backed mare, you should consider breeding her to a shorter backed stallion.

The way I look at a horse, especially a stallion is to look for a square.  There should be equal distance from his withers to his tail and down to his hooves.  Another way is to look for three equal circles; shoulder, abdomen and hip.

Look for a stallion that has a pleasing personality.  He should be friendly and easy to work with.  Ask the owner if he is a riding horse.  It is amazing to me that so many stallions stand in a stall. A stallion needs to have a work ethic other than breeding!  To me his disposition and willingness are as important as anything else about a stallion.

The gait of the stallion is inherent to his conformation.  I have always thought a mare that tends toward a rack or  trot should be bred to a pacy stallion.  In plain language that would translate, a mare with straighter hind legs, a shorter stride in the hind quarters should be bred to a stallion with an exceptional curve and a really long stride in the hind quarters.  It is simply trying to correct the conformational fault of the mare.  The reverse also holds true.  If you have a pacing mare, and you are breeding for a smooth gait, you might look for a stallion with a racking gait.  The pace has been bred into many modern Tennessee Walking horses.  Again, this is my opinion and I like to trail ride and not just show my horse in an arena and too many of the show horse breeders are breeding for pace instead of a running walk.  I appreciate the running walk and the 4 beat gait that the walking horses were originally bred for.

The 4 beat gait is usually defined as a running walk, a rack or a saddle gait.  The only clear definition I have of it is that in a running walk, three feet are on the ground at the same time with only one foot off; a rack, sometimes called a single-foot, is just that, one foot only on the ground in the gait.  I believe a saddle gait to be simply a version of the rack.  A pace is a two beat lateral gait, meaning that the front and back hoof on the same side hit the ground at the same time.  There is a gait called a stepping pace that is a little bit smoother than a pace but to me any version of the pace is not desirable.  If you feel yourself being jarred in the saddle in an up and down fashion, that is probably a pace or a trot.  I used to wear my hair in a pony tail when I rode and I would know if my horse was gaiting by the direction my pony tail was going.  If my pony tail was swinging side to side that was a good gait, up and down was not.

Color is an important part of your breeding decision when breeding for your ideal horse.  The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders and Exhibitors Assc. has compiled a very nice brochure detailing the various colors and markings evident in the breed.  You can access the information by logging onto www.twhbea.com or phoning the customer service department and asking for the brochure.  There is not room here for me to go into all the various colors and how to breed for that specific color.  Faithwalk Farm deals primarily in spotted Walking Horses and Spotted Saddle Horses and our goal is to breed the gait, disposition, conformation and as an added bonus the color.

Many people ask me what the word homozygous means or if Dillon is homozygous.  Dillon Paints the Town is not homozygous.  He has produced solid colored foals.  Here at Faithwalk Farm we believe that his overall quality and his ability to pass that on to his get is more important than his ability to produce color.  The word homozygous  means that there is a dominant gene for that color or color pattern.  A homozygous tobiano stallion will always produce foals with the tobiano pattern, not necessarily the same color as the parent but homozygous for the tobiano gene.    A mare OR a stallion may be homozygous.  To be homozygous, a horse has to inherit the pattern from both parents, meaning a horse with both parents spotted may be homozygous but it is not a guarantee.  The only true way to know if a horse is homozygous is to have a genetic test done by an equine laboratory. A horse with one solid parent and one spotted parent cannot possibly be homozygous because the gene has to be passed down from both parents.  Again, I am not a veterinarian or a genetic expert, this is only my opinion and what I have learned during the past 10 years of breeding horses.

There are four different types of spotted horses; tobiano, sabino, and overo.  In very simple terms; tobiano is a distinct pattern with white above the knee or hocks and white crossing over the line of the withers, overo has a solid color coat with white spots, socks, or stockings but no white crossing over the line of the withers, a sabino has less well defined spots, more like splotches of white and is often characterized by a wide white blaze, white under the bottom lip and may have glass/blue eyes.  A horse may have both the sabino and tobiano genes meaning that it has characteristics of both.  For more information on the spotted horses please visit the Spotted Saddle Horse website which is www.sshbea.com.