Ah, the joys of second guessing yourself and starting a heated internal debate lol

The question? To Cloud or not to Cloud:

Clouded Judgement

Can someone help me with making a horse thats better in dressage and trot but with the breed of thoroughbred?

A Peruvian Paso or Lusitano would probably be the best cross for increasing trot and dressage, and if you want to keep the horse a thoroughbred, make sure that it is either more than 50% thoroughbred or that its sire is a thoroughbred (in a 50/50 cross a horse will take the breed of its sire).
I hope that helps!

What Tebizele said.

If you decide to try more than a 50/50 split, I have a number of cross studs that you might be interested in getting a cover from to help boost that trot and dressage for you while still keeping your dominant breed as TB. I try to limit my studs' public covers to a max of 10, and to 15-20 or so covers total. Helps keep sales and comps in check. Message me if interested, and I'll send you more info and pricing.

Disaster's Jamboree
25% even 4-way Lipizzan, Friesian, Lusitano, PSH
Trot 1337.07
Dressage 2217.50

Disco Fever
25% even 4-way PSH, Lipizzan, Friesian, Lusitano
Trot 1337.80
Dressage 2218.46

Calling Kettle Black
50% / 50% Friesian / Gypsy Vanner
Trot 1371.17
Dressage 2199.90

4 UR Own Goode
50% / 50% Appaloosa / TWH
Trot 1606.39
Dressage 1813.64

These days I rarely cloud horses unless I aim to place in the top three for Grand Prix. It gets too expensive.

Nice cross, and I like your coat and background combo, too

Hi guys!

I'm getting back into the game after a long time away...

Super happy with this mare: Lyra . She's 2nd in speed for her breed! Super exciting.

I'm just really lost as to what to breed her to... I think ideally an equal 4-way cross with no Selle and with complementary skill distribution. However of course that's impossible to find lol. I'm aiming for Holsteiner dominant and high speed/dressage.

Any ideas??

Take a look at KWPN, Hanoverian, Shetland, and Newfoundland. Maybe even Australian Pony and/or Morgan.

Holsteiner x KWPN x Hano x Shetland as a 4-way to cross on to her might work out well. They'd give you a bit of a GP boost and still keep that Jump, Dressage, and Speed pretty high.

And just FYI, I haven't asked the top Hano team for a cover in a long time, but their page still says that they are top GP cross cover friendly. Most of those crossfriendly teams are happy to help if you just shoot them a polite message about it.

If you end up wanting to incorporate any Australian Pony or Newfoundland, I have studs I'd be happy to give covers from above currently listed sales. You might find other studs giving covers at higher GP's, but if not, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message. My Australian Pony purebred stud is 8386.80 GP and my Newfoundland purebred stud is 8589.67 GP. Both are 100 BLUP and fully bolded.

Thanks Fivinyn!! Lots of good ideas and I'll make sure to shoot you a message if I need to.

One more question... what happened here??

Selle??

I crossed two 50/50 Holsteiner/Selle, Holsteiner dominant horses and got a Selle. Is this randomized or is there a "recipe"? I'm still hoping to have a chance at getting a Holsteiner out of this cross... if impossible I wasted a Bolt on the sire...

In instances of breeding two horses who share the same percentage of the same breeds I've found that the foal will take the dam's last listed breed, which is the Selle. Since your foal is a filly with Holseiner listed last you can breed that to its sire and should get Holsteiner.

Might want to breed a test foal if you want to be sure before blupping or using Tears or anything

Thanks Ann, a test foal is a great idea... I'll experiment a bit. We will see what happens lol

I personally would try Holstiener/TB/Hano/Lusi. Or swap out the Lusi for a Lipizzan. That cross by itself would be a good one.

Does anybody have an opinion on a Vanner/TB/QH cross in regards to reining rosettes and prix? It seems like a cross that might work very well.

GV/TB is already a great reining cross. If you go for 50% vanner, 25% QH, 25% TB, that could also be good. Or if you want an even 25% cross, add in another high stamina breed to balance out the mediocre stamina of QH. QHs are a bit behind the others in Genetic Potential, mind you, which could be a problem for higher level comps.

So I bred my mystery Selle filly back to her sire and.... success!!!

Vega

She's topping the Holsteiner rankings just had to have a bit of a boast hehe

Gatlin - that does sound like an interesting combination. I'll take a look...

i have two questions here guys

so first question, can you "breed out" a cross breed and make them pure again by breeding the cross and its foals with the same consistent breed or no?

also i want to breed a horse that would excel in western events because ive only got English horses and i cant find any decent horses in the sales

No, it's not possible. The foals will always have a tiny % of the other breed.



Start by picking a breed you would like to include, or pick a competition type. For reference, here's the skills used by different western events:

Cutting
Primary: Stamina
Secondary: Dressage, Speed

Western Pleasure
Primary: Trot
Secondary: Stamina, Dressage

Reining
Primary: Gallop
Secondary: Dressage, Stamina

Trail Class
Primary: Dressage
Secondary: Trot, Jumping

Barrel Race
Primary: Speed
Secondary: Stamina, Gallop

I was trying to recreate an old cross I liked, but I forgot a breed and ended up with this horse. She has great IBS and I put arms on her before I realized my mistake. Any suggestions for what to do with her? Would anyone like a foal from her, after she is blupped?

She will be good in low-level breed-only Barrel Racing and Western Pleasure and high-level Reining. As for English, I don't see any comps she would excel in.

She would definitely be a good Western Comp horse.

Breeding-wise, I am not sure. I always just play around and see what I get.

After my top knab uni threw 2 unis which were useless for my new project she finally threw me a deliberate fail....

Now to make some lovely knab-stangs.

I am new to the idea of cross breeding, but after seeing the possiblility of making an awesome competition horse, the idea is growing on me. As a general rule, are 50/50 crosses better, or 25/25/25/25 for the desired skills?

There really isn't a rule as it depends on the skill set you want, the horses you have access to to obtain that skill set, , or if you want the foal to be a certain breed. For example, if you want a horse for gallop rosettes, you can get by with just breeding a high GP TB to a high GP Appy since the GP is available for each pretty readily.

Now, awhile back when I wanted a horse to boost my trail comp and have it set for Knabs only, I had to use about 3 breeds to get the skill set I wanted because the public GP for Knabs was lower than what I needed.

I always do the calculations beforehand so I know what genetics I'm getting before I even breed my horses, and I can input different horses to see which combos will give me what I want.
Genetics of the foal=( dam's GP+sire's GP)/2
You can do that for overall genetics, or each individual one. It'll just give you a rough idea because that does not take the random factor or gain into account

What is crossbreeding about?