Courageous Equestrian

Junicorn x Witch Hat Atelier

Prompt 11: blood bay (ft. Easthies)

UK horse ads: so sorry to trouble you, but if anyone can help find a home for a lovely schoolmaster - perfect mother/daughter share and ladies’ hunter (picture of enchanting horse decorously jumping 1m at Olympics) we would be terribly grateful - please do bring your vet; the horse comes with full MOT, all previous owners have provided references, all vet visits logged in a binder, horse has British Sign Language qualification. (Video of horse doing dressage, filing taxes, and responding graciously to a difficult interview) Has been jumped, hacked, dressed at highest levels (video of most beautiful horse in the world gently taking a toddler to their dance recital) Rides and drives. Holds defensive driving license. Asking £5000 - so sorry.

Girl your suspensory ligaments are so stretchy you would be put down for lameness at age 15 if you weren't already genetically destined to die from sudden aortic rupture or aspiration pneumonia at age 10

Anyways did you know that Friesian horses can carry congenital dwarfism (osteochondrodysplasia) and that a lot of owners don't care to test their horses' genes before breeding them. Because friesians are already so inbred, and because the KFPS cares more about preserving the racial purity of friesians than creating healthy animals by outcrossing, it's virtually impossible to remove from the genepool anyways

You rarely see friesians with dwarfism though because they tend to be culled at birth, and also throwing dwarfism into the mix of hydrocephalus, megaesophagus, aortic rupture, compressed veins, tendon laxity, hypersensitive skin, chronic dermatitis, eye irritation from distichiasis, and immune deficiency does not tend to be compatible with life. Which is funny because, for a long time, mares with dwarfism were used as broodmares if they survived to sexual maturity, which only helped bake this issue into the DNA of the breed.

the majority of the population is IN the netherlands. you can't blame KFPS and its breeders for what unregistered breeders do. KFPS requires testing, and fines risk pairings. so KFPS *and* her registered breeders DO care about dwarfism.

i am not disagreeing that it's time to add in new blood (carefully, like certain dog breeds have shown before, well thought-out outcrossing), and the KFPS are looking into that as well. there are various ongoing studies right now with various research universities (WUR being one) where they are testing the majority of the population and running simulations and more. they are still, every day, trying to identify more issues, where they originated from, and what is the best way forward.

do i agree with them not opening studbooks now? no, but they are unfortunately not the only studbook suffering bad inbreeding (QH, TB, Welsh, Clydes, for some examples) that are not yet opening. so i'm unsure why the conversation is always only reduced to friesians. it's a global horse-breed issue, really. some worse than others. but every "pure" breed, faces this to a degree, and some are not worse than friesians... afaik there are studies that show iirc clyde's are even higher (if i'm not mistaken, it's been years).

however, i am responding to your claim about dwarfism and that is simply not entirely true. unregistered friesians aren't worth that much in this part of the world, and many people are passionate about their preservation also for cultural/heritage reasons (whether you agree with it, or not) and so it seems to me that the not-testing is something that you are facing elsewhere. i'm not saying it doesn't happen here AT ALL, before that claim is made, but that the numbers are exponentially lower.

“umamusume irl” 36x36 oil on canvas

Year of the horse

i thought id make a little infographic on the difference between mules and hinnies! i tried making it as simple as possible 😅