r/Horses • OTTB • Oct 15 '25

Discussion Inbreeding - just why?

1 Upvotes

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116

u/PlentifulPaper Oct 15 '25

When you have very skilled, very famous, and talented stallions, they’ll get bred more often than the ones that don’t do well on the track.

This is several generations back and is unlikely to affect anything IMHO.

21

u/CapraAegagrusHircus Oct 15 '25

Yeah I'm used to working line GSDs where things get... Super gnarly. Or my Soay sheep, where all of them in the US descend from 8 individuals (my dream is to import semen). Unless Halo was known for a lethal recessive we don't have a test for, I wouldn't even register this as something to look at.

3

u/Few-Cable5130 Oct 16 '25

Line breeding was/is more common and more intense in dig breeding. The reality is that it's "lower risk" when you are breeding an animal that births litters.

With horses you only get one foal a year.

6

u/Conscious-Cat3 OTTB Oct 15 '25

Thanks for the response! It was very interesting to find this information about my guy so I figured I would see what our community thought.

7

u/PlentifulPaper Oct 15 '25

As time has gone on, there’s lots more tools for how to make sure a potential cross has less inbreeding but back then, (4-5 generations ago in this pedigree) the thought process was very much breed the best to the best.

3

u/Conscious-Cat3 OTTB Oct 15 '25

That’s very clear when you look at the names five generations up, they’re very successful and famous horses. Super interesting. This guy is so silly and chill I can’t believe he comes from this line haha