Pedigreeing Your Model Arabian

The Ancient and Glorious

(Pedigreeing Your Model Arabian)

by Coreada Kelly

Pedigree Assignment is one of the most-often misunderstood aspects of the model horse hobby. Outsiders just can’t understand how we “breed” model horses, and even some hobbyists aren’t sure what exactly goes on with PA. Even those who are familiar with the idea of assigning pedigrees to a model might not know all the ins and outs (after all, who knows EVERYTHING about anything?), or might not know where to begin their research. I hope this article might help you to:

Decide whether to establish your own Arabian breeding program

Decide whether you want your models to be foundationbred, modelbred, or a combination thereof

Learn where and how to research pedigrees

Refine what you hope to achieve with your Arabian breeding program.

So let’s get started! First off, a quick explanation. Pedigree Assignment is the act of establishing a pedigree and identification for your model—often referred to among hobbyists as breeding. With Arabians, this can be as easy (there are a lot of pictures and materials available concerning real Arabs and model Arabs for hire; it is often easy to find) or as complicated (are you going to breed straight Egyptian? Pure Polish? Al Khamsa? Are you going to breed pure in strain?), as you wish. It is up to you how deeply involved in your model’s pedigree and background you wish to become!

You'll need to decide whether you want your models to be foundationbred, modelbred, a combination, or if you're just going to make up names for parents and leave it at that. The latter choice-- imaginary pedigrees, if you will-- are not respected throughout the hobby and ultimately give you nothing as far as possible genotype or phenotype to build from. And if you plan to stand your Arabians to the public, you may well have a hard time of it, as most serious PAers don't like imaginary pedigrees. They want a pedigree that's well researched, with estabished generations of real and/or model horses. This is not to say that you can't just make up names to use, but consider what your goal is with PA before making that choice. As for the other options:

Foundationbred refers to models with real horses up close in their pedigrees.

Modelbred-- well, have a guess. :) Modelbred models have models for the first several generations of their pedigrees.

Most serious PAers, in my experience, tend to pedigree their foundation stock with real parents, then breed from those models-- so their first couple of "foal crops" and all their foundation horses are foundationbred, with later generations of models being modelbred from those foundationbred beginnings. Got it? Good. So decide how you want to pedigree your herd, and proceed accordingly. :)

The easiest way to assign a pedigree to your model is to send away for other hobbyists’ sire/dam lists. You can also browse through real Arabian magazines, finding parents that you like and assigning them to your models. If you wish to incorporate a healthy amount of realism, make sure that your chosen parents can produce a foal the color and age of your model (a stallion should be at least three when his first foal is born, and a mare should be four or five when she drops her first foal). Some hobbyists take the extra step of making sure the mare was actually open that year, and could have theoretically produced their foal.

In browsing through real horse publications or some model information, you may run into the words "linebreeding," inbreeding," and "outcrossing." In case you aren't familiar with these terms, here's some quick definitions:

Linebreeding is a form of inbreeding, but in its more conservative state. It produces slower improvements in a line, with a more limited chance of producing undesirable traits.

Inbreeding is a father crossed onto his daughter, mother crossed with her son, or brother crossed on sister. And no, there is no moral stigma attached to such breedings-- this is, of course, what happens in wild horse herds when a stallion winds up breeding his own get. However, it does produce a higher risk of winding up with undesirable traits, as this is the quickest way of establishing a "type" or "look" in a breeding program-- basically, the good stuff is magnified, but so is the bad. It is also a way to test a sire; breed him to some of his own daughters, and get a better idea of the heterozygous genes he may have "hidden" in him. The best comparison of linebreeding and inbreeding I have seen was: "Inbreeding establishes a type, linebreeding sets and preserves it." (Arabian Horse World, May 1997)

Outcrossing is the breeding of two unrelated horses within the same breed. "Unrelated," in this sense, means that the sire and dam do not have the same horse appearing more than once or twice in the first close generations of its pedigree. Foals are not as consistent with outcrossing, as there is a wider variety of genes to pull from, but it can be a big help in keeping the gene pool from being *too* crowded. And if either sire or dam is itself an inbred or linebred horse, then he or she will exert more influence on the resulting foal.

Color genetics can be complicated, but thankfully with Arabians, we are at least somewhat limited with the kinds of color modifiers that are found in the breed! Arabs can be black, bay, gray, or chestnut; in addition, they can also have the rabicano (a miminal roan pattern) or sabino (a very minimal pinto pattern, often seen as high white socks and extensive blazes, sometimes with a small splash of white on the belly-- Khemosabi is the most famous example) genes. To be on the safe side, make sure at least one of your chosen parents is the same color as your foal. But some basic genetic information includes:

A gray horse must have a gray parent.

Two chestnuts will produce a chestnut.

Chestnut can "hide." It is recessive, and therefore can hang around in the background-- for instance, a black horse can carry the gene for chestnut, since the black gene "masks" chestnut; you breed that black horse to another black horse who also carries chestnut, and whammo-- chestnut foal from two black horses.

Sabino is thought to be dominant, but I have seen information to dispute this; and rabicano is often listed as dominant, but rabicanos have been produced from solid parents. The upshot is, we don't even know how much we don't know about genetics. Again, if you want to be perfectly safe, always have one parent the same color as the resulting foal.

And please, pleasepleasePLEASE-- ***NO*** PALOMINO ARABIANS!!!!! Palomino absolutely, positively does not exist in the Arabian breed. Trust me. No matter what you saw in a magazine, or a stud flyer, or even *in person*-- there are NO palomino Arabians. Only very, very pale chestnuts. PERIOD. Thank you. :)

Here is a description of my journey into pedigree assignment; perhaps seeing how I arrived at my choices will help you make yours. When I got back into the model horse hobby after a several-year hiatus, I decided that I would pedigree all of my models as straight Egyptians. Egyptian Arabians are those purebreds who trace to horses owned or bred by Abbas Pasha I or Ali Pasha Sherif, the Royal Agricultural Society or Egyptian Agricultural Organization (excluding Registan and Sharkasi), or a private stud program in Egypt (such as the Sheykh Obeyd stud owned by the Blunts). Like many of the people who love Arabians, part of the immortal appeal of the breed is the romance surrounding their ancient and legendary origins. For me, the Egyptian Arabians offer even more of that almost mysterious romance. I have done some studying of Egypt—in fact, in college I took a course in Egyptian hieroglyphics-- so it already was a culture and land that interested me (in no small part, of course, because of the horses!). The mythology of the Nile, the grandeur of the pyramids, the silent knowingness of the Sphinx-- all of these seemed somehow connected with the lost origins of the Arabian.

Then, in an issue of Arabian Horse World, I saw a picture of an Egyptian Arabian farm. The horses wandered green pastures, and in the background, silent sentinel to the horses and the ages, stood the pyramids.

I had once written a poem (posted elsewhere on this site) about an Arabian saying she had grown tall and proud in the shadows of the pyramids. I had spoken metaphorically, but here were Arabians doing exactly that! And that was the beginning of my fascination with and admiration of the Egyptian Arabian. Egyptians also tend toward the refinement and body type I prefer. They are, in my opinion, exceptional animals-- Egyptians make up less than 2% of the Arabians registered in the US, yet they hold 30% of the National titles-- so it was a good match all around!

I also decided to make my models foundationbred. I intended to assign pedigrees to all of my old OF models, then use them to pedigree my future OFs and customs. As it turns out, my efforts to make them all straight Egyptians were both difficult and fun! I enjoyed the research, but it is definitely not for the squeamish! Egyptian-related will be much simpler for those of you who prefer it; but if you want to stick to straight Egyptian, and you have a lot of horses to pedigree, prepare yourself for a lot of hours of research!

I began by dissecting two years' worth of Arabian Horse World magazines. These were not consecutive years; one set was from 1987 and the other covered late '96 to '97. I used horses from the '87 magazines to pedigree my older breeding stock, and horses from the '96-97 mags for the younger models. Oftentimes ads would state whether a stallion was straight Egyptian or not; if I wasn't sure, I would hold the horse's picture aside until I found further proof. A tip here: if you want to use a horse but you aren't sure he's straight Egyptian (or any other type!), look for ads featuring his offspring. If the offspring are touted as pure or straight in type, you're all right!

Mares are a special case. "At stud" ads are easy to find, but good (real) breeding mares are notoriously difficult to locate (and find pedigrees for). I found several mares to use from articles, rather than ads (the Egyptian issues of AHW came in really handy here, too!). An article on Imperial and another on Ansata really helped.

In addition to the magazines, I had also contacted the Pyramid Society for information (this had nothing to do with models-- I will hopefully be shopping for a real horse within the next year or so). Part of the packet of information they sent me included a great magazine-format book on Egyptians, which also proved invaluable.

The internet was another priceless fount of knowledge. There are a multitude of web pages devoted to Arabians, and quite a few which deal solely with Egyptians. Here I found a wonderful article about establishing an Egyptian breeding program. While much of it obviously doesn't apply to *model* Arabians, I was surprised at how much of it could be adapted. The article listed eight steps towards establishing your program, which are:

Identify your ideal.

Feel the passion.

Identify the source.

Learn about conformation.

Choose your "Signature Look."

Search for individuals.

Create the foundation herd.

Breed judiciously and objectively.

Obviously step #8 doesn't apply directly to model horses, though as "breeders" we may take our pedigree assignments very seriously-- carefully blending lines and strains that we think in live horses would produce outstanding individuals-- but the other seven can be applied completely to models.

These are the steps I tried to follow as I pedigreed my models. I identified my ideal-- the Egyptian. More specifically, I'm a headhunter who strongly believes that a pretty head on a lousy body is a waste! An Arab should be a blend of all the things-- beauty, type, agility, grace, strength, endurance, soundness-- that make the Arabian the incomparable breed that it is. Identifying the source led me to the EAO, Ansata, and Imperial, as well as choosing a couple of stallions from Simeon, Kehilan, and a few other places. The main influence on my program was clear to me: Moniet El Nefous, Queen of the EAO. She appears in almost every one of my horses' pedigrees.

The next step for me was assignment-- actually picking out which models should be assigned which real parents. I made most of my OFs as old as I could, since I intend to use many of them (especially the mares) for quite some time. Don't be afraid to make your models older! One of my mares, in fact, is pedigreed 1966. My intent is to use the mares as long as I need them to produce new "offspring"-- any Ofs I acquire from here on out as well as my own CMs-- and to retire the stallions when I have offspring to carry on their lines (with a particular effort to breed daughters from them). That way I have a nice base of bloodlines to work with, but eventually will have a reasonable number of stallions to choose from in comparison to my number of mares-- you just don't need that many stallions when you're not standing to outside models!

One thing in particular that someone pedigreeing their models as Egyptians must be aware of-- most Egyptians are incredibly linebred to Nazeer. I have a couple of horses that have only one or two crosses to him, and a small pool of vital non-Nazeer blood. Nazeer was a fine stallion, but concentrating lines like that also concentrates any flaws present; and you have to watch legs on Nazeer-intensive Arabians. (Hence the Gassir blood also mixed into my "pool"....)

After I got the models pedigreed, I filled out pedigree forms for each of them with as much information as I had. I used the magazines and the internet for this (it's amazing the number of pedigrees you can pull up on the net by searching for Moniet or *Morafic!). I still have some blanks, but I keep an ever-vigilant eye out for pedigrees! (I believe my proudest pedigree assignment "moment" came when I finally finished my two first customs since I dropped out of the hobby years ago-- and filled out their pedigree forms. They are the first models I've been able to fill out complete forms for-- I have complete pedigrees on them going back five generations.) I slid these pedigree forms into sheet protectors and put them all into three-ring binders (one binder for mares, one for stallions, and one for retired bloodstock). Behind each form is a sheet with that horse's production information-- offspring and color genetics (noting which colors that horse can produce). This way I can see at a glance a mare's open years, and whether that model can produce the color I need.

This all was, as I'm sure it sounds, an awful lot of time and trouble, but filling in those blanks on a pedigree form can be incredibly rewarding! And, until I decide to add new blood, the "hard part" is finished-- now I know that every horse I pedigree from my own models will trace to real horses, and be straight Egyptian. Now all I have to do is finish the couple dozen models I have planned!

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