I suspect I’m more aware of equine pedigrees than your average rider, but of our half a dozen horses, the only one for whom I can remember both the sire and dam is the one we bred. Still, I can’t remember the name of his dam’s sire. And we have no idea of the pedigree of the horse I ride now–the best horse I’ve ever owned or ridden–even though he is a Thoroughbred, because his papers disappeared sometime before he came into our lives and he has no tattoo.

Why can so few of us remember or interpret our horses’ pedigrees? Partly because it’s so hard. So many stallions, so many breeds, all over the country and the world. And who could keep track of all those mares?

Plus, when you go to look at horses, you rarely bother to ask about pedigree, mostly because you’re pretty sure the seller won’t know it, unless he or she is the breeder. Few people believe that the sire and dam make much difference since so many factors go into a horse’s ability as a hunter, jumper, dressage horse, event horse, driving horse or endurance horse. And, even if you know the sire and his qualities, the chances of knowing anything about the mare are about equal to a snowball’s in hell, even though the mare makes such a difference to the foal’s temperament. Often, in these sports, a horse’s life experiences before you get him can have at least as big an effect on him as his breeding.

The lack of credence we sport horse people give to pedigree’s effect on performance is 180 degrees from the Thoroughbred racing world. There, nothing counts but how many races (or how much money) a stallion or mare’s progeny have won. Unfortunately, few care about soundness or whether the foals bleed while they’re winning.

Correlating pedigree with performance just hasn’t been a part of U.S. sport horse culture for the last 30 years or so, although it was for the old-time horsemen. The major reason is that tracking performance has ranged from nearly impossible to hit or miss, because until less than a decade ago no national organization’s leaders considered it a priority. So breeders began to emphasize other things–color, type, breed and size.

Over the last 20 years or so, the U.S. sport-horse breeding industry has undergone a rather remarkable evolution that’s still very much going on. American breeders have either imported or bred some top-quality warmblood, draft-cross and Thoroughbred stallions and mares. Consequently, the industry is no longer wholly reliant on rejects from the Thoroughbred racing world, although it’s certainly possible and often desirable to use Thoroughbred mares, and you can find a couple of dozen really good Thoroughbred stallions, including Spectacular Bid, to breed to your mare. Breeders around the country are producing young sport horses with every bit of the quality you’d find if you went to Germany, the Netherlands or New Zealand.

The trick now is educating American horse buyers about what types of horses the many sire and dam lines produce. And it wouldn’t hurt for breeders to fully understand the needs and desires of the market for which they’re producing horses and the lines that will produce those qualities. I suspect that any breeder who can find a reliable “amateur” or “three-foot” nick will become a millionaire.

Of course, as author Kathie Mautner points out amusingly on p. 22, we’re often left to wonder if all that planning and preparation really matters in breeding. Maybe it really is all just a genetic crapshoot.