*Update* Horse Vent

Thanks guys for your input! I totally understand that if i wanted the papers i should have asked for them when i bought Fee. Its really not a big deal, but i would just like to know her parentage out of curiosity. I have tired working with the registry they have pretty much havn't offered to do anything for me. The last owner used the same vet as me, but i can see if they have any thing on the previous owners.

welsummerchicks, thank you for your post! Fiona is an Irish Sport Horse, which is Irish Draught x TB (or some other type of light horse). Just so you weren't thinking she was an Irish Draught
 
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She looks like a really nice little mare....Anyway, and I'm sure you have heard this a million times....When you buy a horse, goat,calf,dog,ANYTHING....If you aren't handed the papers at the conclusion of the transaction, you must assume that the horse/dog/calf/goat is unregistered and be OK with the fact....But if you actually bought the animal because of its conformation, and not its paperwork, then it should make no difference. Finding the lineage of ANY animal is a difficult process, without a tattoo, brand, or some other ID mark. Sometimes animals are intentionally sold without identification marks just so the new owners CANNOT ever register it...Or more likely the new owners can then turn around and sell it for a profit after "registering it"...Retro registration of horses can get REALLY expensive....especially if the horse never appeared on a stallion report in the first place.
 
I do not think you're going to have any luck at all, unless maybe you can somehow put the right word in the right ear to sweet-talk someone into giving you some behind-the-scenes information.

Would not surprise me at all if she were NOT, in fact, a registered Irish Draft, unless she's maybe just 18 months old in that pic.

But even if she is, I would estimate that it is approximately "impossible" for you to ever ever get those papers. Even if you could find a living, locateable individual who was for sure the last registered owner, which is pretty unlikely to happen, you would then need to fork over a buncha money to GET the papers.

She looks like an enjoyable horse. Enjoy her. Do not be thinking about getting into sporthorse breeding unless you have a LOT of money that you find yourself unable to get rid of by any other means... it is a total money pit. You know the adage about how to make a small fortune with horses (answer: start with a *large* fortune)? Well, it's especially true of this "my trainer says she's wonderful so if I could buy her papers and then breed her to the right stallion and then raise up the foal..." thing. Seriously!

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
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The OP said she is an Irish sport horse, I believe. Probably makes it a bit more difficult to track down the papers since you'll have to look at the sport horse registry rather than a breed registry!
 
Well if she can not get the parent's DNA, can you DNA what type of breed?

It is like researching your family roots, you either can hit the jackpot or it is impossible to find (if you were adopted). All depends on how persisent and determined you are.
 
Whoops, thanks for correcting me!
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I still don't see Irish Sporthorse all *that* much, though (at least not above the knees), again unless the horse is still pretty young. Of course all breeds throw some somewhat-atypical individuals.

For curiosity's sake, really your only recourse is the grapevine. Although then of course there is still the problem of knowing who to believe, since if you ask five horse people what happened in a particular transaction, you will often get six different stories <g>

Good luck, enjoy her,

Pat
 
Thanks guys, Yeah, im aware about the breeding, but if i were to breed her she would have to be an amazing 3rd level horse or do really well in exebitions that i would breed the foal to be my next horse. Again im talking years down the line.

Any ways, i emailed the secretary at the vets office asking if she could look up and see how manny of Fiona's owners used the vet. As far as getting the papers its not *That* big of a deal, even i if i couldnt get the papers i would love to at latest know her lineage, because i find all that stuff interesting! I also feel like there is some mystery of her past so i just want to look into it some more, i just think its interesting!
 
Celtic,

Just a thought for you. I know you love your horse... but the cost of breeding, raising the foal, waiting till its old enough to back, training costs...vet costs for all those years...feed bill, shots.. blah blah blah...
Look for another irish sport horse prospect, you will likely find one much cheaper than raising a foal off of Fee. Let her be a great horse for you, enjoy her as your mount, and trusted friend and rise up through
the ranks of which ever sport you like.
But when going for the next horse, you can find one ready to start being trained for saddle, far cheaper than raising one in today's economic world.

JMHO.
Carol
 
"It depends"

I didn't want to be the johnny raincloud, but since you started....

We wanted to breed our mare when we thought we'd have to retire her early. We would have had to have her stall torn out and built a foaling stall (twice as big as a regular stall), fence in separate pastures for mare and weanling, and get rid of our other horse to have room to keep the weanling. The stallions we liked were about two thousand dollars a straw - no live foal guarantee. It's off as she recovered from her injury...but the vet warned us - after not being bred for years while being ridden...we'd have a hard time getting her in foal. A real hard time. Our pastures aren't really big enough and our property isn't really big enough to get the foal completely weaned, and we would have had to replace ALL our fencing with foal/weanling/yearling safe fencing.

You're younger and healthier, but my old carcass was not exactly looking forward to living through the three or so years it takes another baby sport horse to learn to be civilized. Well bred young sport horses are NOT LIKE ANYTHING ELSE. They have a very higly developed sense of humor, and they think things are funny that you don't think are funny, let me just leave it at that.

If you have your own farm, with plenty of big pastures, all with foal safe fences and weaning, yearling and 2 year old safe grazing (and fencing), and some other weanlings to keep the foal company after it's weaned, the costs are lower. Foals, yearlings and 2 year olds are about like wild animals. Fencing is crucial. Otherwise you're looking at boarding your weanling/yearling/2 year old at a breeding farm while it grows up. Expensive.

Even with that, though, you have to take into account various other johhny raincloud type possibilities:

1. Getting the mare in foal (especially after using them for performance, ie, not having them carry a foal for some years). Not all mares are that easy to get in foal. That means veterinary help from a reproductive type vet, and that sort of work is not cheap. It usually means getting a mare cultured and cleaned out all the time before she has the foal, and some mares will need a caslix procedure to keep their reproductive organs in good condition. It can run more than a couple thousand to get some mares in foal. My friend got her mare in foal for ten thousand dollars. Not to be a Johnny raincloud or anything...

2. Getting a foal you want to do dressage with. Not all horses, even from top dressage bloodlines, actually are suited to go up the levels in dressage. Sometimes they grow up bigger than you want, or hotter than you want, or more lethargic than you want or they have poor conformation. Sometimes they're born with crooked legs, and they don't straighten up.

A lot of people would say, if you don't have your own farm, with foal-safe pastures and fences, buy your next horse rather than trying to raise it.

Even if you start with a 3 year old, you need one more crucial element...someone to guide you in the training of the horse.
 
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