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EmpressIllyria — Naia Alii
Published: 2007-12-17 18:10:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 1210; Favourites: 35; Downloads: 20
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Description
This is Nai'a Ali'i the magical horse from a dream I had on Samhaine' 2003. She is a Kinolau (many bodied) spirit to the Dolphins of my homeland who shared with me a vision that changed my entire view of the world. Her name is "Nai'a; the wind on the water" the dancing blue horse of the sea.This piece is unfinnished, and I am thinking perhaps the story behind it will accompany it when the piece has come further along.
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Comments: 15
your equine art is astonishingly beautiful and elegant.
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Sorry, but Arabians don't come in cool colors like Blue Roan.. You better change it to a QH.
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Oh but HALF arabians do! I've got 3 of them!
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lol true, but half arabs are also half something else. Probably QH...
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Actually TWH and Welsh/Saddlebred (the QH brings downhill conformation and a heavy front end, that I was trying to avoid)
Since the Roan gene is dominant all you need is to get it from ONE parent, so my blue roan Half Arab girls will be able to throw blue roan 3/4 arabians out of an Arabian stallion in the next couple years.
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Oh yeah, and I don't agree with what you think happens to QH Arab crosses. I have a picture of a fresian qh cross, one that is amazing! Its very very slender, and to me looks almost thoroughbred-like, despite both breeds being "heavy". It really depends on the type of qh you use. Also.. Don't qh have a heavier hind end? They are sprinters, after all..
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I've seen some Blue roan QH/Fresisan crosses that were nice, and you are right there are different types of QH (depending on how breed typey they are, as well as how much TB is in there... a client of mine has a very nice Appendix mare, but she's pretty much 3/4 TB). Its not the "heavy" breed so much as the conformation. Fresians, despite being large boned and "heavy" are actually built uphill (upright through the neck and shoulder) and are ideal as far as angles go to what I want to achieve. They are designed to move UP and have very free shoulders and be light on the front. Unfortunately they also tend to be very goose rumped, but that is another matter entirely.
The QH, at least any respectably typey one, is built the opposite, as you point out they are sprinters and built to throw their weight forward rather than UP... they tend to be built down hill (i.e. heavy on the front end) and almost never have any kneeing action... example, you never see QHs in PARK or Saddleseat classes, they just arent built for it. Im sure there are some odd individuals out there who break the mold, but those rare individuals are either impossible to locate, or have some other issues about them that I'd hope to avoid.
I dont dismiss the breed entirely, if the opportunity to purchase the RIGHT HORSE came along then I'd take it no matter what, but again within the breed it would be a very RARE individual. Because just in general they are the opposite direction than the ideal goal as far as conformation and movement are concerned (color is only a very small part of the breeding goal). HALF QH has all kinds of possibilities, depending on what the other half is... and there is always the possibility of the "odd one out" but I dont discriminate based on the breed, it is simply that the general tendency of that breed is to have only a couple qualities that I am looking for, and to get those qualities out of breeding to them, generally comprimises everything else I am trying to produce. Im open to using the correct individual, but you must first encounter that rare individual.
I'd actually be open to a Roan Quaresian, Quarab, Quater/Welsh, Quarter/Saddlebred, or Azteca (Quarter/Andalusian or Lusitano) because potentially they would have a better shot to produce the ideal of my breeding program... infact I am open to purchasing the right individual of those crosses, but again... must locate the right animal, and thats not easily done.
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What is your opion on NSH and Georgian Grande? Or arabo Friso (arab/frisian)?
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I love both actually.
I have also had the pleasure of working with both in real life.
I do love Friesians, but in general they have some serious flaws, and "challenges". The biggest resulting from the fact that so many have a huge downhill balance: most people see the upright neck and high stepping and assume the horse is "uphill", but when you look at the withers and the way the hips balance against the shoulders, you notice many are Super heavy on the forehand and carry all their weight with the neck, they often drop behind the wither which disengages the hindquarters. In classical work this is a tremendous disadvantage, because you want the horse to do the opposite... You want the hind end engaged and carrying MORE weight to lighten the forehand and the horse to raise its back under you so that it feels like a coiled spring... Many Friesians struggle with this because of their body balance, as they were designed to be carriage horses who lean on their forehands to pull the carriage. Their body plan tends to be backward... They "fake their way through it" beautifully, but it breaks them down because it's not how most of them are made. There is more selection for a riding type these days, but most people don't understand the very basics of how the parts move and just breed for pretty and flashy. Many of them have freakishly long backs also.
The problem with the F1 (first generation crosses) is that you could get pretty much anything: there is no consistency.
Example: you breed the same parents 3 times and get one baby that takes after the sire, one that takes after the dam, and one that is a 50-50 split of their parts (this can be good OR NOT SOO good! We obviously hope for them to get the best parts of both parents, but it does not always work that way, sometimes you get the least desirable qualities of each parent) so there is always an element of luck involved. It is SUPPOSED to be a 50-50 deal, but quite often one parent will exert MORE influence on the baby than the other! The more HZ and line Bred the parent is, the more dominant their influence will be.
Another complicating factor is parent selection. You can't just breed ANY friesian to any saddlebred and get beautiful/useful offspring. Just like you can't just breed any ASB to any Arab to get a beautiful NSH. There are many F1 crosses that look like "an odd collection of moving parts" and the last thing you'd call them is beautiful. (I know of one specific example where everyone sees him and says "what's WRONG with him?" because none of his parts really seem fit together!)
I don't mean to sound negative, but many people don't seem to understand the basics and are flooding the market with "junk" horses that shouldn't have been bred because they have not really properly thought about what the individual animals merits are.
If care was taken in selecting animals who compliment eachother (i.e. the stallion is strong where the mare is weak and vise versa) and the horses are of basically similar body plans, the results CAN be truly stunning! But it takes a good eye for conformation, some pedigree knowledge, and some luck to make it worth while.
One of my clients hired me to design her an Arabo-Friesian, She gave me her laundry list of what she wanted. I looked at her horses and the horses available, and picked her a stallion that could give it to her. I have old photos of him in the gallery, his adult photos delivered on every promise his baby shots made!
(in spite of their differences in breed, the parents had similar body-plans: short backs, level to uphill balance, nice hip angles, good legs, etc. So it wasn't a selection of complete opposites. Also Glacier (the mare) was shorter in the neck, large headed, and not tightly bred (her pedigree suggested she wouldn't be super dominant in passing any specific quality along) the Stallion on the other hand had especially long limbs and neck, short back, super head, lots of hair, and not alot wrong, but he didn't have exciting action and very flat knees at the trot... His PEDIGREE on the other hand suggested he WOULD be extremely dominant in passing along his type! Generations of dominant traits (his great grand sire, Grand sire, and Sire on the top side of his pedigree are all FAMOUSLY consistent producers of a specific type, the bottom half of his pedigree was much the same, just less superlative in their tendencies) so he was very likely to be the dominant parent from his predigree
However a year later she sold his mom, and she was bred to a junk Arabian stallion and made a baby that was just genetic road kill (giant draft horse head 3 sizes too big for its body, short stumpy legs thick as tree trunks, bad pasterns, long daschund-like body, and a short low slung neck). The lady tha purchased her thought ANY Arabian would make a baby like Partone... Which simply isnt the case.
Thats a lot of thoughts there, but my feelings on Georgian Grandes an Arabo-Friesians are summed up with parent selection! Good ones DO happen "completely by accident" but usually a good one happens due to care in selecting the qualities of the parents to compliment eachother. There are really outstandingly good ones... But a far larger number of "UN-exceptional" ones also.
To be completely honest, (like I ever hold back right?) I actually prefer the crosses over the purebreds when it comes to Friesians most of the time. There are fantastic purebreds, but the majority of them tend to be slower, stiffer, and have a very difficult time using themselves properly (back balance). I like the racier crosses a good Arabo-friesian to my mind is superior in that they have "more gas in the tank", and the TB Friesian cross I have seen a couple of those I would take in a heart beat! I have seen couple GGs I liked also, but a generally the ASB has many of the same conformation issues as Friesians do, just lighter and hotter, so I'd be warry of them for that reason. If THE RIGHT one came along, I wouldn't hesitate to snatch it up, but that's a "graded by the individual" kind of thing.
That's just my general mode of thinking on them.
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Thats pretty neat. We were breeding some cool colors here too before we sold the mares. One of them was a tobiano paint with two blue eyes, blue eye-liner, red frosting on his mane and tail, and possibly even the red dun gene. he was amazing!
Then we had a dunalino, palamino with dun gene.. and also a smokey grullo, a black horse with one dilute gene and a dun gene! We sold both mares though, and the dunalino and tobiano colt (sadly) ;( But we kept my gelding and the smokey grullo colt! He is only 6 months old now.. you have probably seen pictures of all of them in my gallery. But I need to upload new pics of the grullo..
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you have a very, very interesting visual imagination. your should color it i guess, not very good at criticizing, all i can say is good job
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Why thank you so much, but she is actually colored as she should be, with the exception of her ice blue eyes... hmmm... that gives me an idea...
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They are the Marwari style ears that cross over the top of the head... they are pointing forward just behind the forelock (they sort of blend into it I suppose)
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