In 1975 Gladys Brown Edwards, then a staff writer for Arabian Horse World magazine, selected six photos of stallions she felt had good legs, to educate her readers. These were of varied lines-one was Gainey breeding, another more than half Egyptian. Two were sons of *Bask++. One was a *Serafix grandson whose maternal granddam was imported from Poland and another was a successful 3/4 Polish racehorse.

A scan of this page appeared recently in several Facebook groups.

One of the reasons I found this group of horses with good legs so interesting is that most of them have few to no modern descendants. Hard evidence that in recent years good legged horses are harder to find because many of the past have not bred down. When I mention "bred on into modern lines" I am referring to horses born in 2000 or later who have these stallions in their pedigrees. Many of the after 2000 born horses have not bred on themselves yet and are unlikely to do so.

Here is information on each stallion's descendants-please note I did not count Half-Arabians in my statistics on modern descendants.

O-Monsoon++ (Ferzon x Al-Marah Alert) was a 1974 Canadian Top Ten Stallion and a performance champion. He sired 38 registered get-15 of them had progeny. Just two horses born 2000 or after have a line to him in their pedigrees.

Picasso (Paesano x Carousella). Picasso died at age 10. He sired 32 registered purebred get. Four won National titles in halter, reining, english pleasure, informal combination and native costume. 19 of his get have progeny. Only two horses born 2000 or after have a line to him in their pedigrees. A real loss for the breed.

Ofir (*Witez II x Tiara). Ofir was a successful racehorse in the early days of Arabian racing in America. He sired 57 registered get, 35 of whom had registered offspring. 144 horses born after 2000 trace to him through 34 of these offspring. One of his daughters, Ambir (x *Ambara) is the maternal granddam of US National Champion Stallion Almaden, so I did not calculate Ofir descent through him as there would be a huge number of horses. Ofir's sire line is now extinct, one of its final representatives was U.S. National Champion Hunter Hack and Reserve National Champion Green Working Hunter Tru Blue Gabriel+++//. Had Ofir not sired Ambir, he would have had a small number of modern descendants.

Hallany El Ajzaa (Hallany Mistanny x Co-Coquette), a halter champion, had just 13 registered get. Four of his get had progeny of their own. There are just 9 horses born 2000 or later who have a line to him.

JLR Sur Bask (*Bask++ x Surraneyna) was a halter champion who died at age seven. He sired 25 registered get, 16 had progeny of their own. Only 8 horses born after 2000 trace to him. He was the grandsire of U.S. Top Ten Pleasure Driving AOTD and Natice Costume Silver Caisson. Bold Destiny+/ (*Bask x *Gwyn) was a 1986 Canadian Top Ten Western Pleasure winner. He was the gandsire of Kimiko+/, who had 4 National titles in western pleasure and western sidesaddle and was the dam of a Reserve National Champion in western pleasure. Bold Destiny+/ is found four generations back in the pedigree of 25 time National winner Kaiserin++//, a Half-Arabian who has multiple Reserve National Champion titles in working hunter and Top Ten titles in hunter hack, sport horse under saddle and sport horse in hand. Bold Destiny+/ sired 96 registered get. 45 of them had offspring, but there are just 36 purebreds born after 2000 who trace to him.

So here we have them-six well-bred stallions, correctly conformed, who, with one exception, have not influenced the breed in modern times. I spoke in an earlier blog about the narrowing of the gene pool. Here we have a prime example of horses who were good enough to breed forward and yet have not.