new to shetlands

[Knighthawke]

I am looking at purchasing a shetland gelding. He is aspc reg and only 37 inches. Can I hardship him amhr?

Second question. You always hear of people talking about dwarfs in the mini world. And I know a lot of shetlands were used for foundation stock and stayed small enough to be miniature horse size. But do shetlands have as much problems with dwarfs?

 

[afoulk]

If the gelding is actually 3 years old (actual birthdate) and only measures 37 inches then yes you could hardship him into AMHR by having a steward measure with a judge witnessing and paying the appropriate fees. I cannot really answer the dwarfism question however, I have not heard of this problem in the shetland breed.

Arlene

 

[JWC sr.]

You will enjoy your pony, they are great horses. As far as the dwarf gene is concerned, so far according to John Eberth he has not had a documented case of dwarfs in shetlands.

Good luck and have fun,

 

[~Lisa~]

You will enjoy your pony, they are great horses. As far as the dwarf gene is concerned, so far according to John Eberth he has not had a documented case of dwarfs in shetlands.
Good luck and have fun,

If this is the case then I guess it is not a true fact that minis came from Shetlands - if minis were all just shetlands called midget ponies and then Miniature horses then it would be factual that the dwarf gene came from Shetlands. Granted I am sure in Shetlands they were not used for breeding like many of the orginal "breeders and founders" of the miniature horse chose to do. I have never understood how it can be both ways lol

That said Welcome I to am rather new to ponies. I have a classic and a Modern - Pleasure-personality wise I do not find them much different then the minis or any other breed for that matter if your pony is 37 inches at the withers then yes you should be able to hardship him into AMHR no problem

 

[txminipinto]

The issue with dwarves in minis is the result of inbreeding to produce short/mutated horses. IF shetland breeders today, decided to breed down their stock the same way we would produce dwarves due to too many closely related genes. Miniatures have a mix heritage of shetlands and flabellas and the resulting inbreeding produced the dwarf gene (at least from my understand, John Eberth is definately the expert!).

Regardless, welcome to the Pony World!! Once you go shetland, you never go back!

 

[JWC sr.]

There were a number of influences to make the original miniatures as far as horse types go and the dwarf gene which is present in a lot of horse breeds was intensified by the in-breeding (line breeding) of certain bloodlines over the years. The smaller a horse was back in the early days the more expensive they were.

The production of a dwarf is the result of both parents carrying the gene for that specific type of dwarfism of which there are four known at this time in horses. So with continued repeat breeding of certain bloodlines the chances were intensified with each successive breeding to manifest itself.

You will be surprised to find out the known carriers as some of the top names in the industry are known carriers. Currently John has testing for 3 of the 4 types and it is just a matter of a few more tweaks to the genome for him to be able to reliable test for all four.

When that happens I personally believe you will see the biggest shakeup in breeding practices that the miniature industry has ever seen. And is why I am in favor of leaving open the registry to allow new blood to continue to strengthen the gene pool of the miniature world.

As far as never going back to miniatures, personally we will always have both (Miniatures and Shetlands) as we enjoy them both for different reasons. In our eyes they are both exceptional lines of animals that are completely different in style, looks and abilities.

 

[~Lisa~]

Well then I guess what you re saying since it can not be both ways then all miniatures did not come from Shetlands at all. Even though on many many threads here on this forum we have been told that yes indeed that was the case?

I get and said that the continued breeding of dwarves to quickly shrink the size contributed to the higher incidence of dwarves in minis but the gene had to come from somewhere and seeing as everyone seems to be in agreement that minis came from shetland stock I would have assumed then the dwarves do occur in Shetlands but they chose not to breed them back into their shetland programs and did so in the mini programs instead.

I do not mean to hijack this thread but it has to clearly be more then in breeding or line breeding as the Arenosa lines do not produce dwarves nor do many of the other breeds who in breed-line breed it had to come from somewhere so now the new belief is all dwarf genes came from falebellas then ? Hmm interestings I will have to shoot off an email to John and see what he thinks.

 

[JWC sr.]

I don't mean to try and speak for the other posters, but personally I have never believed that miniatures were a pure offshoot from Shetlands. That just never made sense, yes there is a lot of Shetland blood in the miniatures as we know them today. But any small horse they could find was used to produce the miniatures of yesterday. Including fabellas, English Shetlands, Morgans, pit ponies of different heritage etc etc.

What I am saying though is that in the 1,000's of samples John Eberth is working with, he personally told me he had not found any incidents of dwarfism in the Shetland samples he has worked with.

To me that does not mean there is none there as that would not be logical. I personally think that it is there, but over the years it has been diluted more and more with each new generation of Shetlands as they have moved away from the really small horses and towards what they have bred for in that breed. It is his opinion also that the registry needs to be left open to be able to input more blood into our modern miniatures.

This of course is a controversial topic for many miniature people, which I understand completely. Rationalization and denying that the problem is there will only magnify the problem in years to come from my standpoint.

With that said though, the incidence of dwarfism is reducing as we are for the most part breeding for leggier and more refined miniatures now days.

The natural selection process caused by the show ring results, peoples preference etc. is doing a good job and things are changing for sure.

Just look at the horses of 15 years ago and what you see now days in the show ring. There sure is a big difference. Todays breeders are doing a great job in my opinion.

 

[Lewella]

At one point I'm sure dwarfism did exist in the American Shetland, as far as I know it still occurs occasionally in the UK Shetlands. When it does happen in the UK the parents are culled. You cull long enough and you can remove a trait from the gene pool. Some of the older breeders I have talked to say that dwarfs used to happen but no one knows of any since the recertification took place in the late 60's/early 70's. Many non re-certified and culled animals went on to be the basis of the AMHR.

American Miniatures come in colors that do not exist in the American Shetland. That right there says that other blood has been added. For instance Appaloosa has never been an accepted color in the ASPC (or SPSBS in the UK) but is seen regularly in the American Miniature. Why? Falabella and Dutch Shetland bloodlines. Dutch Shetlands were never accepted in the ASPC but have had an influence in the minis and do come in Appaloosa. Champagne is another color that exists in the minis but not in the American Shetland. It's origin in minis is presently unknown. Interestingly, Champagne is a uniquely American color gene and only occurs in breeds native to the US. The earliest documented cases of the champagne mutation are in Saddlebreds but we can trace it in pedigrees back to foundation AQHA animals. I imagine at some point someone crossed a saddle horse with a small equine, then crossed the champagne offspring back to another small equine and bred the color down to mini size (we know and can trace how the color was bred down from Standardbreds into Trottingbreds and on to the Harnessbreds -some of whom have been hardshipped AMHR- but this isn't the only champagne line in minis).

 

[Minimor]

If this is the case then I guess it is not a true fact that minis came from Shetlands - if minis were all just shetlands called midget ponies and then Miniature horses...

I've never thought that Minis were all small, full blooded Shetlands--I believe that most of them did come from Shetlands, but but many of those were Shetland crosses...some were likely full Welsh and most have a bit of who knows what mixed into them.
Like John I believe that if Shetlands did ever have dwarfism in the breed, most of the dwarfs were not used for breeding, and if people don't breed it, then it soon disappears from the breed. When it came to Minis, someone wanting to breed for the smallest horse and not considering anything but "small" would have gone for a dwarf (obviously--we know some Mini breeders did 'way back when'!)--so if people start seeking out the dwarfs & breed them, the dwarfism gene will become much more common in the particular breed. I cannot say much about the old island shetlands and what they may carry, but I have to say that with the American Shetland, since it has the infusion of other breeds (Hackney, Welsh) that don't have dwarfism--if ever the dwarf gene was present, it was most likely bred out long ago. In the American Shetland, dwarfism does NOT give the look that breeders want in their ponies.

 

[Coventry Lane Farm]

We also have the shetlands along with the miniatures and we pretty much started with one pony that is a Classic gelding and then went and aquired a few more, now we have Classics, Foundations and Moderns, and Modern Pleasures. They just have a bigger engine than of a miniature and quite hotter as well.

We do not breed straight ASPC's, we have the dual ASPC/AMHR crosses that we breed and have aquired quite a few that were ASPC only and they stayed small enought to hardship AMHR and being around 36 inches with both stallions being pinto's having a buttermilk buckskin and a newly aquired black pinto with both having very well know pedigree's and Congress champions in thier background.

Our ASPC/AMHR buckskin stallion produced a palamino filly with blue eyes that was a Top Ten in Futurity at the AMHR Nationals this year with being the first breeding of this stallion. I haven't heard of any dwarfism in the shetlads compared to the miniatures.

The ponies are alot of fun to show and they just have a different atitude of a miniature and some of ours is like handling a stick of dynomite, they can explode at any given time and drive like a machine.

 

[Knighthawke]

Thank you everyone for our comments and answers.