Thursday, July 4, 2013

Sorraia Mustangs

For only having said 200 head of horses, this "breed" was not too difficult to look up. Granted, the pedigrees are limited, although not as bad as you might expect. It was fairly easy to find early '90s horses with parents and grandparents' names listed. Much more than I could have hoped for!

I do find it sad that many of the "Mustangs" in the model world get lumped together under BLM or some such generalization, and called good. That's almost the equivalent of lumping the stock horses together and saying QHs, Paints, and Appaloosas are all one and the same because they share similar ancestry. (A valid argument could very well be made to that point, which I would not be disinclined to listen to, but the point being is that each respective owner of each of those breeds will hotly debate that their breed is tougher/better/smarter/patterned prettier than either of the others). MY point being that while we have models we can buy at relatively cheap prices compared to whole horse prices, why not put forth the effort and give them a bit more meaning and dig a little deeper into what makes them special? BLM Mustang or not, certain mustang types are absolutely gorgeous and do deserve a second glance.

Sorraias are one of those breeds. Almost entirely made up of grullos and bay duns, it is a dun lovers dream.



Althought this time, instead of leading you through my whole process, I'll just provide you with the links that I found helpful.

http://www.spanish-mustang.org/SorraiaMustang/SorraiaMustangStudbook.html

http://www.sorraiamustangs.net/mares.htm

http://sorraia.org/for-sale.html
http://www.sorraia.com/Sorraias/sorraias.html
And the links at the side of this blog: http://ravenseyrie.blogspot.com/

Other information I found helpful that I will highlight here--

Sorraia Mustangs are categorized into three divisions (aside from being purebred or not): Permanent, Foundation, or Tentative. Horses will be registered with a letter (P, F,or T) followed by their number based on what division they are in. Permanent means the horse fits every criteria the Sorraia mustang should display. Foundation means the horse is close, but lacks a minor detail such as too much white. Tentative means the horse has the basic characteristics yet a significant difference from the goal, but is expected to produce foals of Foundation type or better.

There is also evidence that foals are named by their parentage (fillies with the first letter of their dam's name, colts with the first letter of their sire's).

I now have bay dun and grullo parents available!

Until next time~~~