What defines a good damline?

[Olympussporthorses]

I'm trying to become more educated on pedigrees and bloodlines... How do you define a horse with a good bloodline? Is it that they have XX % of states premium or elite mares in the pedigree or something else? What sires are known as a broodmare sire? (Feiner Stern?)

[Olympussporthorses]

Nobody, really?

[fannie mae]

StPr and elite titles look good on paper but don't necessarily tell anything about the quality of any given damline with respect to "prove" - same is true for licensing titles - all of them are show titles, many of them bear political influence.

except for the trakehner breed StPr titles are assigned without even evaluating one o/o three gaites:
canter is not even shown, given these are in-hand titles.

you've got to ask yourself seriously:
would you buy a car without being able to test the fourth or fifth gear/gaite?
would you be able to judge the real value of a car without having tested the highest gear?
why bother doing so in a mare/damline?

so if you replace the word "good" in your headline by "proven" the question makes much more sense.
and "proven" is defined under saddle only (not "in hand") and with respect to damline it is defined by get and get only (if the mare in question has been sucesful in sport herself - even better).

if you want to know about the quality of any given damline check out if and how many sport horses have descended from this damline over the years and generations. ideally sport horses having been succesful in all disciplines as a quality damline shouldn't outcross one or the other talent but at least maintain certain values so that depending on further crosses one or the other discipline is open to the respective get.
specialisation effort in sport horse breeding is a human stigma but not necessarily a lable of quality as performance as such is defined on a much wider basis.

the higher the respective damline/family density (numbers of horses arisen from that family) the more sporthorses you should expect to find.
if, on top of succesful get, StPr titles do show up in this damline, take it as a plus.
if you have to choose between a damline of no or little succesful get but lots of titles instead vs a damline of no titles at all but a convincing handful of succesful get i would most likely go for the latter.

[andy.smaga]

ideally sport horses having been succesful in all disciplines as a quality damline shouldn't outcross one or the other talent but at least maintain certain values so that depending on further crosses one or the other discipline is open to the respective get.
I don't agree with this only sentence, the rest of your post makes perfect sense.
Probably because i'm coming from a registry specialized in one discipline (jumpers) for 99% of the breeders.

[fannie mae]

if i came from a jumper breeder background like you do i wouldn't care, either. as a well consolidated jumper bred damline will often be able to produce a great dressage horse, depending on specific cross (in holstein you even have "waste products" from jumperlines making it to top dressage horses - but you don't even have to go that far north - stay in france, look at quattro b: purest jumper blood, best multi talented sire, proven by get in all dsciplines).

reason why many dressage lines descend from pure jumper lines, or (ideally):
proven perfromance lines producing both, jumping and dressage horses.

however, coming from a dressage background i find the same logic applied mainly resulting in a dead-end: pure dressage lines usually kill the jumping gene and in most cases you are stuck in a one-way road: if the resulting product doesn't "move" you are stuck with a more or less "useless" horse (in sport perspective, that is).
exceptions to the rule are given but far less than the other way round/jumping background.
and i would never use such exception to the rule for further breeding since consolidation of genetic background still remains one-way-roaded. don't expect a jumping dressage horse (phenotype) to produce jumping horses (genotype), even when crossed that way - it is not in their genes and chances are 50:50 you end up with yet another talentfree product.

thus, when breeding my dressage mares i have become a lot more sensitive these days picking stallions from ideally double oriented proven lines (reason i picked lissaro this year, quattro in the past)
chances are, a potential double oriented stallion will add certain constructive features to any given dressage line but at the same time, might add jumper potential.

[hansiska]

StPr and elite titles look good on paper but don't necessarily tell anything about the quality of any given damline with respect to "prove" - same is true for licensing titles - all of them are show titles, many of them bear political influence.

except for the trakehner breed StPr titles are assigned without even evaluating one o/o three gaites:
canter is not even shown, given these are in-hand titles.

In order to receive Elite status with the AHS (American Hanoverian Society), a mare must complete and score well on her MPT, which includes walk, trot, and canter under saddle, including lengthenings, and also the jumping chute w/o a rider. Granted, it's just one day in the life of the mare, and I'm not saying it's not ever political, but it does include all gaits as well as jumping. Mares can also receive Elite status via a performance record.