That's shocking. If it had been April 1st I'd have thought it was a joke.

 

That's awful, it has made me cry, haven't we done enough damage to our dogs without starting on such a magnificent creature as the horse.

 

I saw this on FB the other day, that head shape is awful. I'm sorry but I really don't see what is attractive about that. I don't see what is wrong with a normal looking horse, hope it doesn't have too much difficulties

 

It's the natural head shape of the Arabian breed - but horribly exaggerated. I agree - too far.

 

Indeed, and I love the Arabian, but this just makes you recoil

 

I saw that on FB. Shocking.

The Arab head is beautiful, it doesn't need such horrible exaggeration.

They've made something grotesque out of something which is naturally lovely.

 

Oh no

 

What is wrong with these people!! Why don't they realise that breeding for extremes has health and welfare issues too. The other thing that drives me insane is when breeding becomes a fad after whats actually a genetic mutation that has occurred too and carry on breeding. The short legs in munchkin cats are a genetic deformity caused by a lethal gene with variable penetrance. If a kitten inherits two copies it will die, ones with the one dominant lethal gene have the short legs because the limb bones fail to grow normally causing the short legs, this then leaves them with a good chance of getting osteoarthritis and joint problems, not to mention they cant act like normal cats.
Yet people still want them and breed them knowing all this. I truly despair sometimes.

 

I never knew that - that's so upsetting

 

Stunning breed just ruined. Makes me very sad and angry!

 

How do the munchkin cats do "cat things" with such short legs?!
Jumping, climbing, grooming? Surely it's difficult for them to do any of that

 

With great difficulty probably

 

Do we know the horse was deliberately bred to be like that though, rather than it being a congenital deformity?

 

The breeder said something along the lines of "we're now approaching perfection". Apparently the colt is also worth millions

 

Here you go

 

http://orrionfarms.com/ Front page of their website. They actually seem to be proud of him

 

Reason number 1,027 of why I am fed up with the human race.

 

This is typically what they should look like with a dished (slightly concave) silhouette. I really cannot see the extreme type doing too well in a show.

 

That is a lovely looking horse, I really don't see why these breeders needed to change its appearance to "achieve perfection"

 

Unfortunately this has been going on for years in the horse world...in fact probably as long as in dogs

 

And we dare to label ourselves as the most intelligent beings on earth .....

sick sick sick.

 

Who are the idiots who buy these deformed animals believing them to be rare, or "special" without giving a thought to the animals welfare?

 

Poor thing it doesn’t even look real.

 

I remember watching a documentary on the dog showing scene over here a few years ago. It was about how breeders searching more and more for breed standard dogs have bred in more and more problems as a result. I remember the GSD being mentioned as well as a smaller breed, possibly the pug, often. It didn't paint the breeders/showers in a good light.

Just the other week, I watched a YouTube video on dogs 'back in the day' compared to now. Some of them look totally different. Again the GSD featured as an example.

It would appear that a lot of breeders in the dog world do this. The GSD went from a lean/slender loooking larger mid size dog to a straight up large dog with a sloping back to conform to some standard. Where they got this sloping back thing from I don't know because they never used to have them from what I've seen. In fact GSD's were my favourite dog breed as a child. I never remember them being as big as they are today. And when you are young, things always looked bigger. Case in point: apples lol.

I'm surprised this is happening in the horse world. They truly are amazing animals. Hopefully this article stops this becoming a regular thing. Or it's a bad article and isn't totally the truth.

 

Hopefully this article stops this becoming a regular thing. Or it's a bad article and isn't totally the truth.

They are taking some heat. Their FB page is down, and this picture is not featured on their website. I tried to go to the FB page from their website. Got an error message. So I went to FB and searched. All that came up were a lot of angry posts about this extremism, and Orrion and Leadly in particular.

 

Thankfully, breeding for such exaggerated characteristics seems to be way more prevalent in the World of dogs than in horses.

That's not to say it's a good thing wherever you find it, but that mercifully, it doesn't seem to be happening so much amongst horse breeders.

If you look at such Breeds as the Shire, the Welsh, Friesian, to name a few, they have changed hardly at all over many years. I owned a Thoroughbred forty years ago and the Thoroughbreds I see now look more or less identical to him.

I find it hard to believe that, if that foal were shown under a Breed Specialist, it would not be heavily penalised for it's face.

 

One would hope so......

 

Surely it will have problems when it comes to breathing during activity? Can't understand why anyone would breed something that exaggerated on purpose...but as already pointed out we only need to look at pedigree dogs and cats to see that exaggerated features sell, and for a lot of money.

 

I bet there are loads of people out there seeing the horse example being publicised and recognising it for the perversion that it is, thinking 'oh how awful', but they still love the pugs and frenchies that all the celebs have, they're so cute and funny, they're saving up for one.

 

Think we must be lucky up here. The breeder I know still keeps hers as they should be.

 

Think we must be lucky up here. The breeder I know still keeps hers as they should be.

Oh yes, decent examples do exist and there are breeders striving to keep them as useful horses...but they aren't cheap and unfortunately when you can pick up a long backed, ewe necked leggy mess for a few grand less then the "I want it now" brigade cause a demand, same as in dogs

 

It would seem that the showing world has a lot to answer for. These deformed animals are primarily bred because they win shows, then Joe Public in his ignorance thinks it is a good thing (well, isn't that what a champion looks like, I must have one like it!). And the thoroughbreds win races and generate huge amounts of money if successful so who cares... Greed and stupidity.

There are now lines of Arab horses bred for endurance competition or simply as nice riding horses, and then there are the Arabs bred purely for showing. The deformed head, very dished and shorter than normal impairs breathing and gives rise to a crowded dentition leading to 'wave mouth' when the grinding surface of the teeth looks like hills and troughs making it a serious challenge to rasp the teeth well enough to keep the horse comfortable.

 

These are halter Arabs in the USA. They pop up on Facebook every few months or so when they breed another one more exaggerated than the last. So far it hasn’t got to the uk to quite that extreme, though some of the lines have got here. They aren’t rideable and not just because of their exaggerated faces poor things. The colt likely is worth what they say, they go for stupid money. There are many abuses in the more extreme factions of the American Horse Show world and a lot of money in it.

 

These are halter Arabs in the USA. They pop up on Facebook every few months or so when they breed another one more exaggerated than the last. So far it hasn't got to the uk to quite that extreme, though some of the lines have got here. They aren't rideable and not just because of their exaggerated faces poor things. The colt likely is worth what they say, they go for stupid money. There are many abuses in the more extreme factions of the American Horse Show world and a lot of money in it.

What do they do with these horses if they're not rideable? I vaguely remember reading that they have horribly bred quarter horses as well, but again, I have no clue of what they actually do with them