Introduction & HYPP

Hello friends, my name is Ryan Smith and I hail from the southern part of our great province, near Champion, AB.  My great-grandfather on my mom’s side bought the place I now live on, so I can proudly say I’m the 4th generation to call this ranch home.  My mom is a horse person (which we fondly call “The Disease”) and her Dad before her, and his father before him.  We know there were ancestors that rode in the Civil War, and one who rode Cavalry in the Boer War.  Needless to say, horses are in my blood.  As long as I can remember I’ve been astride a horse, and there are pictures of my mother with a very-little-me, riding around the barnyard.  There’s never been a time in my life when horses weren’t a part of it, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon!

Between being an Aries and being fairly self-confident, I have found myself on one side or the other of a number of discussions, issues, & opinions…. and sometimes they are even about horses.   For one reason or another, I have found an interest in writing and have been doing so – mostly about horse related stuff – for some time now.  Also for one reason or another, the good folks at northernhorse.com have asked me if I wanted to blog and put it out there on their site.  I’m still not certain whether this venture is going to be beneficial to them or not, but time will tell!  It’s certainly worth mentioning that just because I write it here, doesn’t mean that Dave & Lynn at northernhorse.com believe it, support it, or endorse it.  The good part about having true friends is that you can disagree, and at the end of the day, still be friends.

I recall one time, not all that long ago, writing about HYPP horses and how I didn’t believe that ANY HYPP H/H horse, no matter how proven, famous, titled, successful or beautiful, should be bred.  This conversation came about on Facebook, and a couple of folks joined the group, in order to join the discussion, to take offense for someone else and tell me how rude I was to be voicing my
opinion.  It started, in fact, as an effort on my part to educate people as to what HYPP is, how it is proliferated, and why – in my opinion – it should be avoided.  Now, horse friends, don’t read in here that I am saying to avoid the whole Impressive line, because I am not.  You will find that I even own a horse with Impressive breeding, but she is certainly HYPP N/N, and that means no chance of the gene that causes the….genetic defect.  Here I go digressing again, but I have to tell you, I got educated in that discussion that I should not call it a “disease” because in fact it is a “genetic defect”.

*Insert pause for dramatic effect.*

Riiiiiiight, now that I’ve had time to think about it, during that pause, “genetic defect” does sound much more desirable than “disease”.  I would much rather own a horse, and perhaps breed a horse, that propagates only a genetic defect as opposed to a disease.  Seriously the difference between the two sounds to me like the difference between “died” and “passed-away”.  Either way, the result aint good!

Okay, now that I’ve not gone even one posting without insulting somebody’s over-active sensibilities in this far-past politically correct world we live in, I’ll go back to introducing myself.  My wife and I ride and raise AQHA horses, and along with my mother, we all live on the aforementioned mixed farm/ranch.  I know, I can hear you thinking it – you lucky man you get to live with 2 women.

Let me say, for now, yes – mostly – I am lucky, just don’t tell them I admitted it!

Country like this is where we live, raise & ride horses. Its where horses get to be horses. Photo by Christa Smith.

I grew up in 4H and riding in our little local riding club, then went on to show open and AQHA some, worked with Jess Hartung at Vulcan and learned the finer points of the show pen for the western discipline.  When I was done with high school, Jess connected me with Bob Grimshaw and Jason Grimshaw, and I spent some time working with those guys and starting some 2 year olds for them.  I’ll tell ya, I sure couldn’t have asked for better people to learn from then the 3 of them – some of those items learned are things I try to pass along now to 4H kids that I teach, or when I’m lucky enough to be asked by somebody to judge an open or 4H show.  I’m also a self-confirmed (or is that self-admitted?) pedigree junkie on the AQHA horses, and I tend to gravitate to the older style, slow blooded and typically slow-brained, foundation bloodlines.  Now don’t go to thinkin’ I mean slow-brained as in not smart; I mean slow-brained as in the kind of horses that think first, react second.  My wife and I have an old buckskin stud by the name of Jax Fed Ex, and he is a grandson of Doc Bar and a grandson of Poco Tivio.  Nothing flaps him; he thinks and then reacts, in any situation.  The buckskin color comes from his maternal great-grand dam, Sutherlands Miss, who was also the dam of Fritz Command & Bueno Chex.  He is a grand old horse, whom we have only owned through a couple of breeding seasons, but the foals he is producing are beyond even my wildest expectations, and those can be pretty wild!  (Just ask my wife… lol)

Anyway, we have also recently acquired Jaz Poco Goldun Blue, out of Colorado, a 95% foundation horse with over 27% Poco Bueno blood.  He has an AQHA ROM in Reining, NRHA earnings, along with a host of other titles from the state and regional area where he comes from.  Oh, and he also happens to be grulla, and homozygous for dun factor, which means everything he produces –
no matter what he’s bred to – will be red dun, dun, or grulla.  One last thing about these stallions – they are both HERDA N/N, and that is for the benefit of those of you wondering, and thinking about my earlier rant about HYPP.

Headin home, over the hill at a run! Photo by Elfie Hall, a great photographer and a great friend.

Mrs. Boss (my wife) and I also run Champion Auctions, and we do one fair-sized horse sale per year in the summer time.  This year’s Western Working Horse Sale is just over, and it was a fair sale for the market.  3 year olds were hard to move, unless they had a lot of fit and finish on them for their age, and of course the aged, broke horses still command pretty good money.

My wife works full time outside the ranch and the horses, and I also work with a company called AFAB Industries.  AFAB is a post-frame builder, and I market and sell their high-quality, custom-made barns, shops, arenas, storage buildings, etc. etc.  AFAB is a corporate sponsor of the ARCHA.

On top of it all, I get to write about all things horsey.  At least until I say too much and Dave and Lynn fire me.  In the meantime, feel free to write me.  Agree, disagree, ask for a blog on a certain issue facing horses or the horse industry.  I won’t promise I’ll take it and run with it, but it is good to get our collective minds going, discussing, debating & educating.  I am looking forward to writing for you, with you, or against you, to dispute you, to entertain you, or to just be among you.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan Smith

championauctions@gmail.com

Remember to be friends with your horse, but to always be his boss.

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