Things said about horses

There is a little book in my ample bookshelf dedicated to horse-related books. It is called 1001 Best Things Ever Said About Horses (edited by Steven D. Price). The sayings are about real horses, of course, not about virtual horses this blog usually talks about, but I assume that readers of this blog like the real horses as well as virtual horses. Here are the best (according to me) quotes from that book.

Love means attention, which means looking after the things we love.
We call this stable management.
– George H. Morris

You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.
– Will Rogers

There comes a point in every rider's life when he wonders if it's all worth it. Then one look at the horse, and he realizes – it is.
– Kelly Stewart

Many people have sighed for the "good old days" and regretted the "passing of the horse", but today, when only those who like horses own them, it is a far better time for horses.
– C. W. Anderson

Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.

One day in heaven Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint John were standing around near the horse paddocks watching the horses frolic. "I am certainly bored", stated John. "Me too", Paul chimed as Peter stood and watched the horses. "I know!" Peter began. "Why don't we have a horse show?"
Paul and John thought that the idea was great except for one small detail. "Whom are we to compete against?" Paul asked. The trio pondered a moment when Peter realized the answer. "We will call up Satan and invite him to the horse show. I mean, we have all of the finest horses here in heaven, all of the world and national champions are here. His stable is ridden with the spoiled, difficult and mean horses. We are certain to win."
And so the trio called up Satan and invited him to their horse show. Satan laughed and asked why they would want to be humiliated like that, because he would certainly beat them. Peter, Paul and John did not understand. "What do you mean?" Paul asked. "We have all the national and world champion horses in our stable in heaven. How could you possibly beat us?"
Satan laughed. "Have you forgotten so soon, gentlemen? I have all the judges!"

One man's wrong lead is another man's counter-canter.
– S. D. Price

Time and patience are required of all good horsemen, so hurry when you are not around your horse.
– Bob Denhardt

There never was a rider so smart that some horse could not teach him a new trick. Because of this, horsemanship and horse training is a lifelong study.
– Paul T. Albert

The Pacific Ocean is off to your left. The Atlantic Ocean is off to your right. Your horse has got to stop sometime.
– Montana horseman to a visitor worried about being run away with

The shoulder-in is the aspirin of equation; it cures everything.
– Nuno Oliveira

Hardly any feeling is more distressing than the certain knowledge that you and your horse are about to part company, and it's remarkable how threatening even the softest, grassiest turf suddenly begins to look when you realize you're about to hit it hard, head—(or shoulder—) first.
– Michael Korda, Horse People

When I was a child, I used to jump bareback over fences four to four and a half feet high. I don't remember being afraid. I think my mother took custody of the fear for me, and my job was only not to fall off and not to let on how often I was jumping. When I came back to riding at forty-four, though, every little two-foot fence looked to me like a Puissance wall.
– Jane Smiley

Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.
– Sylvester Stallone

"Races are won with that seat, sir."
"Be damned to that", said my uncle Valentine. "If the horse is good enough, he'll win with the rider facing his tail."
– Donn Byrne, Destiny Bay

The wagon rests in winter, the sleigh in summer, the horse never.
– Yiddish proverb

Every horse is good for something.
– Seabiscuit film

God first made Man. He thought better of it and made Woman.
When He got time He made the Horse, which has the courage and spirit of Man and the beauty and grace of Woman.
– Brazilian proverb

Never give up. For fifty years they said the horse was through.
Now look at him—a status symbol.
– Fletcher Knebel

There are times when you can trust your horse, times when you can't, and times when you have to.

Quality is like buying oats. If you want nice, clean, fresh oats, you must pay a fair price. However, if you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse... that comes a little cheaper.

– S

Arabian horse breeding in Ionic

NOTE: This text deals with virtual Arabian horse breeding on a SIM game stable. Nothing whatsoever can be taken as a real-life information!

As mentioned in Ionic in English introduction, Arabian horse is the biggest breed in Ionic. This blog text discusses about Arabians in Ionic.

History in Ionic
Arabian is the biggest breed but also one of the oldest breeds in Ionic, it has been bred since 2004 when Ionic was created. Actually, the first Ion-foal ever was born in Feb 9th 2004 and it was an Arabian! The first Arabians in Ionic were relocated from Marinea, Virginia's previous stable, some were also bought from other stables and some invented (usually the term "to import" is used).

Importing Arabians has been very important part of the breeding and during the years, several dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of Arabians have been invented. Most of the present-day Arabians have a pedigree with Ionic Arabian lines. Both of the Ionic owners have also bought some Arabians with "foreign" pedigrees to help with the breeding and to bring new bloodlines into our Arabian stock. But as the number of Arabians is so huge, few Arabians bought every now and then do not make much difference... That is why we have to continue our "import more" policy.

Breeding and bloodlines
The Finnish SIM horse world did not pay attention to the bloodlines at first and that was the situation in Ionic, too. Later the bloodlines have been taken into the account but as many of the old horses cannot be counted anything but domestics, Ionic has not specified on breeding any specific bloodline. Nowadays the bloodlines are defined for all of the Ionic horses so nearly all of Ionic's horses are domestics with 2 or more different bloodlines in their pedigrees.

However, Polish (PPA), Russian (SRA), and Egyptian (SEA) are the most common bloodlines in Ionic, most horses have at least some part of those lines in their pedigrees. Spanish (ESP) and English (ENG, also called Crabbet) are more rare even though existent. Polish and Russian are the personal favorites of the owners and lately many imported horses have been Russian as it is generally more rare than Polish in Finnish SIM horse world.

Applying the real-life bloodlines in virtual Arabians is somewhat problematic (the Finnish SIM horse world does not use the RL horses as some SIM stable owners do in USA and other countries): the bloodlines were created by the biggest studs in the particular area. Especially clear this is with the English bloodline which is called as Crabbet Arabian in English-speaking countries. The term "Crabbet Arabian" reveals that the English bloodline was created by Crabbet Stud. How can English bloodline exist in the SIM horse world when we do not have the Crabbet Stud here? Good question, unfortunately we do not have any answer.

Instead of these real-life bloodlines, could or should we have SIM bloodlines, for example, Straight Ionic Arabians? We have bred virtual Arabians for a decade and for several horse generations, so we have made a some kind of an impact to the virtual Arabian horse and that might be called a bloodline.
In this case, the Ionic bloodline would be famous for the following qualities:
- They are quite big (average height at withers 155 cm).
- They are versatile sport horses, suitable for every possible discipline from racing to saddle seat and dressage.
- Their conformation is not very uniform but the most favored horse is harmonious and well-balanced, without any conformation faults.
- They are not overly slender or lightweight but sound and slightly robust. All kind of exaggeration in type or conformation is avoided.
- Their head is only moderately dished or sometimes straight. Extreme dish is not desirable.
- They are lively but easily handled, being not too hot-tempered.

Colors
Arabian has not a wide variety of colors, they come only in bays, chestnuts, blacks, and grays with one of the mentioned as a base color. Of course there are some rare rabicanos and sabino-like patterns caused by W-gene variations but no dilutions (cream, dun, pearl, champagne, silver) or other patterns (roan, tobiano, overo, appaloosa).

As both of the Ionic owners are some sort of color freaks, the inheritance of Arabian colors is kept as realistic as possible. A gray must always have at least one gray parent, two chestnuts do not produce a bay foal and so on. We have even gone so far that all the Arabians with picture (and thus their color is defined) have also a color genotype (except the W-gene variations). Of course, the foals will inherit their color and genes from their parents.

Even if we do play with genes and inheritance, we do not expect any other SIM horse owner to do that. If you buy a foal from Ionic, we will give you the list of possible colors according to the parents' genotypes and are willing to help with selecting the photo and recognizing the color, it is ok if you do not follow the color list. The color list is merely a recommendation, not a rule.

Names
In the beginning of Arabian breeding, the foals had "Ion" suffix in their names, like Fareed Ion and Khadija Ion, to be recognized as foals bred by Ionic. Later all the Arabians have got a two-part name (sometimes three-part) without Ion in it, for example, Ibenka Akbaru and Piekna Al-Rawya. The first part is the name of the dam line and the second part is the "own" name of the horse, it usually has the same first letter as the sire's name. This practice has some background in the real world as the Bedouins were very proud of their mares and traced the strains through the maternal lines.

Currently there are several dozens of dam line names in Ionic:
– Abriko by Abrikos GA (original Ionic mare)
– Amab by Amab Sharion (original Ionic mare)
– Anjum by Bint el Anjum GA (original Ionic mare)
– Ayda by Ayda Janan
– Aziza by Aziza al-Shama (original Ionic mare)
– Badieh by Moniet El Badieh GA (original Ionic mare)
– Bataarah by Bataarah
– Coral by Cinderella Siwan through Coral al Daydream
– Cosmetik by Cosmetika GA (original Ionic mare)
– Dheb by Zahnina through Dheba al Najya
– Doryn by Doryna GA (original Ionic mare)
– Elfat by Al Elfat GA (original Ionic mare)
– Fanya by Fanyah GA (original Ionic mare)
– Fiddat by Fiddat Aasifa
– Galaks by Galaksiya GA (original Ionic mare)
– Haday by Hadaya Jewel
– Hiyam by Surviver Apollo through Ghadah Hiyam LIA
– Ibenka by Ibenka (original Ionic mare)
– Jawahir by Jawahir Ziyad
– Jeza by Jezara GA (original Ionic mare)
– Jihad by Jihadu GA (original Ionic mare)
– Kabala by Kabalah GA (original Ionic mare)
– Karim by Bey Indyanna through Karimah Sahar al Najya
– Korel by Korel GA (original Ionic mare)
– Lyda by Lyda Ira GA (original Ionic mare)
– Mikeno by Mikeno Sumnah (original Ionic mare)
– Narza by Narzad GA (original Ionic mare)
– Nawar by Nawar Gulzar
– Ozir by Oziria GA (original Ionic mare)
– Piekna by Piekna Kobieta (original Ionic mare)
– Qismah by Qismah Mayrana
– Riww by Dernierna Morne Fronage through RIFA's Weintje Winona
– Roshnara by Jasminn through Celedith's Roshnara
– Saint by Cleopatra through Saint Elizabeth
– Simvol by Simvol GA (original Ionic mare)
– Solanka by Solankah (original Ionic mare)
– Syanid by Syanida GA (original Ionic mare)
– Takiyah by Valeriya through IS Takiyah
– Taktik by Taktika GA (original Ionic mare)
– Thaz by Thaz Mahjal GA (original Ionic mare)
– Uzac by Uzaca GA (original Ionic mare)
– Wadi by Wadi Ajouz GA (original Ionic mare)
– Xamir by Xamira GA (original Ionic mare)
– Yaron by Yaronia GA (original Ionic mare)
– Zitron by Zitronel GA (original Ionic mare)

- S

Ionic in English

Ionic may be the biggest SIM game stable in Finnish SIM horse world. It has been around since 2004 so it is also one of the oldest active stables, too. That means Ionic is a fairly well-known stable. Unfortunately for any foreign visitors, Finnish language is used in Ionic. There is an English version and originally in 2004 there were plans of creating bi-lingual stable. However, nowadays the English version is badly outdated and English language has pretty much disappeared. Every now and then we have a desire to change the language from Finnish to English but with more than 1000 horses, it's not a small project. For example, Google Translate provides somewhat accurate translations from Finnish to English.

Apart from its size and age, Ionic has always been very famous for owning and breeding rare breeds. Currently there are about 80 different breeds in Ionic. Some breeds are small (1 or 2 horses), some breeds are big (several hundreds of horses). Ionic is purely a stud farm, we breed horses and do nothing else. This means that our horses are not shown. This is quite different compared to other Finnish SIM game stables. The other difference is the horse's page, Ionic's horses usually don't have long stories about their temperament, behavior, and pedigree, no diary entries and such. Our SIM game horse "philosophy" is minimalism, the horses have only a name, basic information, a pedigree, list of progeny if there's any, and, in best cases, a picture. This reveals that we only breed horses, everything else is unnecessary. And when there are more than 1000 horses, there's no time for unnecessary things.

The biggest breed bred in Ionic is Arabian, even though it is not especially rare one. We have more than 500 Arabians, mostly they are from Ionic's own bloodlines. Breeding Arabians started at the beginning in 2004 so we have a long history with them. Arabians are also used for crossbreeding (Anglo-Arabs, National Show Horses, riding ponies, Quarabs, warmbloods, and so on).

We also breed regularly the following breeds:
– Anglo-Arabs
– Budjonnys
– Connemara Ponies
– European Warmbloods (mostly Finnish Warmbloods and Trakehners)
– Frederiksborgers
– Gidrans
– Highland Ponies
– Icelandics
– Kisber Felvers
– Knabstruppers
– Morgans
– National Show Horses
– New Forest Ponies
– Noniuses
– Paint Horses
– Paso Finos
– Poitevins
– Quarter Horses
– RBSH's
– Rocky Mountain Horses
– Russian Riding Horses
– Saddlebreds
– Tennessee Walking Horses
– Tersk Horses
– Thoroughbreds (for riding, race horses are in another SIM game stable)
– Ukrainian Riding Horses
– Welsh Ponies and Cobs (all sections)
– Wielkopolskis

And then there is a long, long list of small breeds which are not specifically bred or have been bred earlier but now we are just trying to get rid of them: Murgeses, Kladrubers, Lipizzans, Exmoors, Dales Ponies, Hackney Ponies, Furiosos, Pura Raza Espanolas...

It's possible to buy horses from Ionic even though we don't have any special list of horses for sale. Usually the best option is to contact us via email (vtionic@gmail.com) and tell us that you would like to have this or that kind of a horse, do we have any and can we sell one for you. Usually we are not willing to sell the current horses, more often we propose a foal bred specifically to you. In this case, you can select the sire and dam, whether the foal is a colt or filly, and usually also have some impact to foal's name.

Our SIM game horses don't age a year by year but basically a year by month. Please take this into consideration if you want to buy a horse from Ionic or sell one for us. Usually the foal is born in near future, sometimes it is possible that the foal has been born a little bit earlier but never several years earlier. It is your choice how the foal ages when you buy it but the date of birth is what it is. And the same goes with horses bought to Ionic, it will age perhaps more quickly than its sire and dam and will be marked as dead in 2-4 years.

- Sirpa

RBSH in English

Kuten tiedettyä, RBSH on virtuaalinen hevosrotu ja koska se on Suomessa kehitetty, ei sitä tunneta ulkomailla. Ulkomainen virtuaaliharrastaja kyllä ymmärtää rodun nimen, Russian-based Sport Horse, muttei tiedä mitä se tarkoittaa ja mikä se ylipäänsä on. Niinpä meiltä joskus kyseltiin RBSH:n rotu- ja polveutumismääritelmien käännöstä englanniksi LJ:n sivuille, mutta nähtävästi sitä ei olla toistaiseksi sinne päivitetty. Kirjoitan tähän kuitenkin sen käännöksen ja tätä postausta saa linkittää ulkomaisille harrastajille, jos haluaa kertoa mikä on RBSH.

Russian-Based Sport Horse (RBSH) is a virtual horse breed developed by Finnish SIM horse enthusiasts. So far all the information about RBSH have been written in Finnish. This blog post provides an English translation of RBSH breed standard and breeding regulations. Keep in mind that this "breed" exists only in virtual world! You can have a Russian – TB cross in real world but it is not RBSH. If you have some questions about RBSH, please email us (vtionic@gmail.com) or leave comments within this blog post.

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GENERAL
Russian-based Sport Horse (abbreviated RBSH) is a virtual horse breed, not a real one though it has some background in the real horse world. The starting point of RBSH are crosses between a Thoroughbred and some Russian horse breed which are quite popular in Russia as riding horses. The virtual RBSH is based on this idea although it can have some variations.

BREED STANDARD
Every RBSH must meet these conformation standards as perfectly as possible but keep in mind that RBSH is originally a sport horse, not a show horse. The breed descriptions goal is to provide a conformation suitable for best possible performance.

General appearance
RBSH must give an appearance of somewhat elegant, lightly-built and nicely proportioned horse with a good self-carriage. It must have an appearance and conformation of a good riding horse. It may resemble Throroughbred.

Height at withers
RBSH must stand over 150 cm (14.3hh), the ideal height is 158–172 cm (15.2–17.0hh).

Head
Head must be elegant, eyes and nostrils are large. The profile must be straight or slightly dished or slightly concave. Arabian-style head with extreme dish is not desirable. Ears are pricked and alert. The size of the head must be in proportion to neck and body. Too big head is a fault.

Neck
Neck must be long, elegant and and it is well set to the shoulders. Ewe neck is a fault. Stallion may have a heavily muscled neck. Arched neck is allowed. Throatlatch must be clean.

Body
Shoulders must be long and well sloped. Withers must be well defined. There must be a good depth at the girth. The chest must be moderately wide. A slightly long back is not considered as a fault if it is otherwise strong. The loin must be short and strong. The croup must be long but not too sloping. The hindquarter must be muscular and well-proportioned.

Legs
Both fore- and hindlegs must be placed well under the body. Legs must be dry and have not any conformational faults. The legs are slender and joints well-defined. Forearm and gaskin must be long and well-muscled. Cannon bones are ideally short but slightly long cannon is not a serious fault.

Hooves
Hooves must be round, well-formed and hard.

Movements
Movements in all gaits must be straight, ground-covering, active, with good impulsion and regular in rhythm. The RBSH must bear itself well in all gaits. The walk must be elastic and energetic with good cadence. The trot and the canter are light and free with clear suspension.

Coat, hairs and colours
The coat of RBSH is short, shiny and silky. Scarce hairs are not considered as a fault. All solid colours are acceptable, also a sabino with high socks, white head marks and spots under the belly.

Temperament
RBSH must be co-operative, active and intelligent to be well suited as a sport horse.

BREEDING REGULATIONS
Goals of breeding
The goal of RBSH breeding is to create light, elegant and tough horse whose conformation, size and movements are suitable for all equestrian sport disciplines. The type of the RBSH must be light, maybe resemble slightly Thoroughbred and usually lighter in build than European warmbloods.

Breeds allowed in RBSH breeding
The foundation bloodstock of RBSH is consisted of Russian saddle breeds, Thoroughbreds and Anglo-Arabs.
The accepted Russian breeds are:
– Akhal-Teke
– Budyonny
– Deliboz
– Russian Don
– Iomud
– Kabarda horse
– Kustanai horse
– Novokirghiz (New Kirgiz)
– Tersk
– Turkmen
– Russian Riding horse (Orlov-Rostopchin)

Regulations
The pedigree of RBSH must consist of 25% of these Russian breeds at minimum. There may be one or more of the Russian breeds in the pedigree. It is recommended that the amount of Thoroughbred and/or Anglo-Arab is 25% at minimum but it is not compulsory. RBSH can be a cross between two of the Russian breeds. The Anglo-Arab used in RBSH breeding must have 50% or more Thoroughbred blood. All horses used for RBSH breeding must fulfill the conformation standards of their own breed.

translated by Sirpa, the original text © Virginia