ONLY FOR SHOW

Supreme Sultan, trotting at liberty.

Supreme Sultan, foaled in 1966, was a show champion and sire of show champions. During the decade of his ascendancy, he was the most popular Saddlebred sire in the United States, and he left many hundreds of foals. He descends in multiple lines from Rex Peavine—through the sires Edna May’s King, Kalarama Rex, San Vicente and the conformationally perfect King’s Genius, who will be featured in our next issue.

Speaking in terms of population genetics, Supreme Sultan represents a “bottleneck” that occurs not just because a particular sire is popular, but because his popularity is so overwhelming that few or no other sires of that generation leave significant numbers of offspring. All future generations thereafter trace back to the bottleneck individual. In the natural world, this occurs as the result of epidemics or disasters such as fires or floods that drastically slash population size.

In the show world it occurs because of fads, and because there is no one to say “Stop! We need to preserve some outcross blood here!” As a result, it is now nearly impossible to find any Saddlebred mare free of Supreme

Sultan blood. For example, although I am relieved at the turnaround represented by the recent champion Undulata’s Nutcracker (see “History,

Step by Step,” EQUUS 514)—a conformationally strong horse whose most important ancestor is Wing Commander—we still find Supreme Sultan there in the tail-female.

Conformationally, Supreme Sultan is longer-backed than his ancestor Rex Peavine and even more obviously tubular-bodied. The coupling is long and even somewhat attenuated—stretched out like taffy so that the horse has a noticeable “waist.” Note the

hollow back even when the horse is turned out at liberty, and the cut-up profile of the underline as it goes toward the pelvis. The gelding above and mare below left show where this conformation is likely to go after five or ten years of undersaddle use.

If you are breeding for horses who readily hollow their back, who are easy to ride upside down, then you could not do better than to look for broodmares with multiple crosses to Supreme Sultan. If you are desirous of producing Saddlebred sporthorses, however, you would be wise to search elsewhere.

A 14-year-old Saddlebred mare with a weak coupling; this is the appearance of an attenuated or “taffy” loin. The mare’s very high withers make the back look more sunken than it actually is. The chest is deep, and the shoulder is excellent, as of course is the neck.

A 17-year-old Saddlebred gelding with the same kind of conformation as Supreme Sultan. The horse’s topline over the loins shows the tent-like, tight and hard look that are the hallmarks of back strain, the result of years of being ridden upside down. This gelding’s name is “Hero,” and I think he well deserves it (courtesy, Casey Blinn).