It's Friday, I'm a Guest Judge! Breed: North American Draft by Cindy Evans-Yates

In this month's guest judging clinic, we're dipping our toes into breed judging! I asked my friend Cindy if she'd be willing to write up a breed judging clinic, and she agreed! While I've judged with her and know she's capable of judging any breed class, I know her specialty lies in draft breeds, so I put together a draft class for her at her request. 

North American Draft 

by Cindy Evans-Yates

My name is Cindy Evans-Yates and I've been in the hobby since 2001 when my family first got the internet. Not long after, I started painting and customizing Breyers and discovered model horse shows. I've been judging at shows for about 20 years now, and a lot more lately since I re-entered the hobby around 2011 when I moved to Kentucky. One of my first jobs in Kentucky was at the Kentucky Horse Park working in Horse Drawn Tours alongside the Belgian, Percheron, Suffolk, Clydesdale, and Shire teams. As a bigger lady, I've always been a huge fan of drafts and draft crosses, so it was a great fit! I worked at the Kentucky Horse Park off and on for the better part of a decade and got to meet so many different kinds of breeds, so I have a lot of hands-on experience that I look back on when I'm customizing or judging.

Today we have a lovely class of North American Spotted Drafts! The NASDHA (North American Spotted Draft Horse Association, established in 1995) have some fairly simple rules for its breed standard: individuals needs to be draft in type, specifically most like a Percheron, Belgian, Shire, or Clydesdale, and have an obvious Pinto pattern including but not limited to Tobiano, Overo, or Tovero.

Of course, our understanding of Pinto patterns has changed over the last 30+ years when the Association began in 1995. Overo in the mid-nineties meant anything other than Tobiano, usually referring to Frame Overo (where white patches on the sides of the body and face are common but rarely ever over the spine), but sometimes it included other white spotting patterns like Splash White or "Sabino" which is now generally a catch-all term for a pattern that adds white to the legs and face. The actual testable Sabino pattern is called Sabino-1, and is usually most famously seen in Tennessee Walkers, having lots of white and roan patches when only one copy of the gene is present, but will result in a nearly or completely white Horse with two genes. Thankfully, unlike Frame Overo, it is not lethal in its homozygous form. Tovero usually means Tobiano combined with another Pinto pattern.

Because NASDs outcross to other breeds (usually Paint Horses) for their Pinto markings, they too can have any pattern (or color!) that practically any other available breed has. Because they need to cross back in a 2nd generation to get more draft type, double-dilutes and more colorful options are much more rare or impossible, at least until several generations down the line when high-percentage draft mixes might meet up again. Because of this, you're most likely to see the same base color as your beginning draft breed, and the most popular draft horses in the US tend to be Percherons and Belgians, so usually they will either be black or chestnut, and "clean-legged" (not as much feather, or hair, on the lower legs, but may still has some hair on the fetlocks and such; only if they've been show-clipped will you see zero feather). You will also normally see Tobiano-based pintos as it's bold, easy to test for, and doesn't cause any issues or surprises even when there's two copies. Does this mean a Palomino Frame Overo with full feather shouldn't win over a Black Tobiano with clean legs? No, but it is nice to know what's more likely or common to be seen in the breed.

As in real life, conformation should be weighed more than color or hair, and in models, anatomy and accuracy are generally going to be your main tiebreakers, which is why it's important to familiarize yourself with the base breeds and how pinto patterns behave. It's otherwise a fairly versatile "breed" whose purpose is to create a good, working draft horse while having some extra flash with color. You shouldn't need to worry about the lighter breeds who contributed the Pinto patterns, though if some influence from them is detectable, it's not necessarily considered wrong and may even show a glimmer of believability as real horses will likely show these tendencies. It really only takes 3/4 Draft blood to look almost full-blooded again, but do keep in mind the goal is still to look like one of the base Draft breeds in type. If it shows qualities of both contributing breeds, particularly in lighter build, bone, or refinement, it may be best to call it a half-draft, sporthorse, or heavy hunter type.

Now, with that all out of the way, let's judge our class!

North American Spotted Draft stallion

Horse A: Augustus

North American Spotted Draft stallion

Horse B: G1 Draft

North American Spotted Draft gelding

Horse C: Georg

Cindy's placings can be found under the jump. ↓

The Placings:

🥇1st: Horse A - Augustus

My first place is Horse A. Though his color is not exactly defined (some interpret is as Silver Bay, others as Sorrel/Flaxen Chestnut), it does give the opportunity for more eye-catching shading, details, and, technically, both colors can be possible within the breed depending on what breed was used for adding color and how long it lasted to be passed down to a high-percentage descendant. Overall, his conformation is undeniably drafty, anatomy is spot on, and the sculpting and molding on this model is the best out of the 3, creating a detailed, crisp, and balanced example.

🥈2nd: Horse C - Georg

Even though I chose Horse C as my 2nd place, it could have easily gone either way as both molds have great anatomy and conformation. Black and White Tobiano is definitely a more common color in the real live breed, which is why I wouldn't be upset to see it take the top placing and it would be deserved as well. But being far more common and a bit more plain in its color, the desirability and collectibility factor can also be used to help break a tie in things otherwise equal in condition, realism, etc.

🥉3rd: Horse B - G1 Draft

3rd place is Horse B. It's not anything against a vintage mold and certainly not to the sculptor Maureen Love! But as an American breed, you'll be hard pressed to find such a heavy and wide example in purebred form, let alone generations down the line with what we have available in the US, and this is an American registry. Not that you absolutely won't find them, but this type is more often seen in Europe currently, or back over 100 years ago when the US still imported from Europe. Either way, not within the timeline of the NASDHA. However, recent imports of Ardennes, Boulonnais, and Brabants can make it a possibility.

Even so, as a later molding of the G1 Draft, she lacks detail and crispness that is hard to compete with the two more recent entries, which can either be forgiven as an inevitability of that mold, or considered as "puffiness" compared to the modern competitors. Not to mention, while possible and permitted, her red, roany Sabino-like pattern is not quite as likely or popular (i.e. what Breeders like to see and what they go for in real placings) among the Spotted Draft folk. She is absolutely adorable and not a bad paintjob, but roaning can be so hard to convey in mass-produced plastic without looking totally random, especially at that scale.

Overall, you can't really go wrong with placing any of these: all have their merits, all are lovely examples of drafts with fairly realistic colors and patterns.