Impressive (horse)
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Impressive (4/15/1968 - 3/20/1995) is an Appendix American Quarter Horse with royal thoroughbred breeding on both sides. He was the 1974 World Champion Open Aged halter stallion, the first such World Champion in his breed, despite carrying only 48 halter points in total. He is famous for his highly successful progeny, nearly thirty of which went on to be World Champions themselves, but is also notorious as the primary source of the widespread genetic disease known as Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP).
In his showing days, Impressive changed hands a number of times, perhaps his most famous owner being Dean Landers, who also owned the famous halter stallions Two Eyed Jack, Coy's Bonanza, and Sonny Dee Bar. Although Impressive raced for a short time after Landers sold him to Fennel Brown, he was quickly excluded from any performance discipline due to pedal osteitis, leaving halter as his only choice. His groundbreaking 1974 World Championship soon cemented his role in that discipline. Each time Impressive was resold, his price rose quickly; at one point, an offer of $300,000 for him was refused by Brown, who said "ain't nobody in this world got enough money to buy this horse."
Impressive was highly sought after for breeding, despite at one time carrying the outrageously high stud fee of $25,000. He sired a total of 2,250 foals, and was estimated to have in excess of 55,000 living descendants in 2003. He was bred to for his muscular and refined form, which was passed on to his get often enough to make him at least the #5 all-time leading quarter horse sire when ranked by AQHA points earned by all progeny combined. Perhaps his greatest foal is Noble Tradition, a four-time World Champion stallion in halter, who has gone on to be a highly successful sire himself.
Although Impressive never exhibited any symptoms of the disease himself, and indeed is not known to carry it, gradually it became evident that many horses in Impressive's extensive line were inflicted with the painful, alarming, and often fatal disease Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis. It has never been observed outside his line. There is currently a widespread effort among many breeders to eliminate the disease by selective breeding, but those who continue to breed without regard for it, seeking the muscular refinement correlated with it, perpetuate the disease's existence.
External links
- Bringing Light to HyPP: Impressive (http://www.bringinglighttohypp.org/Impressive.html)
- Impressive data sheet and pedigree (http://www.qhd.com/horse/stallion.asp?id=2671)
- A photo of Impressive standing in a field (http://www.txdirect.net/users/warloga/impressive.jpg)
- UC Davis VGL: Current Facts About Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP) Disease (http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/~lvmillon/hypp/hypp_facts.html)
