The history of the horse and man have intertwined for thousands of years. The Stallion has long carried our imaginations and higher aspirations on his back as well as the weight of us in the saddle. But imagination should not influence your selection of which from the many stallions at stud to breed your mare.

The idea of a "purebred" animal gained importance in Europe during the 19th century, but selective breeding between mares and various stallions at stud has occurred almost everywhere man has kept horses and the real goal of horse breeding is for each generation to be an improvement upon the preceding generation.
Historically the primary selection criteria are conformation, performance and pedigree.

A stallion's performance record and conformation, must be compared to that of other stallions at stud. There is evidence that most performance ability is in heritability.

Of course a stallion may not be old enough for one to judge his performance ability. so while a young stallion with no performance record is at a disadvantage, you as a breeder may judge the stallion's pedig