…with sincere hope that it will promote the love of the noble creature, the horse, its breeding, and trial on the race-course. – Burchard Von Oettingen, Trakehnen 1907
It appears (at times) where only a bare few shall take a solid appreciation from thoroughbred history.
…all very good photos of great, noble champions but is it for others (?) coming to grips via TB ancestry and evolutionary developments is horribly, kinda inconsequential ?
I myself and like many, shall gaze for hours re-living their days: racing champions, the thrill n’ passion remembering superior performances of yesteryear(s).
And of course, its soooo easy to esteem those pedigrees of superior champions. The proof is there….
Proof & evaluation…from truer-at-heart analysis to interpret the Patterns, highlighted superior individuals (as strains) that no pedigree shall ever go without. Period.
Come on…. we are no longer centring Mr Prospector, Northern Dancer- they being a ‘zero-point’. Rather, we are to notice emergent & distinctive broodmare anomalies that ‘spike’ from female family inheritances.
Oh my…. what it is to be reminded from good n’ old; the genetic routes/the genetic infusions: to the old/best/new/hottest epigenetic genes which chuck themselves out clearly & upon superior individuals from their ancestral circles.
Seeking old/best/new/hottest individuals is never plain as day but nor illusionary. The pedigree only reveals in subtle detail. Algorithms don’t show…
In TBL philosophy 🙂 these old/best/new/hottest genes are survivor strains. They are clearly not plentiful and with good reason.
Like Quality antique – the, Horse Breeding Theory & Practice had practices, principles, arriving superior quality, now forgotten or ignored in modern times.
Like three wise men, there wise words of age old perspicacity are comforting, a logic of common sense but also comes, the vague sadness where modern breeding principles by performance and commercial productivity can liberally convey everything & Everything is soundly bred to race.
Getting a good-un horse – be it self-bred, purchased, secured on-line, or syndication shared by ownership is the horse n’ human quest for distinction.
Yet regrettably old-fashioned breeding fundamentals (and all its immense, eternal pedigree detail) to arrive upon that champion individual is veiled deep or plainly the dynamics are lost-in-time or is it, the lottery of horse-trading?
For some time we’ve being lamenting the intensified loss of diversity: the dwindling pool of broodmare numbers, the global mass-pool of descendants come, Northern Dancer ‘Y’ and the resulting TB, its phenotype.
It…. a dramatic global funnel of tightened genetics which bleeds deep.
Yet out of the social-media blue steps out an ‘ad’. A welfare/rescue 2014 born TB mare needing to be adopted & re-homed. Her name is Liberty G & by the photo she’s had it tough.
But…there IS, the bone.
https://www.pedigreequery.com/liberty+g
I assume some bloodstock investors may say garbage….
And I guess, the welfare fraternity have (on her behalf) shall rightly say, no more horse-wastage…
Yet by example it screams at disaster, how the TB broodmare genetics quietly, & disgracefully disappear because bare few comprehend the precious bloodline, as its life, lays within.
If we are serious about reducing horse-wastage or better still, a conservation-in-breeding mind-set then study this pedigree well.
https://www.pedigreequery.com/liberty+g
Should anyone not be familiar to bloodlines, family tables etc etc then let’s introduce that one and only European champion by name…. Frankel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankel_(horse)
Yep… of the Liberty G pedigree you are looking at the same female family as Frankel. (ff 1-k). Not a lot of them about is there!
Screen the Liberty G ancestry – the much fewer/lesser strains of Nearco, towards the noble old bloods, & as sorely missing (abundant wise) from many a ‘now’ evolving contemporary pedigree – namely Teddy and that of, Man O’ War.
Look to the Liberty G siring line (Deer Lake, USA) that of grand sire Hold Your Peace (USA) where the writer, with others, has identified the stallion (frequently) as the superior breeding lane ⇔ Prince John (USA)/ Princequillo. See Winx – workin’ them genes
refer also – Hold Your Peace (USA) 3rd dams maternal sire: from equine gods…Kukulkan (Mex)
If we ever ‘think’ we are improving the Thoroughbred by rubbishing the reliable, consistent bloodlines and opting for modern quality from performance alone – then think again.
“bought for peanuts – won a fortune – wrecked the know all’s, to the delight of students and officials”
cheers from New Zealand, TBL 
The Thoroughbred Link 