I think I can recall, or reading years ago – Sir Patrick Hogan (ex-Cambridge Stud, N.Z) commented, ‘racing’ is not ‘breeding’: breeding is not racing.
Instinctively I thought those given principles where correct: what he was suggesting right-on-point, a greater meaning to keep separate, the two.
The confusion is ‘how’.
Many might consider the theory surrounding our blogs, its pedigree analysis, as maybe ideology.
I suppose one maybe absorbed by better statistics, ‘sighting’ evidence, performance and stakes money, convention recorded, has its ‘proof’. Where pedigree analysis has the poorer relationship to those substantiated evidences. Our ‘theory’ by the way, is always ‘standing’ within the pedigree itself.
I assume some gaze on desk-top analysts & kinda assume we haven’t any meaningful purpose in life other than to gaze longingly at racing champions photos, study those pedigrees and say ‘hey, I’ve got it’…..
I’ve got it
Jokes aside: thankfully comes what is needed – clean up the desk, look through all those old notes of paper and revise. Think again….and the aha does drop from heaven.
Indeed, the scenario to study superior performers one after another: where one goes deep n’ far into the attributes of pedigree is that somewhere/somehow/sometimes you do miss the boat. And everybody is doing much same.
Before I attempt to explain some good ol’ plain non-fashioned breeding ‘ideas’ there are many and greater indeterminate multi-dynamic elements which forever take consideration.
Breeding intentions can be simplified. But that comes later…
If I asked what has your intention of breeding – many may reply to breed/own the racing champion. Or, reach the highest price because of that beautiful stallion, his breeding.
No, that is the dream….and speculation or unconscious expectation perhaps?
We desk-top analysts, have commented for some time the dying-off, of stamina & question, why this is really happening? The other long commentary relates to faulty-breeding i.e. horse-break downs.
There is also commentary to lack-of siring diversity, hence down the track a much lesser diversity with bloodlines. Now think of that on broodmares. Can you see that future now? The bottle-neck narrows….
Yet, on another planet, the TAB just want numbers in a field, the gambling/entertainment industry does not want champions, it seeks greatest gains from a bet. The gamblers take ‘form’, times, data – the horse has 4 legs, why doesn’t it run…..breeding & ownership in an odd complex way, has its competition with the TAB.
Their economic existence is at odds – they should hook-up. 
Then there is our new planet Winx: – the game-changer, the truly special one, the dream is achievable, the culture is new, fresh, alive, people of all ages what to experience Winx.
Her seeds were in her dam and I doubt very much New Zealand interests would of sold if they knew what was in store?
Dam. Its happened before.
We all seek the gold: its properties, its powers and that is why in the blog The super-nova of fillies & mares those identified individuals ‘traits’ within individual performers are strongly evident where the superior genetic attraction thrives.
Don’t you think, Sir Patrick comprehended & analysed every individual within Sir T to carry more than enough genetic breeding merit.
immortalised – Sir Tristram at Cambridge Stud. Photo by TBL
Acknowledgement to that of the speed gene per the studies Dr Emmiline Hill: DNA analysis to muscle development: a prediction to a horses optimum racing distance.
Much as one can take interest – is it & at the same time, the stallion is up on the mare, one purely says “wait a minute, we’ll order the classic winning speed-gene, thank you”.
I come back time and time on this factor ….where superior performers not only race better, they race different. That difference is time n’ motion, balance n’ gait effortless: bio-mechanical physical perfect.
Watch the video’s of Man O War, any great champion you like and you might get the picture.
From the desk clearing, dad’s old notes on farming & animal breeding popped-up. His guiding principles where not just one element. There where several.
Constitution – Capability – Conformation – Capacity – Temperament the core factors. From this ground, he calculated Racing and Breeding elements added towards sum-total.
That is the penny… speed is racing. The stamina is breeding. It helps when 4 legs are balanced & in more ways than one.
He persevered on capability and capacity. If the female is capable, (her records) via her breeding, then her capacity within the herd to improve, can sustain & give more.
Thus sustaining the genetic traits which worked well, seek to maintain but more so, minimize that which did not. i.e. iron them faults out.
In the art of breeding: he was thoughtfully working through the ideal animal which can take its ‘performance’, its phenotype should befittingly appear as of a natural result, closest as best, to ‘perfection’. Purer the better, was his expression.
Now agree or don’t agree… the thoroughbred phenotype over these last few decades has clearly changed.
‘Said’ breeding speed indeed has taken the stud master ‘command’ however its mighty evident the horses ain’t got the puff, the capacity, the capability and the necessary motion n’ limbs to do it. Rotary beaters, I think they’re called.
Its ugly for the horse and jockey where it don’t want to run because it simply can’t. I actually think its cruel but if you want it more descriptive, it ain’t fit for racing purpose.
If not right for racing, then we may say the breeding was not there but that is too easy an assumption.
It is becoming clearer to me (IMAO) the gait, its motion has/is gene responsible: this is what ability is and lays.
A good, clean balanced gait uses less energy.
Its a secretive thing that jocks, track-workers, breaking in horses etc have in ‘check’ how the horse feels, how the horse hits the turf, how the horse just feels underneath.
No words for it. See, that’s the divinity of Winx.
True Colours
It comes to the physical, the phenotype from the genotype, from the traits held within bloodlines.
In the old school called animal-husbandry – Calf-club days, stock-judging days to stock-judge (of cattle) you learn how an animal moves with its feet, you know if it has the bones to carry itself with its 4 feet, you know if it thinks itself a ‘cool’ animal (presence), you know if it wants to be around people (temperament), you know if it has attitude.
Many elements, many traits, pour through bloodlines such factors have to be weighed-up.
Cheers from New Zealand 
Like this:
Like Loading...
English