Bored by wintry-blues, TBL went to the local race meeting.
Strode into the main entrance and spotted horse no.6. Eye appeal was enough.
Took a bet & it was a good start to the day. Brought myself lunch (not so good there) and walked by the den of punters, and on through to the outside, where the small crowd of owners and connections socialized from the cold.
As pondering the who’s who of owner-partnership fraternity, where the parties eagerly hung to jockeys & trainers view of events…my friend said, ‘things don’t change’ and TBL chuckled knowingly.
‘If’, if, if you see… has the longest word in the human book and ‘if’ that horse wasn’t in a bad position, it would of been in-the-money, having made up its ground.
TBL remembered the ol’ Russian proverb: ‘hope is the mother of all fools’.
Next race and coming into the birdcage was a nervous mare. Surprised at the astonishingly elongated back pastern where the fetlock almost appeared ready to collapse beneath. Her awkwardness upset TBL’s idealism of the perfect specimen. (joke) How could it have a show?
Galileo mare
WHAT(?)…effortlessly, she flew past the post – a smooth gliding action which touched invisibly upon the turf.
The mare was by the great Galileo.
– yeah, TBL got this wrong. It was a message to reboot and remind. Think & think again, what-is(?) well-bred correctness?
Ultimately, breeding is Get the Best. The best thoroughbred where its poetry is swiftness: a beautiful ‘natural’ easy momentum speed surging through veins of a classic thoroughbred animal.
The clues of careful breeding come upon a genotype pedigree which yields to deeper layering – the familial ‘groups’ (in-breeding) as belonging to the individuals (as ‘race’-named): these hierarchal like-tiers which imperceptibly, preside through thoroughbred breeding.
It persists in generations what is potential – the aim to procure an above normal individual. A horse (in flesh) may be ugly, unlikeable, something physically incorrect etc, but never mind, the ‘X’ factor is gait, motion and speed.
This is what beauty of racing actually is – to watch and experience it. Shivers go down your spine.
By identifying (again & again) the KPI’s (of pedigrees) follow the family by viewing family-tables working structure. Family tables are like post-codes that profile exactly the genetic engine. Specifically, tap-root(s) maternal, its generational unfolding, upgrading to the present individual.
The family wheels keep going smooth, providing the KPI’s are substantially in place.
GALILEO, SEA THE STARS, Epsom Derby winner MASAR
Many articles on these mighty horses take obvious bits of information without penetrating particular peculiarities which greatly seam the genetics. The dam’s family ‘connections’ which keeps the knitting together. Exceptional ‘dam’ strain (family 9-h)intertwines another exceptional ‘dam’ strain (5-h), the most potent proliferating thoroughbred strains in existence where it is also to gauge their genetic prowess on the constant evolutionary move of the thoroughbred.
Opportunity lies in hidden details which populist breeding propaganda fails to inform detail, detail, detail.
It is to ‘conserve’ , source, support bloodlines. However from this ol’ TBL book of mine….family-table ‘pairing’ of strains takes the ‘map’ but appropriately revise from the oldest bloodlines now barely visible (some are rare); they from the cultural/economic/political history of horses ‘lost & hidden in time’.
“Birkhahn began his stallion career at the Graditz National Stud in East Germany, where he was leading sire of winners five times. He was bought by Baroness Gabrielle von Oppenheim of the Schlenderhan Stud in 1960 and although he died five years later, he was leading West German sire of winners three times posthumously.” Peter Willet – The Classic Racehorse
“His sire Alchimist (family 9-h) won the Grosser Preis von Baden-Baden, Grosser Preis von Berlin, Grosser Preis von Kohn and was the leading sire in Germany. Unfortunately, when the Russians swept into Germany at the end of the war, Alchimist was slaughtered for food”. Ken McLean – Designing Speed in the Racehorse
And, as for the subject mare above, well what-do-you-know….Birkhahn merges onto the maternal tap-root line.
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