American Thoroughbred not good enough?!

[vineyridge]

I think it is clear that there are certain lines which were popular in the US and certain lines which were popular in Europe, and it took generations before they made an impact on the unpopular side.

Bold Ruler was never popular in Europe; Sing Sing was never popular in the United States. Tell me how many American horses you know that have Honeyway in their breeding? Only now after three or four generations is Mr. P becoming a common line in some European breeding.

A.P. Indy and Seattle Slew? The Europeans don’t want them.

Babbling on about the international aspects of TB breeding doesn’t overcome the fact that only some European lines are used in America and only some American lines are used in Europe.

Heck, how many successful Sadler’s Wells line stallions are popular and successful in the US? How many Danzig line stallions are popular and successful in the US?

[D_BaldStockings]

for instance:
pedigree of Belmont Stakes (1.5 miles) winner Creator
http://www.pedigreequery.com/creator9

5th generation ancestry top to bottom
25 USA
3 Canada (is that American?)
1 France
3 GB

Note that his dam was born and raced in Peru…

American Pharoah, also a Belmont winner
http://www.pedigreequery.com/american+pharoah

5th generation ancestry top to bottom
24 USA
2 France
3 Canada
2 GB
1 Argentina

[vineyridge]

Which just goes to show that American breeders are not importing foreign horses as much as they did, say, in the 1950s. On the whole, American horses are bred from peculiarly American lines.

[D_BaldStockings]

Treve winner of the Arc de Triomphe (twice)
http://www.pedigreequery.com/treve3

5th generation ancestry top to bottom
3 Canada
21 USA
3 Ireland
2 France
3 GB

Note that his dam (French) was out of a USA TB, and by a USA TB…

Another Arc de Triomphe winner Golden Horn
http://www.pedigreequery.com/golden+horn12

5th generation ancestry top to bottom
2 Canada
17 USA
8 GB
3 France
1 Ireland
1 Argentina

Dam is GB by a USA horse out of a GB mare by a USA horse out of a GB mare…

[D_BaldStockings]

You might say US breds dominated TBs world-wide. But you would make a lot of people very angry…

I posted winners of important distance races, since some people seem to think that sprinters are not good for sport breeding.

[vineyridge]

There was a huge wave of US imports to Europe in the 1970s and early 1980s that molded the contemporary European TB.

[EventerAJ]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;8878387]

Heck, how many successful Sadler’s Wells line stallions are popular and successful in the US? How many Danzig line stallions are popular and successful in the US?[/QUOTE]

I’m limited for time, but here’s a quick answer:
Sadler’s Wells:

• El Prado. Interesting to note, El Prado is Irish bred, but a distinctly North American pedigree. He’s the sire of:
  ----Medaglia D’Oro (hey, I think I’ve heard of him…)
  ----Kitten’s Joy
  ----Artie Schiller
  ----Borrego
  ----Fort Prado
  ----Paddy O’Prado

Danzig line stallions are plentiful. War Front, for starters, is incredibly popular both here and in Europe. Hard Spun. War Chant. Brahms. Langfuhr (from Langfuhr: Wilko, Lawyer Ron). US Ranger. Exchange Rate. Military. Belong To Me. Boundary (Big Brown). That’s just off the top of my head.

Northern Dancer, via Sadlers Wells, Danzig, and even Storm Bird/Storm Cat, had incredible international appeal.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=EventerAJ;8878470]
I’m limited for time, but here’s a quick answer:
Sadler’s Wells:

• El Prado. Interesting to note, El Prado is Irish bred, but a distinctly North American pedigree. He’s the sire of:
  ----Medaglia D’Oro (hey, I think I’ve heard of him…)
  ----Kitten’s Joy
  ----Artie Schiller
  ----Borrego
  ----Fort Prado
  ----Paddy O’Prado

Danzig line stallions are plentiful. War Front, for starters, is incredibly popular both here and in Europe. Hard Spun. War Chant. Brahms. Langfuhr (from Langfuhr: Wilko, Lawyer Ron). US Ranger. Exchange Rate. Military. Belong To Me. Boundary (Big Brown). That’s just off the top of my head.

Northern Dancer, via Sadlers Wells, Danzig, and even Storm Bird/Storm Cat, had incredible international appeal.[/QUOTE]

I was surprised Viney asked about Danzig, TBH…he was a leading US sire in the early 90s and he seems to be plenty of pedigrees here… One of mine has him up close, damside, and he’s about as American as you can get.

Danzig:
Langhfur
Polish Navy
War Chant
War Front
Danzig Connection (also big in IRE, I understand)
Chief’s Crown
Exchange Rate
Danehill
Dove Hunt (!! big with the eventers in US)
Hard Spun

Not exhaustive, just off the top of my head

[Elles]

http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/american-thoroughbred.html
Horses like these to me are American: http://www.pedigreequery.com/a+diehl
http://www.pedigreequery.com/black+is+beautiful

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=elizabeth Callahan;8877657]
When the long format went away, so did the dominance and need for the full TB. Sad, but true…
I love my TB’s , and feel that they are wonderful for the stamina and heart they bring to the equation,but with the evolution of the sport( and in my mind, not a forward evolution), that ship has sailed and won’t be coming back…[/QUOTE]

I was just looking at the WBSFH Studbook rankings for Eventing. I think you are spot on in your assessment Doc. The results are profound.

I am just looking at the top 11 eventing studbooks for no other reason than it’s a full 2 pages on the site.

11 studbooks with the top 6 horses contributing points to that studbook = 66 of the top Eventers

Out of 66 eventers…only 6 are sired by TB Stallions. This is less than 10%.

I think you are correct in your opinion that it won’t be coming back.

Here is the link http://www.wbfsh.org/files/Eventing_Studbooks_August_2016.pdf

[Xanthoria]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8878357]
Xanthoria,
It would have been more informative if the same was done to top WB jumper sires from 20-30 years ago as a comparison; but it is too easy for people to get bent out of shape if there is line drawn criticism of an idol that runs contrary to popular opinion.

Which is why using deceased horses might be slightly less negative…

The additional number of elbow-stifle downhill horses might be an eye opener for some.[/QUOTE]

I think you have to compare horses from the same era. But I’m happy to do the same for some WBs if people want to give me the names!

[Equilibrium]

Two of the most popular TB stallions in Ireland, and they’ve covered a lot of mares are:

Pontilliste by Giant’s Causeway out of an Alydar mare.
Emperor Augustus by Fuschai Pegasus out of an AP Indy mare.

Both bred in the USA. EA has had some nice stock in the young eventer classes.

The RDS class isn’t much to judge it on in reality.

Terri

[Elles]

http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/stamina-lines.html

[gypsymare]

[QUOTE=Elles;8877802]
https://m.facebook.com/thoroughbredsporthorses/[/QUOTE]

There have been some really suspicious stories about this place. Supposedly an OTTB flipper that gets cheap and free horses but can’t feed or care for them all.

These discussions all seem to assume that American TBs are homogenous. Look at that downhill, low necked huge hipped thing! like there is no discrimination or breeding for distances or surfaces. The “turf horses” and distance runners have very dissimilar conformation to the sprinter lines. Then you have the steeplechasers which are a smaller set and often failed flat racers but there are definitely desirable lines.

The best bloodlines cross the ocean. It’s not like the lines aren’t all co-mingled.

[gypsymare]

[QUOTE=Xanthoria;8877807]
So, I think there are a few things to note about “being downhill” before I post some marked up shots.

• Most photos show a moment in time. A horse's angles can change drastically depending on their stance, withers especially can pop up or down.
• A horse can be built downhill, but move uphill.
• A horse's athletic ability, character, and presence cannot be strictly defined by angles, but we have all likely ridden a downhill horse and an uphill horse. And we mostly know what we prefer.
• It is up to stallion owners to make sure they take good photos of horses for their sites. Many do not...

With all that in mind, I tried to find good conformation pics of some of the horses people have mentioned, and in most cases failed. That alone is a bit irritating - if you’re selling a stallion and conformation is acknowledged as being important, why not show that conformation… if it’s good? Even retired stallions, one would think, might have images floating around the web?

Some shots were taken showing the horse at an angle, or up a hill: a trick that’s easy to see through. While rotating the pics in Photoshop leads to incorrect leg angles, the main body angles are less distorted, so in some cases I had to do that to show “level.” You can see the white corners on the ones I did.

I added 5 lines to each picture. Two blue "level’ ones at feet and above the back to show true horizontal. A yellow one for stifle-elbow, a green one for LS-widest part of neck, and a red one for croup-withers.

Salute the Truth
Comet Shine
Sea Accounts
Roven
Roven again
Triple Twist
Sea Lion
Sadler’s Wells

What I learned was that all the horses I could find pictures for were downhill by at least 2 out of three measures. And depending on how you stand a horse up (Roven) his angles change. Yes you can dicker over where the lines hit but even if you think the stifle is in the gaskin, the lines still run down hill in the majority of cases.

The fact is that it’s very rare to find a horse who is level, let alone uphill. But a very downhill horse who also moves downhill is a really unpleasant ride IMEX and when you’re breeding, you’d only choose a downhill sire if both sire an dam move uphill and have the competition results to prove it.[/QUOTE]

Could you do this for the top 5 current jumper sires? I’d like to see the difference side by side. I’ve always just looked at wither vs croup height.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=gypsymare;8878956]
Could you do this for the top 5 current jumper sires? I’d like to see the difference side by side. I’ve always just looked at wither vs croup height.[/QUOTE]

I’d be interested in Xanthoria’s reply. Here’s just a few WB stallions off of the top of my head:
Quaterback
Furstenball - his was tricky because of the shadows - note slope of the ground on his…
Balou Du Rouet - also on a huge angle!

If you rotated this pictures (I could open PS3 for the sake of argument when I’m at home) you’d find that their stifles are much higher than their elbows as well.

Stifles are tricky and the placement of them varies by discipline - dressage stallions tend to have a shorter femur which conveys to a higher stifle (which would make the stifle higher than the elbow in most cases) while jumpers prefer a lower stifle/longer femur for more scope over fences.

One thing I’ve noticed browsing Stallion ads… the TB stallion owners seem to be better about accurate presentation; almost every WB is on a slope, facing away from the camera, or there isn’t even a conformation picture at all. and most horses, physically, have a marginally higher stifle than elbow - just like most horses have bigger shoulders than HQ.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=Bayhawk;8877568]
Don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve never said I didn’t consider eventing a sport. It’s one of our Olympic disciplines and I have nothing but respect for the horses and riders that compete.

The Tb’s are not “Dominating” eventing. They use to…but not any longer.

Here is the 2016 WBFSH Eventing Sires ranking. A Holsteiner is #1 and TB Stallions only occupy 3 out of the top 10 spots.

Rolex WBFSH Top 10 Eventing Sire Ranking

1 (3) CONTENDRO I - 999
2 (10) RAMIRO B - 976
3 (2) HERALDIK XX - 885
4 (1) MASTER IMP XX - 864
5 (20) JAGUAR MAIL - 773
6 (8) RICARDO Z - 704
7 (36) LIMMERICK - 703
8 (47) PUISSANCE - 658
9 (4) GHAREEB XX - 648
10 (16) COURAGE II - 630[/QUOTE]

Respectfully, after looking at the WBFSH horse ranking data which does not include horse #1, 5,6,8,14-18,… likely because they use a set number of events minimum; I used a slightly different dataset from Horsetelex which ranks by earnings regardless of # of events run for calendar 2015:
http://horsetelexresults.nl/rankings/index?page=1&from=01.01.2015&to=31.12.2015&category.Eventing=true

after dumping the top 100 into an excel file I extracted the following info:

2015 annual horsetelex rankings – by earnings regardless of # of competitions run

Top 100 horses:

Studbook by # horses in top 100, 5 or more

23 ish
12 sf
12 XX = TB
7 kwpn
6 shbgb
6 hann
5 holst

TB Sires of top 100 horses

32
#TB dam sire of top 100 horses
36

Studbook by # horses in top 25, 2 or more
5 ish
4 XX
3 sf
2 shbgb
2 holst

TB Sires of top 25 horses

10
#TB dam sire of top 25 horses
12

Studbook by # horses in top 5
Bad-wu
Dsp
Brand
Oldbg
ish

TB Sires of top 5 horses

4 (the top 4)
#TB dam sire of top 5 horses
2

If you are breeding horses you wish to get into the WBFSH rankings, you need to follow their criteria.

If you are simply tabulating horse wins and looking at their bloodlines, you need to use the larger dataset that includes TB.

Note there was also one or 2 sires that are not listed as XX that are out of TB sires and dams; I did not put them in the Database as TB.

I do, however agree that the loss of the long format, the change to using a dressage coefficient and the drift toward spectator-friendly x-c have altered eventing to the point a (pure) TB is unlikely to show an advantage over a (dressage gaited and able to jump) WB.

[D_BaldStockings]

Not listed as TB
Star Witness
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=11029424

Not listed as having a TB dam sire
Fernhill Cubalawn
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?d=fernhill+cubalawn&sex=&color=&dog_breed=any&birthyear=&birthland=

Not listed as having a TB sire
Nereo
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10495714

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8879088]
Respectfully, after looking at the WBFSH horse ranking data which does not include horse #1, 5,6,8,14-18,… likely because they use a set number of events minimum; I used a slightly different dataset from Horsetelex which ranks by earnings regardless of # of events run for calendar 2015:
http://horsetelexresults.nl/rankings/index?page=1&from=01.01.2015&to=31.12.2015&category.Eventing=true

after dumping the top 100 into an excel file I extracted the following info:

2015 annual horsetelex rankings – by earnings regardless of # of competitions run

Top 100 horses:

Studbook by # horses in top 100, 5 or more

23 ish
12 sf
12 XX = TB
7 kwpn
6 shbgb
6 hann
5 holst

TB Sires of top 100 horses

32
#TB dam sire of top 100 horses
36

Studbook by # horses in top 25, 2 or more
5 ish
4 XX
3 sf
2 shbgb
2 holst

TB Sires of top 25 horses

10
#TB dam sire of top 25 horses
12

Studbook by # horses in top 5
Bad-wu
Dsp
Brand
Oldbg
ish

TB Sires of top 5 horses

4 (the top 4)
#TB dam sire of top 5 horses
2

If you are breeding horses you wish to get into the WBFSH rankings, you need to follow their criteria.

If you are simply tabulating horse wins and looking at their bloodlines, you need to use the larger dataset that includes TB.

Note there was also one or 2 sires that are not listed as XX that are out of TB sires and dams; I did not put them in the Database as TB.

I do, however agree that the loss of the long format, the change to using a dressage coefficient and the drift toward spectator-friendly x-c have altered eventing to the point a (pure) TB is unlikely to show an advantage over a (dressage gaited and able to jump) WB.[/QUOTE]

So in other words…you compile your own statistics that suits your own narrative ?

WBFSH ( W stands for WORLD ) studbook ranking is a compilation of the best performing horses…period. Horse telex is a pedigree data base and much of their information is notoriously inaccurate and or incomplete.

I provided the top 10 sire ranking with only 3 TB Stallions in the top 10. I provided the studbook ranking with only 6 contributing horses (sired by a TB stallion) out of 66 of the worlds best. Less than 10% .

It was stated here that TB’s are “dominating” eventing. This is simply not true.

[Xanthoria]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8879043]
I’d be interested in Xanthoria’s reply. Here’s just a few WB stallions off of the top of my head:
Quaterback
Furstenball - his was tricky because of the shadows - note slope of the ground on his…
Balou Du Rouet - also on a huge angle![/QUOTE]

Awesome - I’ll do them when I get home. List a couple more!