6th individual rankings eventing 2016 olympics, quite a bit of American lines:
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=11135804&blood=10"a=
I assume the issue of the successful hybrids is the need for fantastic dressage score (hence the advantage of select WB blood) along with the TB attributes needed for xc to be at the top level in eventing.
This reminds me of an argument in high school where the teacher asked us to debate which is better, men or women⊠:lol:
Obviously it didnât take long before we concluded that for the sake of the species and with the current state of science, one canât do without the other.
IOW the modern WB would not be around were it not for the TB, and the state of modern sport (breeding, competition styles, rider capability, training systems) means a horse with bigger gaits and greater rideability is often needed.
Since TB breeders arenât selecting for expressive trots, trainability and long term soundness, and WB breeders arenât selecting for heart and speed, the two canât do without each other!
Beowulf, please ignore Bayhawk.
Beowulf, please ignore Bayhawk.
You should not ignore what he says because you do not like the tone he takes. His tought reflects the very opinion of many of the best breeders of sport horses in the world today, so it worth, at least, a trying to understand even if you disagree.
Examples given to examplify the outrageous dominance of the TBâŠare 1/2 TB. The impact the TB has had on WB breeding is uncontested, and no one has said the contrary, not even Bayhawk! But, although TB have had a significant impact on modern sporthorse, it is extremly simplistic to attribute all of the success of any of the horses mentionned, except of course the full TB, to the fact that TB was added to the mix. By definition, a TB is simply the result of a TB crossed with a TB. No TB studbook have established any standard or breeding directions, it simply requires the purity of the blood. The rest is up to the breeder. On the other hand, the warmblood, in its most fundamental nature, is a horse bred following genetic and conformation standards, and for a purpose, excelling in the sport. This being said, the horse you see as 1/2 or 3/4 TB, I see it as the result of generations of selection for specific traits which included, if and when required, the addition of TB, in the purest of sport horse philosphy. The horse is not better because it is more TB, the horse is better because the breeder has made the right mix. The TB did not shape the horse by itself, but complemented a dameline selectively bred over generations. It may have brought blood and stamina lacking on a dame line that already had the strenght, the canter, the gaits, the leveled head and talent to win at the highest level. The whole purpose of breeding sporthorses following the major warmblood studbooks principles is making the right choices, at the right time, for the right reasons.
Yes, but this topic is about the best kind of TB to use when one wants to use it.
I think Beowulf has more useful things to say about that than Bayhawk has.
[QUOTE=Cumano;8880344]
You should not ignore what he says because you do not like the tone he takes. His tought reflects the very opinion of many of the best breeders of sport horses in the world today, so it worth, at least, a trying to understand even if you disagree.
Examples given to examplify the outrageous dominance of the TBâŠare 1/2 TB. The impact the TB has had on WB breeding is uncontested, and no one has said the contrary, not even Bayhawk! But, although TB have had a significant impact on modern sporthorse, it is extremly simplistic to attribute all of the success of any of the horses mentionned, except of course the full TB, to the fact that TB was added to the mix. By definition, a TB is simply the result of a TB crossed with a TB. No TB studbook have established any standard or breeding directions, it simply requires the purity of the blood. The rest is up to the breeder. On the other hand, the warmblood, in its most fundamental nature, is a horse bred following genetic and conformation standards, and for a purpose, excelling in the sport. This being said, the horse you see as 1/2 or 3/4 TB, I see it as the result of generations of selection for specific traits which included, if and when required, the addition of TB, in the purest of sport horse philosphy. The horse is not better because it is more TB, the horse is better because the breeder has made the right mix. The TB did not shape the horse by itself, but complemented a dameline selectively bred over generations. It may have brought blood and stamina lacking on a dame line that already had the strenght, the canter, the gaits, the leveled head and talent to win at the highest level. The whole purpose of breeding sporthorses following the major warmblood studbooks principles is making the right choices, at the right time, for the right reasons.[/QUOTE]
Thank youâŠyour response may fall on deaf ears, but it is well thought out and very true.
I have said before that Bayhawkâs delivery may grate on people, but that does not in any way diminish the truth of his words.
To continue my previous post, this is why, to me, a 1/2 or 3/4 TB horse does not show the dominance of the TB, it shows that the best horses for the job probably have a lot of blood. What would show a clear dominance of the TB is if pure TB dominated the field, or if at least we could see a clear trend showing that the more we find TB, the better the horse, neither of which is the case. The best performers of today are horses with more blood, but bred in the purest of the warmblood philosophy. Remember that the interest of the breeders of the maine studbooks for purpously bred eventing horses is relatively recent. A decade or two ago, the vast majority of eventing horses were either sub-par jumpers or dressage horses, or TB. The TB then was probably superior in the cross as it required stamina that was not the focus of warmblood breeding. Since breeders of studbooks such as the SF, holst or KWPN began purposly breeding horses for eventing, using the strong foundation warmblood mares they had and purpously breeding in the qualities they lacked for the sport, these new studbooks have rapidly gained ground over the TB, combining the best of both worlds. Of course the TB had a major impact on the evolution of those horses. I donât think it is simply because more TB was added and TB are better. It is because breeders were able to understand what TB had that made their success and that the WB of the time needed, and because breeders understood how to obtain those caracteristics in their horses, without loosing all the other qualities they had that the general TB population did not have. This is why today the resulting âmixâ is not only a better version of the former warmblood, but seems to obtain more success than both the warmblood of origin and the TB. It is not the TB factor, it is simply excellent sport horse breeding.
In my country we are drowning in warmbloods and have been for many years. Thoroughbreds on the other hand have always been very scarse. Therefore I am more interested in them and learning about them. In Holland there is hardly anyone I can discuss TBâs with. To me this place is like a candyshop because of all the people that have experienced many TBâs for many years and in all kinds of circumstances. I will be 47 in December and have been interested in horses from a young age and have followed the development of the breeding of warmbloods. To me a TB is something much more âexoticâ :-).
[QUOTE=Elles;8880363]
Yes, but this topic is about the best kind of TB to use when one wants to use it.
I think Beowulf has more useful things to say about that than Bayhawk has.[/QUOTE]
I hear you on that. I would reply that your question may not realy be a relevant one from a sport horse breeding point of view. WB selectors are not looking for TB, they are looking for blood, and the TB, the good ones, are a mean to an end. Their may be trends in Europe, in America, in Australia or anywhere in TB breeding, but they are nothing but trends. TB of any type will still be found everywhere, and if a potentialy good one showes up, WB stallion owners will show interest. The origine of the lines have absolutely 0 impact if the TB has the potential of being an improver. The trend in TB breeding, from what wemost often ear, is on the side of breeding sprinters, focusing more on pure speed rather than stamina, conformation or soundness. But most of the critics in that sense come from within the TB breeding community itself. On the sport horse sides, you can be sure that many very influencial stallion owners and studbooks are always looking for new sources of blood, and they have eyes and ears on every continent. What appears is that the great TB improvers are harder and harder to find. Is it worse in Europe or America, I donât know and it doesnât matter because they do not care where they come from, as long as they are quality horses.
Or you could look at the beloved WBFSH rankings for BREEDER 2016
which is ranked by the horseâs points⊠instead of STUDBOOKS, which is a very small subset.
http://www.wbfsh.org/GB/Rankings/Breeder%20and%20Studbook%20rankings/2016.aspx
and then
http://www.wbfsh.org/files/Eventing_Breeders_August_2016.pdf
4,525 horses vs. less than 48âŠ
And shows the dam sire.
There are a few xx in there.
But who cares about breeding HORSES, it is all about STUDBOOKS.
You picked the data.
From WBFSH:
[I]"WBFSH POINTS CALCULATION
EVENTING:
More information and exact point allocation about the FEI RIDER RANKING can be found here.
Points are awarded on a basis related to the star rating of the individual event and a set of points has been devised that rewards the horse according to the status of the qualifying event and its finishing position.
A horse must complete and achieve the Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MER) in the event in order to receive points.
A horseâs best six scores over the season count towards its position in the ranking."
[/I]
[QUOTE=Elles;8880384]
In my country we are drowning in warmbloods and have been for many years. Thoroughbreds on the other hand have always been very scarse. Therefore I am more interested in them and learning about them. In Holland there is hardly anyone I can discuss TBâs with. To me this place is like a candyshop because of all the people that have experienced many TBâs for many years and in all kinds of circumstances. I will be 47 in December and have been interested in horses from a young age and have followed the development of the breeding of warmbloods. To me a TB is something much more âexoticâ :-).[/QUOTE]
You are right, it is a different culture. Over here, almost everyone have learned to ride on TB. They are a versatile horse and so much are produced in the race industry that tones are available, as âby productsâ causing the prices of OTTB to be very low. TB put so many kids in the saddles here in america that I canât imagine how the english riding sports could have taken roots in NA without them.
You should get one, thereâs nothing like a hot blood horse. They are so quick mentally and connected. They are the horses of my youth. The other day at my barn a beautiful mare with her young rider were working with my trainer. I asked them what was the mareâs breeding, and they said thoroughbred off the track by the name of Cordial Lady. Wow! They event, and were working on half pass which they did beautifully. Iâm seeing more horses successful in sport that are close to 50% hot blood. I think I know why.
[QUOTE=Elles;8880384]
In my country we are drowning in warmbloods and have been for many years. Thoroughbreds on the other hand have always been very scarse. Therefore I am more interested in them and learning about them. In Holland there is hardly anyone I can discuss TBâs with. To me this place is like a candyshop because of all the people that have experienced many TBâs for many years and in all kinds of circumstances. I will be 47 in December and have been interested in horses from a young age and have followed the development of the breeding of warmbloods. To me a TB is something much more âexoticâ :-).[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Elles;8880384]
In my country we are drowning in warmbloods and have been for many years. Thoroughbreds on the other hand have always been very scarse. Therefore I am more interested in them and learning about them. In Holland there is hardly anyone I can discuss TBâs with. To me this place is like a candyshop because of all the people that have experienced many TBâs for many years and in all kinds of circumstances. I will be 47 in December and have been interested in horses from a young age and have followed the development of the breeding of warmbloods. To me a TB is something much more âexoticâ :-).[/QUOTE]
Does this scarcity of thoroughbreds tend to mean that the ones that are available are of a high quality? Does this hold true in other European countries? Is it not that the best European TBs are better than the best American TBs but that in America we are drowning in a massive quantity of the average local track horse and the US average is compared to the European average? We have a multitude of tracks of all levels and many brackets that keep subpar racers competing. It is from these lesser tracks that the horses are made available to the public. The slow, the fugly, the once great and now injured or old. The best Thoroughbreds in America are priced far out of reach of the sport horse trainer. These local track rejects are $500-3000. And out of that pile of rejects still rises some extraordinary athletes in their second careers.
[QUOTE=gypsymare;8880932]
Does this scarcity of thoroughbreds tend to mean that the ones that are available are of a high quality? Does this hold true in other European countries? Is it not that the best European TBs are better than the best American TBs but that in America we are drowning in a massive quantity of the average local track horse and the US average is compared to the European average? We have a multitude of tracks of all levels and many brackets that keep subpar racers competing. It is from these lesser tracks that the horses are made available to the public. The slow, the fugly, the once great and now injured or old. The best Thoroughbreds in America are priced far out of reach of the sport horse trainer. These local track rejects are $500-3000. And out of that pile of rejects still rises some extraordinary athletes in their second careers.[/QUOTE]
There is no shortage of TBs bred in Europe. There are in the region of 20k TBs bred there ever year. That may be less than the ~35k bred in the US annualy, but it is not an insignificant number.
While there may be few to none bred in tiny Holland, Elles could hop in a car and drive a couple of hours and be in France, a country with a storied and deep TB breeding tradition. Or hop on a ferry and in a few hours be in the very birthplace of the TB as a breed. Or travel another bit west and be in the âKentuckyâ of Europe, Ireland.
I was not talking about France or the UK, I was talking about Holland.
We only have Duindigt racecourse: http://www.renbaanduindigt.nl/agenda-seizoen-2016/ And there are more races for trotters than there are for TBâs there. And the purses are tiny. So the only TBâs in Holland are the horses that are not longer in racing. The trainers at Duindigt do also travel to Germany and Belgium and maybe even sometimes to France but there are very few horses in training to begin with. Most are purchased at sales in the UK, Germany or France. But the people with money that can buy good horses rather put them with a good trainer in any of these countries. But there are not many people interested in racing TBâs to begin with. Hardly any history, much more with trotters. Holland has always been a place for trotters (Standardbreds) but not really for riding them. And there is hardly any tradition or history of riding a TB, because we Always had the warmbloods, the Friesians and ponies for that.
Itâs interesting that the horse currently leading the Boekelo 3* is a Holsteiner, but heâs half TB since his sire was Heraldik. 5 of the 8 in his fourth generation are TBs, and according to horsetelex, he is over 79% blood.
Two of the top three are by Heraldik.
i have read the entire topic (6 pages) twice and still donât understand what you are fighting about?
i understand ellesâ initial opening article has been confusing and leading nowwhere (irish TB show cancelled due to low entries), so she replaced it by some spoet horse breederâs article, this:
[QUOTE=Elles;8872842]
I had this in my mind:
http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/thoroughbred.html
and the American Thoroughbred was barely tolerated: âsprint onlyâ, âbuilt downhillâ, ânot proper saddle-horse conformationâ were comments I heard continually in the 1990s, the Thoroughbred especially the American Thoroughbred was treated like something that smelled bad.[/QUOTE]
i read the article and the messages i am getting are:
the author is a flaming patriot (nothing wrong with that).
the author is a tb lover (nothing wrong with that).
the author is questioning nowadayâs world wide âfameâ of wb over tb as a sporthorse (ok, one can certainly back that argument for various reasons).
the author is uneducated with respect to history and foundation of tb breeding couple of hundred years ago.
the author is uneducated with respect to history and development of tb breeding globally all through the centuries up until today.
the author is highly uneducated with respect to foundation of wb breeding.
the author is even more uneducated about the common principles and basic understanding of modern sport horse breeding (dressage or jumping - wb, that is.)
the entire inflamed article is stating the obvious:
". If the European warmblood had not added copious amounts of both Thoroughbred and Trotter it would still be pulling a plowâthe racehorse gave it sport ability, it had no sport talent until the racehorse genes were crossed in, and even then it required multiple doses over decades to lighten up and correct the movement and conformation of itâs farm horse base. Donât believe me? "
nobody ever questioned this.
wb descends from strong tb influence about 200 years ago.
so what is the point?
the entire topic h e r e developed to become a discussion of various arguments in different directions.
what are you trying to compare?
US tb vs european tb with respect to race horses?
what continent produces the âbetterâ tb as in ârace horseâ? thus: who breeds the fastest horses in the world?
i am sure the answer to this doesnât need a 6-page discussion as jockey clubs all around the world produce records and rankings on a regular basis to answer this question - all it takes is a stop watch and a meter.
are you discussing what continent produces the most suitable tb to match wb standards?
if this is the question, again, what are you talking about:
what continent produces the âbestâ tb to compete in wb sport (jumping? dressage? eventing?)
or is the question:
what continent produces the most suitable tb for sport horse breeding, no matter what discipline?
if the answer to all of this is âwb breedingâ then quote #105 says it all:
i have never read a more comprehensive, reasonable and well described answer to the matter than this.
hatâs off to you, cumano, whoever you are.
one thing i do want to add as a european sport horse breeder (who used to breed a tb mare to various wb stallions in order to breed a reasonable eventer in the first place, but in the long run hopefully produce a potential future brood mare from tb origin to become my foundatin mare for future sport horse breeding, dressage and jumping):
some people claimed europeans would âavoidâ US tb.
again, they missed to clarify, though, what they are talking about?
tb breeding or wb breeding?
if the entire sense and purpose of this topic is about tb in wb breeding (and most posters donât seem to be aware of it themselves) it might be useful to let some numbers speak since most of you donât seem to understand what you really talk about when you claim europeans âavoidâ US tb.
since i am german, i have german numbers.
since german happens to be the largest wb/sport horse breeding country of all (based on the amount of brood mares bred per year) i suppose, german numbers are the most useful, too. they will most certainly serve as a reasonable comparison for the entire european wb breeding.
there used to be 60.000 sport horse / wb brood mares in germany up until 2008.
hannover being the largest german studbook used to count for a quarter of these and still does.
today numbers have halfed to roughly 30.000 mares.
the development has been the same all over europe.
current use of tb in german (european) wb breeding is LESS THAN 1 PERCENT.
meaning:
no more than 300 mares are bred to tb stallions in germany per year.
that number does include the use of tb mares (which is even less and as such meaningless).
there are about 50, maybe 100 tb sires available for wb breeding.
note that each german verband will accept every tb sire in europe as long as he has been recognized by one of the german studbooks.
and trust me, if jan greve (netherlands, supposed to be THE tb-expert in wb breeding and responsible for many of eth european tb stallions) comes up with yet another tb sire he considers valuable, no german verband will refuse him since all of them are in desperate serach for suitable tb influence to introduce to the wb breed.
so we have 300 german wb mares to be distributed over 50-100 tb stallions available.
do you start to understand what exactly some of you are excited about???
300 mares available means:
the average number of mares a tb stallion in germany gets to breed to is 3-5.
reality, however, even is a lot less than this.
there are two tb stallion this year or the last year who bred up to 40 mares each:
asagao and duke of hearts.
that leaves less than 3 mares for each of the other available tb sires around.
you can google both their pedigrees (asagao and duke of hearts) and the further you go you will find all kind of anchestors in their pedigree to support any argument you want:
pro US or pro european.
just the way it is with any tb pedigree.
as it is one single breed.
depending on how far you go to search for common anchestors.
what i am trying to get across:
it doesnât matter.
german (eurpoean) breeders DONT CARE about geographic TB origin or descent.
what they do care about is the individual horse and if it looks suitable for wb sport and (even more important) if it does/did compete sucesfully in wb sport.
they might look at close relatives (sire or damline) who have already had influence in wb breeding and as such MIGHT give an indication about the suitability of the individual sire. MIGHT.
as most of them know:
it doesnât matter.
as they have learned:
pedigree breeding is useless.
specially when it comes to adding tb influence.
as there is no such thing like consolidated and proven tb lines in sport horse breeding.
there just arenât.
300 available mares spread over 50-100 indviduals tb sires per year simply cannot provide for the necessary density to come up with anything like âproveâ. neither could 600 mares spread over the same amount of tb sires 8 years ago.
know your numbers.
it helps understand what you talk about.
this is not about europe avoiding US.
this is all about the need of understanding to breed to tb in the first place and identify the right mare and a suitable stallion.
[QUOTE=Go Fish;8880369]
Thank youâŠyour response may fall on deaf ears, but it is well thought out and very true.
I have said before that Bayhawkâs delivery may grate on people, but that does not in any way diminish the truth of his words.[/QUOTE]
the thing is, Bayhawk knows very little about eventing, OR TBs. he may be a wealth of information about holsteiners and I will always defer to his expertise in that matter, but he is wrong if he thinks that TBs are not bepopulate and by and large, dominant in eventing. being âhalf TBâ does not denigrate that fact - you NEED the blood to do well in the sport. take a look at the horses WINNING the upper levels. they are almost always half TB. if you look at the horses that complete, you will find by and large they are either full TB or half⊠it really shouldnât be so hard to get that across to someone.
it is possible to discuss the merits of certain breeds without slinging ad hominems, which Bayhawk cannot seem to grasp. his inability to discuss anything without insults is tiresome.
