American Thoroughbred not good enough?!

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Fred;8886190]
Which is precisely what I did, Linny.
But instead of buying the colt off the track, he was a homebred that I did not send to the track, or to the yearling sales, which was my first intention.
But A Fine Romance was most certainly race bred.
Those colts are out there, I know it for a fact.

But it does take dedication, a willingness to swim against the stream, as well as a ton of money.

Right now I have one of those colts.
He was sold to a breeder of an Olympic competitor who wanted him for her rider as her (in her words) “next 4* horse”.
This colt has the pedigree, the conformation, the movement, and the temperament.
I bought him back because I believe so strongly in the importance of this bloodline, this individual , and in good TB horses in general.
Whether he becomes ‘that horse’ only time will tell.[/QUOTE]

Is this the VDL colt?

[beowulf]

Elles - to answer your question about TBs being different from continent to continent…

My short answer, that should be long and complicated, is that yes, there can be a different phenotype based on the region’s race-type.

In America, the most popular races are dirt. You get small clusters of grass/chasing (upper West Coast, mid-East Coast). The influence is regional, naturally - I find consistently (but not always) that there is a wider divergence of types in dirt than in grass; dirt runs the gamut from tall and rangy to small and compact - where I’ve found the preponderance of certain ‘timber lines’ in certain regions makes for a more consistent type.

In NZ, one has to consider the shuttling stallions - but usually the mare family stays so you have some very, very old lines crop up closer than one might expect in the US. Same with AUS; so the type can be very different. There is also the (and I use this term loosely) ‘genetic bottlenecking’ effect - both NZ and AUS are very isolated, so the gene pool is smaller in these continents than in US or Canada. Those that I cared for that were imported were more similar to the grass/stayer types you see in the WC/EC than their dirt cousins. Usually huge shoulders, looong necks across the board. They are closer to the ‘old type’ of TB - think classic thoroughbreds like Tudor Minstrel, Noholme, etc.

I think in Germany, the TBs are closer to our grass-type horses than we realize.

It’s not really the country that makes the difference IMHO, but the type of races - Europe simply doesn’t have as many dirt, it’s almost all turf and steeple chasing… so the type is very different. The shuttling of successful stallions does add to the mix so you will find some US lines in Europe. The location the horse was born shouldn’t really matter, but what should matter is the individual and his/her type/conformation.

A good example this sneakily misleading type is Nijinksy - he is CAN bred but made an incredible name for himself in Europe. He has get in every hemisphere and like their sire some of them are chameleons that do equally well on dirt or turf. Because he has get around the world he shows up with some frequency in IRE, GB, FR, US, CAN and even NZ pedigrees.

That being said I think you can find a good TB in any of these continents as the pool is very mixed and many of them share similar recent ancestry.

[vineyridge]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8884077]
I won’t speak about eventing as it is not my universe. However this great conspiracy theory with regards to show jumping is just wrong. Not only that, it makes absolutely no sense! I have no idea what Count Toptani was talking about in 1960, but it was before modern sport began to evolve. We have been going on for 8 pages about how much TB has impacted the WB breeding in the last decades… Why on earth would that be if course were built to suite the WB? The WB of 30 years ago were all power and big stride. They were totaly suited for the huge less technical courses. Maybe it is right, when the courses allowed for more galloping, more TB were able to compete, but in no way were they dominating on the international stage. And I say that the course allowed more galloping as I do not believe in fact that time was an issue then. In fact, the pace required around the courses now are faster then they have ever been in the past 30 or 40 years, it is a fact every competitor is working with every week. Sport horse continously evolves, and horses are better every generation. Sport have to evoluate to maintain a good level of competition. When it became pointless to build the courses higher, they made it more technical, gradualy, and the horses needed to be more reactive, more elastic and generally more adaptable to be succesfull at those level. WB breeding evolved specifically in that sense. By the way, as mentionned before, TB were used massively in WB breeding at that point to add the blood and reactivness required for the new reality.[/QUOTE]

I truly think that you are wrong. WBs came from pulling horses–carriage and multiple use farm horses who also pulled wagons and farm equipment. That would seem to me to indicate that they excel in power. Thoroughbreds come exculsively from saddle horses who were never bred for pulling capacity. It seems to me that thoroughbreds jump better from speed. They have scope but lack power. They need more distance to develop the speed for their scope.

If courses are designed to eliminate the ground needed to develop speed, then power will win. The ability to harness that power is what is tested in today’s showjumping courses.

[Cumano]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;8886276]
I truly think that you are wrong. WBs came from pulling horses–carriage and multiple use farm horses who also pulled wagons and farm equipment. That would seem to me to indicate that they excel in power. Thoroughbreds come exculsively from saddle horses who were never bred for pulling capacity. It seems to me that thoroughbreds jump better from speed. They have scope but lack power. They need more distance to develop the speed for their scope.

If courses are designed to eliminate the ground needed to develop speed, then power will win. The ability to harness that power is what is tested in today’s showjumping courses.[/QUOTE]

I won’t argue as Elles is trying so hard to bring this tread back to her original topic, but I still wanted to say I disagree with you on so many aspect of this post that it would be to long to argue on each point in a single answer. We will just agree to disagree.

[D_BaldStockings]

Remember I dropped the WBFSH Event horse BREEDERS data into an excel file to look at the individual horses?

The LACK of information was telling.
Going through just the top 50 horses, and looking each up in the database or Horsetelex as needed,
there were 14 horses that omitted the XX identifying sire or damsire as TB.

After completing the missing info,
There are 20 horses with either Sire or damsire TB.
of those, 7 had both sire and damsire TB.
Of the 7, 5 were pure TB:
10 BLACKFOOT MYSTERY XX
18 IT’S ME XX
20 PARKIARRUP ILLICIT LIAISON XX
30 GLENORCHY SOUTH PARK XX
32 ONFIRE XX

12 FRH BUTTS AVEDON is over 99% TB, her 11th dam being the only one not by a TB sire.

Of the horses in the top 10, 5 had TB sire or dam sire, 2 had both.

One horse Clifford has unknown sire and dam sire,
and Mighty Nice has unknown dam sire.

I don’t have time to go through the 4000+ horses in the database, but the top 1% showed quite a bit of TB… or were TB.

By the way, I looked up A Little Romance on the list…356.
…A Fine Romance is not designated TB.

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8886694]
I won’t argue as Elles is trying so hard to bring this tread back to her original topic, but I still wanted to say I disagree with you on so many aspect of this post that it would be to long to argue on each point in a single answer. We will just agree to disagree.[/QUOTE]

Your post above about not knowing the motherlines is spot on. It’s always about some stallion in the 5th or some stallion in the 4th for example. Never one mention about any mare or her progeny.

Also , most posters here are not close to the sport and are not breeders. Most opinions are formed from behind the computer or out of a book. This is why breeding will never evolve here.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=gumtree;8884819]
I have no doubt there is. My point was these “volumes” don’t seem to be easily accessible to the average potential breeder and or student of. American TB breeders don’t have to live/breed in Europe to have access to volumes of information on Euro TB families and or complete produce records of mares and their extended families going back hundreds of years.

The same can be said for just about every major TB breeding country in the world. Thoroughbreds make up a small percentage of the annual foal crops of all breeds. Correct me if I am wrong Germany alone breeds more WBs each year than the total American foal crop of TBs.

Granted before computers became as common as TVs in any house. Serious TB breeders had to maintain a pretty extensive library of reference books. The majority of which were for researching the distaff side. The annual stallion register covered that side well enough. Subscriptions to the various monthly industry trades domestic and international that gave/give detailed race/competition, detailed (dam) pedigree information, updated stallion statistics, breeder of record and if the horse was sold at auction the price.

Since computers all of the above can easily be found pretty much for free by anyone. Safe to say my library is considerably smaller.

So, are there links/webpages to be had for the “volumes of information”? Do the various Registries keep detailed performance records of not only the Stallions but IMO more importantly the dams? So a potential breeder can research what crosses have “worked” and theoretically should have a higher statistical chance of producing what the breeder is trying to accomplish. In other words being able to “use” other people’s money. Before spending their own on something that appears to be a “proven” failure. In competition for the breeder/owner or the market for those who breed commercially.

Doing a search of “Warmbloods for sale” the asking prices are pretty hefty. The sellers list the sires but give little to no details of the dams let alone the extended distaff family. How is one to know if the dam has been bred to the same stallion numerous times and none have made it to the “races”. Or if the odd one never got beyond “pony club schooling shows”.

Personally when I see a TB mare that has been bred to top sires year in and year out and none of them could out run a fat man. I will pass, there is little reason to think that I am going to be the “lucky one” that picked the correct lottery numbers.

The Chronicle’s weekly coverage gives competition results but no details of the horse’s pedigree. The way it is formatted is not easy to read. It is pretty much the same as when I first flipped through the pages more than 50 years ago.

In the August 15th issue it covers the USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship Roster. Of the 65 horse covered almost one third were listed as “Unknown breeding”. As a student of statistics 1/3 is a pretty large percentage.

Most of which stated “Warmblood of unknown breeding”. So to me this begs the question if the breeding is “unknown” how can the owner/seller call the horse a “warmblood”.

A lot of the horses only had the name of the sire no dam information.

In the TB world of breeding the mare is the goose that lays the golden eggs not the stallion. Pretty much anyone can get to any stallion they want if they have the funds. Very few can acquire proper mares even if they have the funds. The best rarely change hands. But with the vast and easily accessible information we are able to identify, find desirable members of a family that we might be able to buy into.

I have yet to be able to figure out how this is done in the world of Sport Horse breeding. It seems to me a lot of valuable information/statistics are kept “in-house”. Not much different than the way things used to be in the TB world but that was decades ago.[/QUOTE]

I would hazard to say that most Sporthorse mares in Europe used for breeding have never seen a competition ring. They appear to be selected for stud based on the breeding production of their damline, their mature inspection scores (conformation and gaits and free jumping).

This would be about like selecting broodmare prospects at Fasig-tiptons and putting them immediately into the mareband.

What is worse, is that now it appears the Colts (stud prospects) are being given points based on ‘potential’ breeding worth on top of actual inspection performance values. Some never compete. The future will tell if this is a viable theory for selection of breeding Sporthorses.

Picking TB colts by their yearlng sale price and breeze times has not often ‘paid off’ for breeders.

I can understand the difficulty in waiting for an 8 year old’s performance career to see if there is GP potential, though. A lot of time and $$ input without return.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=Elles;8882509]
I AM NOT ONLY TALKING ABOUT FULL THOROUGHBREDS BUT ALSO THE CROSS OF A TB WITH A WB FOR SPORT!!! I am not interested in hearing that one should not use them at all!!! Or that a 3/4 TB is not a TB, I have known that for about 40 years already!!!
I was just wondering if there really is much of a difference between the different continents with regard to the TB. Why would people look in South America for TB’s? Why would they look in New Zealand? Is it true that the American TB’s are too downhill? Is it true that the German TB’s are more sound? I hear so many things being said but is it all fact or fantasy?[/QUOTE]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Imported - always seems to have cachet.

People want an exclusive, unique, surprising, as well as good product to offer others.

US Thoroughbreds run on drugs that are not allowed elsewhere in the racing world.
Some would say this would imply either untrue records as to speed, or that it masks a less sound horse.
Statistically, there are more catastrophic breakdowns recorded on US tracks. There are many reasons this could be so other than simply ‘the breeding’.

[Cumano]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8886761]
Remember I dropped the WBFSH Event horse BREEDERS data into an excel file to look at the individual horses?

The LACK of information was telling.
Going through just the top 50 horses, and looking each up in the database or Horsetelex as needed,
there were 14 horses that omitted the XX identifying sire or damsire as TB.

After completing the missing info,
There are 20 horses with either Sire or damsire TB.
of those, 7 had both sire and damsire TB.
Of the 7, 5 were pure TB:
10 BLACKFOOT MYSTERY XX
18 IT’S ME XX
20 PARKIARRUP ILLICIT LIAISON XX
30 GLENORCHY SOUTH PARK XX
32 ONFIRE XX

12 FRH BUTTS AVEDON is over 99% TB, her 11th dam being the only one not by a TB sire.

Of the horses in the top 10, 5 had TB sire or dam sire, 2 had both.

One horse Clifford has unknown sire and dam sire,
and Mighty Nice has unknown dam sire.

I don’t have time to go through the 4000+ horses in the database, but the top 1% showed quite a bit of TB… or were TB.

By the way, I looked up A Little Romance on the list…356.
…A Fine Romance is not designated TB.[/QUOTE]

I think many of us are saying the same thing. I do not deny the impact of TB horse on the breeding of sport horses. What I would add, is that it is too simplistic to conclude that these horses are better because they have more TB in them. What made their success is the numerous generations of crosses behind, and the TB is one part of the solution. Eventing clearly require horses with a lot of blood, and the addition of TB provided the blood needed, but the process began many generation before. That is what sport horse breeding is all about.

Also, we are on a sport horse breeding forum, and therefore we should be thinking with a “breeders mindset”. The statistics you show are about what is the horse breeding today. Those crosses were planned 10 years ago or more. At that time, breeders were breeding with those horses parents, meaning they were breeding with the horses that may have required this additionnal generation of TB to be succesfull.

In 2016, the same breeders are working with the horses that are included in your statistics, meaning chances are their mares, and the stallions that are available to them, are like the horses that are succesfull today, with the amount of blood reflected by your statistics. Their decisions today will not be the same as they are not working with the same horses to start with.

Finally, breeders are generally not focusing on recreating the horses that are succesfull today. They know that horses will evolve and improve, and so will the sport. In this context, breeders do not wonder if TB have been succesfull in sport horse breeding, they are wondering if the horse they need to produce with the horses they have now need more TB influx. The fact that horses with a high amount of TB blood up close are the one winning today does not necessarly means that more TB is needed.

Again, as mentionned numerous times before, sport horses breeders are generally looking for blood, and not only for TB. TB were the horses generally used to add blood. If a breeder still wishes to add blood to his mares, more WB stallions with a lot of blood would be made available to him, which could also bring strong dame lines and other strenghts they have inherited from their WB foundations.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=Bayhawk;8886765]
Your post above about not knowing the motherlines is spot on. It’s always about some stallion in the 5th or some stallion in the 4th for example. Never one mention about any mare or her progeny.

Also , most posters here are not close to the sport and are not breeders. Most opinions are formed from behind the computer or out of a book. This is why breeding will never evolve here.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your non-vote of confidence. Pity you are now ‘here’ and have forfeited your ability to evolve.
You might want to take a look at your own WBFSH database of BREEDERS.

The records are full of blanks, just as ‘ours’ are. I hope in future this will change for everyone.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8886843]
I think many of us are saying the same thing. I do not deny the impact of TB horse on the breeding of sport horses. What I would add, is that it is too simplistic to conclude that these horses are better because they have more TB in them. What made their success is the numerous generations of crosses behind, and the TB is one part of the solution. Eventing clearly require horses with a lot of blood, and the addition of TB provided the blood needed, but the process began many generation before. That is what sport horse breeding is all about.

Also, we are on a sport horse breeding forum, and therefore we should be thinking with a “breeders mindset”. The statistics you show are about what is the horse breeding today. Those crosses were planned 10 years ago or more. At that time, breeders were breeding with those horses parents, meaning they were breeding with the horses that may have required this additionnal generation of TB to be succesfull.

In 2016, the same breeders are working with the horses that are included in your statistics, meaning chances are their mares, and the stallions that are available to them, are like the horses that are succesfull today, with the amount of blood reflected by your statistics. Their decisions today will not be the same as they are not working with the same horses to start with.

Finally, breeders are generally not focusing on recreating the horses that are succesfull today. They know that horses will evolve and improve, and so will the sport. In this context, breeders do not wonder if TB have been succesfull in sport horse breeding, they are wondering if the horse they need to produce with the horses they have now need more TB influx. The fact that horses with a high amount of TB blood up close are the one winning today does not necessarly means that more TB is needed.

Again, as mentionned numerous times before, sport horses breeders are generally looking for blood, and not only for TB. TB were the horses generally used to add blood. If a breeder still wishes to add blood to his mares, more WB stallions with a lot of blood would be made available to him, which could also bring strong dame lines and other strenghts they have inherited from their WB foundations.[/QUOTE]

This is one position: cross high TB% horses to get a high % TB result without using a direct cross.

The Eventing statistics show that in the last decade a direct (sire or dam or damsire) TB cross was successful in the top 1% of the Sport, or that a TB itself was successful. 40% of the top 1% is significant.

Choosing another path to follow might be more risky.

So long as one knows what is actually happening and not what one ‘has heard’. There is plenty of advice out there, and each mare must be evaluated for her own strengths and needs.

[D_BaldStockings]

The only way to increase blood % is to breed to a horse with more blood than your mare.

The fastest way to get successful blood % is to breed to TB sires of Eventers - if they complement your mare.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8886877]
This is one position: cross high TB% horses to get a high % TB result without using a direct cross.

The Eventing statistics show that in the last decade a direct (sire or dam or damsire) TB cross was successful in the top 1% of the Sport, or that a TB itself was successful. 40% of the top 1% is significant.

Choosing another path to follow might be more risky.

So long as one knows what is actually happening and not what one ‘has heard’. There is plenty of advice out there, and each mare must be evaluated for her own strengths and needs.[/QUOTE]
Bold mine, as this is correct: if you look at the pedigrees of horses consistently finishing UL events you will find the bolded is very true.

It is erroneous to think that a 3/4 TB is the same as a horse that is 75% blood. You can have a high blood% horse that still does not have the gallop, heart, or stamina needed for the sport. Breeding the blood% ‘up’ is the wrong way of going about this (especially if you look at global leaderboards for what/who is winning UL eventing), as you have no definitive way to isolate all of the traits needed provided by TBs… The blood% is no guarantee that the horse has all of the TB traits needed - you can have a very high-blooded WB that has absolutely no TB attributes. A good and well known example is RF Demeter, who is nearly 50% blood (interesting seeing Acatenango xx ) but does not IMHO have the stamina needed to consistently finish.

For instance, one of the more successful breeders for eventing is William Micklem. He isn’t taking high blood WBs and breeding them together to produce high-blooded offspring - he is breeding directly to TBs… and producing horses that have stayed at the top of the sport for a long time. His horses are almost consistently nearly-full TB, with some Irish Draught blood as well.

Of course, what would he know?

[Cumano]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8886807]
I would hazard to say that most Sporthorse mares in Europe used for breeding have never seen a competition ring. They appear to be selected for stud based on the breeding production of their damline, their mature inspection scores (conformation and gaits and free jumping).

This would be about like selecting broodmare prospects at Fasig-tiptons and putting them immediately into the mareband.

What is worse, is that now it appears the Colts (stud prospects) are being given points based on ‘potential’ breeding worth on top of actual inspection performance values. Some never compete. The future will tell if this is a viable theory for selection of breeding Sporthorses.

Picking TB colts by their yearlng sale price and breeze times has not often ‘paid off’ for breeders.

I can understand the difficulty in waiting for an 8 year old’s performance career to see if there is GP potential, though. A lot of time and $$ input without return.[/QUOTE]

Come on, you went straight from arguing that TB are equal to WB sportswise to saying that WB breeding is some kind of joke based on nothing. Although I clearly disagree with you on the first point, your second point is just cherry picking on facts, without understanding how things work.

Regarding mares, historicly this was true, but breeders put more and more importance on sport performance of the mares. This being said, mare lines selections have worked consistently for a long time, and the value of the selection process can be seen clearly. Breeders would rather have a mare with both performance and a strong dame line, but the correlation between the quality of the dame line and the production has been shown time and time again. Also, the quality of the production of a dame line is a much better guarantee of the genetic potential of a mare than only the performance.

Regarding the indexes given to stallion, it results from statistical compilation based on the horses own performances, the performance of the products and the performance of the dame line. It is not something randomly invented, nor is it a tool followed blindly by breeders. It is a tool amongst many other that can be used to assess the consistensy of a stallions genetic potential. And as for the sport career of a stallion, you will almost never see a stallion that has not performed. Of course you cannot expect to have a 5 years old stallion with GP results, but breeding with a young stallion always involves more risks.

[Cumano]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8886896]
Bold mine, as this is correct: if you look at the pedigrees of horses consistently finishing UL events you will find the bolded is very true.

It is erroneous to think that a 3/4 TB is the same as a horse that is 75% blood. You can have a high blood% horse that still does not have the gallop, heart, or stamina needed for the sport. Breeding the blood% ‘up’ is the wrong way of going about this (especially if you look at global leaderboards for what/who is winning UL eventing), as you have no definitive way to isolate all of the traits needed provided by TBs… The blood% is no guarantee that the horse has all of the TB traits needed - you can have a very high-blooded WB that has absolutely no TB attributes. A good and well known example is RF Demeter, who is nearly 50% blood (interesting seeing Acatenango xx ) but does not IMHO have the stamina needed to consistently finish.

For instance, one of the more successful breeders for eventing is William Micklem. He isn’t taking high blood WBs and breeding them together to produce high-blooded offspring - he is breeding directly to TBs… and producing horses that have stayed at the top of the sport for a long time. His horses are almost consistently nearly-full TB, with some Irish Draught blood as well.

Of course, what would he know?[/QUOTE]

We agree on the bold part, and it is basically what I was saying. When I refer to “more blood”, I do not refer to the % of TB blood, but in fact to the attributes we generaly qualify as “blood” in a horse. What I was trying to say is that, even according to your statistics, WB, or lets even call them crossbreds for the sake of the discussion, with hight amount of blood are the best at the moment, gaining ground on both straight TB and cold WB. My view is that the reason for that resides in the carefull input of blood, and more often then not through TB, in the WB population. That does not imply that the success comes from the dillution of the WB with TB, otherwise we would see results where the more TB their is, the better is the horse, with pure TB at the top.

[D_BaldStockings]

From the WBFSH Event Breeders database:
TOP 10 AVG 56.80 %TB (left out 1 unknown)
TOP 50 AVG 54.42 %TB (left out 3 unknowns)

With a high of 100%, a low of 8.79%.
27 above 50%, 20 below 50%.

14 were below 40%.

Some like to go with successful odds, others want to try something different.

RIDs, Holst, KWPN, appear regularly in the ‘lower % TB’ success horses.
The Butts Hanns are extremely high % TB if one wants to ‘stay WB’.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8886958]
We agree on the bold part, and it is basically what I was saying. When I refer to “more blood”, I do not refer to the % of TB blood, but in fact to the attributes we generaly qualify as “blood” in a horse. What I was trying to say is that, even according to your statistics, WB, or lets even call them crossbreds for the sake of the discussion, with hight amount of blood are the best at the moment, gaining ground on both straight TB and cold WB. My view is that the reason for that resides in the carefull input of blood, and more often then not through TB, in the WB population. That does not imply that the success comes from the dillution of the WB with TB, otherwise we would see results where the more TB their is, the better is the horse, with pure TB at the top.[/QUOTE]
I’ve agreed, mostly, with pretty much everything you’ve contributed on this thread. My small quibble is with the refusal to acknowledge there are full TBs at the top of the sport (eventing). Repeatedly. Even more, many of them were not bred specifically for eventing, but are race-bred. So I do still think that the infusion of TB blood is very much important and very much needed, and that breeding blood% to blood% is not currently the way to go. As the sport evolves, that may change - especially if we see the trend of shorter distances/more efforts continue.

It’s very tiresome to hear from certain posters that TBs are not sport-horses and have no value/contribution to sport-horse pedigrees. The eventing statistics say otherwise. Direct TB get are winning, repeatedly. Full TBs are winning, repeatedly. I don’t understand the line of thinking where people say that a HOL is winning XYZ when the HOL is half TB (or some other example) but the reverse cannot be said that a TB is winning (even if it is half HOL). It seems some people only give credit to the WB parent or WB equation and are quick not to credit the TB equation ex. FisherRocana, La Biosthetique Sam, etc. The preponderance of direct TB blood (as in TB sire, TB dam, or TB grandsire/dam) is still very much there.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8886902]
Come on, you went straight from arguing that TB are equal to WB sportswise to saying that WB breeding is some kind of joke based on nothing. Although I clearly disagree with you on the first point, your second point is just cherry picking on facts, without understanding how things work.

Regarding mares, historicly this was true, but breeders put more and more importance on sport performance of the mares. This being said, mare lines selections have worked consistently for a long time, and the value of the selection process can be seen clearly. Breeders would rather have a mare with both performance and a strong dame line, but the correlation between the quality of the dame line and the production has been shown time and time again. Also, the quality of the production of a dame line is a much better guarantee of the genetic potential of a mare than only the performance.

Regarding the indexes given to stallion, it results from statistical compilation based on the horses own performances, the performance of the products and the performance of the dame line. It is not something randomly invented, nor is it a tool followed blindly by breeders. It is a tool amongst many other that can be used to assess the consistensy of a stallions genetic potential. And as for the sport career of a stallion, you will almost never see a stallion that has not performed. Of course you cannot expect to have a 5 years old stallion with GP results, but breeding with a young stallion always involves more risks.[/QUOTE]

I don’t recall arguing that TB are equal to WB sportwise.
I do recall arguing that in many cases DIRECT crossing with TB has improved WB, recently, within 3 generations or less.
And I do recall noting that pure TBs still do well in the top 1% of Eventing as shown by the WBFSH database of Event breeders listing of horses.

I hope no breeder blindly follows statistical tools developed by others, but I have seen fewer performance records by WB mares on a breed-wide basis than are seen in TB racehorses.

"Also, the quality of the production of a dame line is a much better guarantee of the genetic potential of a mare than only the performance. "

This I assume, is why TB mares are dismissed by European WB breeders out of hand, as they have no damline sport production record outside of racing (which does not count, apparently).

This is like saying that the Kenyans had no race records before they entered the Olympics, therefore their running ability is a one-off and they are obviously just flukes.

We all work with the horses/marebase we have. All mares and all marebases have issues that breeders try to offset each generation.

[Cumano]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8886877]
This is one position: cross high TB% horses to get a high % TB result without using a direct cross.

The Eventing statistics show that in the last decade a direct (sire or dam or damsire) TB cross was successful in the top 1% of the Sport, or that a TB itself was successful. 40% of the top 1% is significant.

Choosing another path to follow might be more risky.

So long as one knows what is actually happening and not what one ‘has heard’. There is plenty of advice out there, and each mare must be evaluated for her own strengths and needs.[/QUOTE]

First, to me, the difference is important between a full TB, a horse with TB as sire or dame and a horse with a TB as dame sire. You seem to put all of those in the same category, claiming that their success results from the TB.

As for your reference to high % of TB, it is irrelevent. People want blood, not some kind of % of TB. The TB is a way to bring blood.

This being said, your reasoning is based on a principle that is entirely biased, and that is that the modern sport horse requires more blood. Your conclusion implies that, as their is a lot of blood in the horses at the top, you will improve the next generation by adding blood. It is up to the breeder to try to guess in which direction the sport horse will go.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=Cumano;8887002]
First, to me, the difference is important between a full TB, a horse with TB as sire or dame and a horse with a TB as dame sire. You seem to put all of those in the same category, claiming that their success results from the TB.

As for your reference to high % of TB, it is irrelevent. People want blood, not some kind of % of TB. The TB is a way to bring blood.

This being said, your reasoning is based on a principle that is entirely biased, and that is that the modern sport horse requires more blood. Your conclusion implies that, as their is a lot of blood in the horses at the top, you will improve the next generation by adding blood. It is up to the breeder to try to guess in which direction the sport horse will go.[/QUOTE]

I am not putting all the % of TBs in one basket. I am not saying all the success is due to the TB (?!).

I am just pointing out the hypocrisy on this forum: if it is half TB, apparently all the success came from the other half! But when it is half HOL, or HAN, or whatever else, all the success is due to the WB half and the TB is just an afterthought! Why, TBs have no contribution to sport!

Why can’t the success be due to, in part, both?

I also never said anything about improving WBs by adding a lot of blood, so you lost me there. I pointed out William Micklem’s breeding model which is obviously working, and I pointed out that there are plenty of successful full TBs and half-TBs in eventing.

What I did point out, and I can only assume this is what you misread or misunderstood, is that having the blood in eventing is still very important.

It’s crazy to me that it’s so difficult to grasp that full TBs and half-TBs are doing very well in eventing. All you need to do is look at the leaderboards of UL events, but this is apparently beyond the sphere of comprehension for some posters.