Wow! Nice! (understatements!)
Love him! Why can’t we have more stallions like this on THIS side of the pond???
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We his quality, and sometimes, have better… but most of them aren’t available to sport-horse mares.
Just about 3/4 of his pedigree is readily available in the US.Heck, a huge part of his pedigree is sneakily USA. And the ones that aren’t USA bred, either have USA connections or, offspring that show in USA pedigrees. You can find a Cozzene horse quite easily and Solid Illusion isn’t even the best Cozzene son out there. Mizzen Mast probably is (in terms of sport). Same goes for Lyphard. You can’t get away from ND here - take it as a good or bad thing. Klairon, the tail male, is very desirable for sport but there are plenty of Klairon horses here. Same goes for Sicambre. Even the dam-line, which looks obscure at first, is full of horses that make up a huge part of the US’s gene pool… So while there is a bit of obscurity here, they share so many similar ancestors I really, other than the sire line, don’t think this is a pedigree that is rare in the US.
The stallion himself is beautiful - but there are plenty of US stallions that look and move like him. Granted we are assessing him post-race career, which does impact the elasticity of their movement, but there are stallions in the US of his caliber here…
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Beowulf, I appreciate your opinion and I agree that it’s possible to find many of his bloodlines in stallions over here. However, finding those bloodlines similarly placed in the pedigree, combined with looks, movement etc (i.e., the whole package) is considerably more difficult. I’m particularly curious as to where those Klairon horses are, especially those with Klairon as tail male. To my knowledge, stallions that are tail male to Herod line horses are practically non-existent in North America.
Anyway, thanks for your input!
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You’re right the juxtaposition of the names is harder to find in the US.
Klairon as a whole seems to be a sire of broodmares as well; he is more often found in the US via the damline. He is not necessarily rare in US pedigrees from what I have seen. However, he is rare showing up tail male, like you said – if we see him at all it is through Luthier or Lorenzaccio - if we’re lucky, Ahonoora or Indian Ridge.
The Herod line (tail-male) as far as I know, is extinct in NA/USA racing stallions… except… Legal Jousting, IIRC.
But – there’s lots of Herod still in NA/USA pedigrees, just damside (think Tourbillion/Djebel)… My Babu is probably the “best household name” of those sires… and… we have a lot of Missy Baba here (his daughter).
I think we have options stateside that are just as nice - the problem is, the really nice ones we can’t afford to buy or breed to - and these horses that the Celle are standing are not the racing industry’s finest - if they were, the Celle wouldn’t come close to being able to afford them.
He’s nice looking but I am tired of the knocking that things across the pond are better. Often times they are not, but we expect them to be better, so, we perceive them as better.
We have some really nice stallions here. The problem is we can’t find people who will suck up the money to campaign them for sport; it’s a real shame too, because we have lost out on some major sport talent because people can’t afford to stand a TB in the US - it just isn’t as economically feasible as it is across the pond. Say Florida Sandy comes to mind as a stallion that could have been affordable to sport-horse mares, would have improved the sport potential and movement, but unfortunately was never utilized.
I happen to believe that jumping ability in the TB, unless the early mares are responsible, come through the Barb and Turk heritage, not from the “true” Arab lineage. That means Herod and Matchem. I would disagree that Klairon is readily available in US horses. Luthier is Herod line as sire and Matchem line as damsire. Find me one US stallion with either line that close. Find me a US bred stallion in racing that is truly uphill, and I will believe that US racing has not bred sport quality out of its racers.
Viney, how are you quantifying “uphill” – are you measuring from elbow to stifle, or are you looking at withers to croup?
As far as jumping ability… Are you referring to FEI results?
Because I constantly see uphill being thrown around as a characteristic that TBs don’t possess – look at Quidam De Revel. By definition, he is not uphill if you are measuring from elbow to stifle, which you are supposed to be – but he is one of the best sires of jumpers today… In half of his conformational pics he is snapped standing on uneven ground to hide that he is not exactly uphill - but he moves uphill, he jumps uphill… it isn’t holding him back…
US TBs as a breed are not free of flaws - make no mistake, I don’t love that they have gotten consistently straighter behind, and more apple-rumped as time goes on – but they are not so downhill they cannot jump. The jump in TBs is fairly reliable - and comes through many different ancestors. I don’t think the “skill gap” in jumping ability is as divergent in TBs as it is in WBs.
Every single stallion in the image below, is a direct sire of at least 1 FEI competitor - and with the exception of the first stallion + third, all of them are US bred. None of these stallions are standing level, so keep that in mind…
You keep saying the sport quality is gone from US TBs… but we keep having the TBs that show up in ULs/FEI competitions say that is anything but the case… Especially since so many of the TBs in, for example, eventing, are consistently US bred.
I don’t think the problem is lack of quality in the US. It’s something else. Lack of funds, lack of availability/access to these quality animals, lack of people interested in standing an “unpopular breed” stallion, lack of encouragement/support/demand from mare owners to pursue these stallions, lack of networking, lack of education… Pound for pound across the pond the interest in long-term investment in the quality registries is much sharper than it is here, IMHO… yet, these registries have and do important US stock for breeding…
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- Elbow to Stifle, the way the neck is set (helps with lightness up front, and lastly the croup in a mature horse. I would accept level,
- I’d say that Donner and Arctic Soul are the best TBs currently eventing. Both have relatively low stifles if the dressage photos are to be believed.
- take a look at this photo of Furioso and you will see just how different his conformation is from any of the stallions you have shown. This is the kind of stallion that no longer exists in the US. Heck, look at photos of Fair Play and St Simon, both noted progenitors of jumping horses, and tell me where we find TBs today that look like them. Heck, even Nearco was uphill, if we look at stifle to elbow. So was Hand In Glove.
It’s this type of TB that seems to be gone in the US.
I agree with Viney - I just don’t like the hind leg on those stallions. Furioso xx looks like an elastic powerful mover. The others do not. I thought it was interesting what Jan Greve said ( from the Horse" magazine):
“We need a hock that is low to the ground, then you have long thigh, with good muscle attachment to the hock, it’s like nature told us – you see a cat and you see a deer, and you see a different hind end, and the cat jumps better than the deer.”
And another TB stallion that you do not see anymore is Ladykiller xx. Even as a mature horse with a stallion neck - where do you see that beautiful topline and poll connection? He was not especially leggy but a beautiful type that he has transmitted for generations.
Here’s a photo of Blue Peter, one of the 
And here is Persian Gulf by Bahran out of a Bachelor’s Double mare. Both are famous for their jumping, and so was Persian Gulf. [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:"https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F4b%2Fad%2Faa%2F4badaac9ba2173b4a540d6a5261e1b1a--persian-.jpg&f=1)
Here is Bachelor’s Double, one of the greatest eventing lines ever. [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ef/Bachelor’s_Double.jpg/600px-Bachelor’s_Double.jpg)
Here is Ladykiller. [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:"https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.horsemagazine.com%2Fthm%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F08%2FLadykiller-HERO.jpg&f=1)
Wild Risk, superlative eventing and chasing descendants even though he had the John O’Gaunt pasterns and passed them on . [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:"http://futuresporthorses.co.uk/wp-content/files/Wild_Risk.jpg)
Tourbillon
[IMG]https://thevaulthorseracing.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/horse_tourbillon-big.jpg?w=300&h=225)
To me, it seems as if the elbow on the American stallions is at an angle from the shoulder that places it lower on the body than the horses that I’ve posted. It seems to be pretty well accepted, as well, than the stifle should be lower than the sheath.
I was going to post Lauries Crusador for a modern TB that fits the classical definition of uphill, but really don’t see the need.
It looks like the rider that he moved to on the 31st of October knows what he has to do to develop my horse.
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That’s good news Elles!
Thank you! This rider is the first one that thinks about biomechanics.
The shoulder angle - which is the angle the scapula makes with the humerus, should be minimally 90*. The greater the angle, the more ability for the forearm to fold, which lifts the knees higher. So a longer humerus along with a higher point of shoulder gets you a more open angle and a lower elbow. The elbow can still be low, but if it comes with a low point of shoulder and a more laid back shoulder, or low but short humerus, it gets problematic for front end function
Since a well laid back shoulder is one of the necessary traits of a good riding horse, that would seem to correlate in general with a high point of shoulder, wouldn’t it?
Laid back is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The more laid back, the less room for backwards rotation, and it’s that rotation which allows a forward forearm. It’s great if you want a low, daisy-cutting stride on the flat. It’s not very good if you want “knees to chin” jumping form.
More or less laid back really depends on the discipline. Look at the majority of high level Dressage horses and Jumpers. For the most part, they have shoulders that are more upright.
The level of the point of the shoulder is related to how long the scapula is. You can have a very laid back shoulder slope (angle relative to horizontal), and a low point, which then makes for a more closed shoulder angle (relationship/angle to the humerus), and you don’t want that at all. That angle needs to be at least 90*.
Those stallions all have FEI offspring competing… and the top one is one of the top SJ sires (that is Quidam de Revel)…
That conformation behind is beneficial for jumping. The more open the angle, the better flexibility over fences.
I don’t agree that the quality is gone but, I think some people hold onto old things and think things were better in the past.
I think the quality difference between what we have then, and now, is astronomical. Ladykiller may have had a huge impact on the WB breed but he doesn’t hold a candle to the WBs today… and I think we have plenty of TB stallions that are very nice… but not accessible at all, to WB breeders.
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Two points. I) I’m not seeing the point of the elbow in the same place on #2 and #4 of your stallions as you have drawn them–I’m assuming that you are responsible for the lines on the photos. I think it is higher in both cases.
The point is not whether Ladykiller “could hold a candle to WBs today” but whether there are any TB stallions out there that have the conformation and gaits to be worth breeding for sport horses today–that have the same qualities as the TBs that built the WB…
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I think we have stallions that have the type, movement, and substance that WB breeders could use… they just are not accessible to WB breeders because their stud fees cost as much as a second home… And the stallions that could benefit WB breeding, sometimes are not marketed to WBs because there is no money in it. I can’t say whether they would catalyze the HOL breed the way Ladykiller did, he was truly an exceptional horse that came along at the right time, when the registry was in some sore need of blood. He is and was positively irreplaceable.
I am not saying that you don’t know what you are talking about - I think you do… but I see a lot of high quality TBs, that consistently come from the same sires or same families, and these TBs are ending up in UL homes.
The TB as a whole has changed since Ladykiller, naturally… that’s the way progress works – but I have seen better quality TBs in the last ten years than I saw before that. I think that is largely in part because a few very commercial stallions have infiltrated the TB genepool – and those stallions were of very good quality sportwise. It just so happened that they were also incredible racers (which, sometimes, is not such a separate quality). I do think that modern dirt racing has transformed the TB further from the WB ideal – but – there are still some modern dirt sires that are consistently producing TBs that were not bred for sport, that are showing up in the top level of sports. A few of those dirt sires are shown in the image in the post above ^
That is Ladykiller… and… by today’s standards, people would say he is long as a bus and downhill with a poor throatlatch connection and long loin… it is a good thing that those in the know knew otherwise.
There are modern dirt racers that come very close phenotypically to Ladykiller still.
For the record, while we sometimes disagree, I do always value your insights and input into the forum Viney. I always learn something.
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Because I constantly see uphill being thrown around as a characteristic that TBs don’t possess – look at Quidam De Revel. By definition, he is not uphill if you are measuring from elbow to stifle, which you are supposed to be
It used to be that we judged a horse as up/dowhill/level by wither to croup, and/or elbow to stifle. But that is a measurement that has little to do with how the horse moves.
Judy Wardrope spent a lot of time evaluating horses in motion, and all that research showed there is much more to up/downhill.
The “big 3” are much more important than withers/croup/stifle/elbow. [LIST=1]
A horse can be wither-high and be very functionally downhill.
Higher or lower stifle has more impact on whether he’s a better Jumper or Dressage horse. Higher stifles are better for jumping as it helps with lifting the front end, and lower is better for Dressage or other forward work as it helps with a longer stride.
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