I think that TB’s bred for the classic distance have been selected for athletic ability, mind, strength, power, stamina, agility, electricity, conformation, lots of good, the right things. And good trainers can do a lot with that. In eventing it is NOT so that the more blood the worse the horse is at the dressage and the showjumping. I can see it in how my own TB is developing in time with under his eventing rider. His gaits are getting better, his jumping is improving, everything about him is improving. The rider is building and improving on something that was there already. Of course also because he is growing up.
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For example such nice types like Troy have not completely disappeared because he is behind Street Cry for example.
http://sporthorse-data.com/d?i=436596
http://sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10070703
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For example let’s take Donner. Is he mediocre in the dressage compared to the average warmblood? Is he mediocre in his showjumping compared to the average warmblood? What if he would have been trained by a specialized dressage rider? Or by a specialized showjumping rider?
http://eventingnation.com/david-oconnor-talks-developing-event-horses-in-the-u-s/
No one ever said that more blood the worse in SJ or Dressage, quite the contrary. Blood is required more than ever before.
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Well, not long ago I started a topic about eventing horses being bred with less and less blood. And people said that that is because of the dressage and the show jumping parts.
By the way, in the link I just posted in which David O’Connor talks about eventing horses, he also says it. Actually the trot is a gait that can be most improved upon (Donner).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKuPFvyl2aM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0DVfigyCQ
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the possibilities for improvement of the step and the galop are marginal. You only can really improve the trot.
For eventing, is not as much the SJ part, it’s essentially the dressage part. Nowadays, if you are really NOT good in the dressage part, you will not emerge in eventing.
But you cannot seriously compare the dressage and SJ parts of eventing to dressage and SJ competition. For SJ, it’s a height and technique question, for dressage … I’m not a connaisseur de dressage, but an eventing rider told me, that the dressage part is only a little bit more than obedience, 3 gaits (and some special figures and movements).
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Of course I am not saying they are of the same level.
The results in 4* eventing would be quite different these days if the FEI would drop the 1.5 coefficient for dressage penalty points. I can prove it. Dressage is more heavily weighted than any other phase in the sport. Even with that, most event riders have gone back to the traditional event horse at the 4* level.
No one knows what eventing will require in ten years time.
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Again this % means the portion of TB ancestor in the pedigree and not the level of blood.
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Sam has a TB sire and a TB damsire. To me that would make him 75% blood.
Sam has a TB sire and a TB damsire. So to me that would mean that the TB genetics dominate. I’d say he was 75% blood, although without a full genome scan that’s only approximate.
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Clifton Promise, a full TB, did a lovely dressage test at both Badminton and Burghley in 2013. At Badminton, he scored 74.33%. At that year’s Burghley, he scored 75.54%.
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Sam is absolutely a TB. His sire is 100% TB. His dam is 50% TB. Not talking about blood% of ancestors here.
In Sam’s case, the strongest sport talent in his pedigree comes from his sire, Stan The Man xx. So maybe it isn’t wise to always jump to saying that the WB is the one that gets the credit for his athleticism… because in this case, it wasn’t the WB that made the horse, it was the TB.
Btw, Stan The Man xx has several really nice event horses.
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Two of Stan The Man’s Irish get before he was sold to Germany went to the Olympics. One won eventing gold at Athens. One competed at Sydney and won team silver. They both were on British teams at WEG and the European Championships as well.That would be the full brothers Shear L’Eau and Shear H20 with Leslie Law.
Stan The Man’s German daughter Sindy 43 went to WEG at Aachen as an individual with Dirk Schrade. She also came 5th at a Luhmuhlen 4*.
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Come on. I have never said the TB had nothing to do with his success but let be real just a moment. First, he is not “ansolutely a TB”. His sire is a TB and his mother is Heraldik x Godehard. He is the result of his breeding, and some came from the sire, the other from his dame. We have no idea how was his mother, what she passes, etc…
Then again, you assume all the athletisme came from the “TB”, as the “strongest” sport talent came from “Stan the Man”. The second dame produced a 3* horse with Stan the Man. Sure the line and the stallion is a great cross, maybe because they complement each other. Also, Sam’s dame is by a certain “Heraldik”. You might like him as he is a TB as well. You should look him up on Google, maybe is is no “Sam the Man”, but he might have had a little something to do with “athletisme”.
And last but not least, Athletisme means NOTHING. A succesfull eventing horse must have galop and stamina to succesfully run the crorr-country and remain fresh for 3 days, enough strenght to jump a small SJ course and the mouvement to win in the dressage ring.
Elles mentionned somewhere that blood was no good, which I corrected. Then she said somewhere, to explain that what follows:
Well, not long ago I started a topic about eventing horses being bred with less and less blood. And people said that that is because of the dressage and the show jumping parts.
And right after made the mention about Sam’s % of TB. The only thing I meant to say is that the % of TB does not reflect necessarly the horse in front of you. Breeding is evolving, you just have to read all analysis made about the recent success of French breeding in eventing. What I wanted to say is that people may be breeding less, if it is the case, with straight TB not because they want to reduce the blood, but because they feel that, at that stage, other aspects of the horses need to be improved such as movement for Dressage. Many stallion may improve jump or dressage movement while maintaining the blood. Then maybe you can add them just on 1 or 2 generations, until you have a more complete mare, then get back with blood, etc. That is what breeding is all about, is living, moving, improving, going in different directions. It is not anything against the TB, it is just how breeding is done.
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I’m going to pop back in and say I don’t expect the gem twist clone offspring to excel in show jumping if crossed on other TB mares. A lot has changed since Gem Twist’s days. BUT if he’s crossed on excellent sport mares; watch out!
This is why I am curious as to why the eventing breeders haven’t jumped at the opportunity to breed to this stallion. Denny Emerson rode several from these lines to the top of the sport and they have always been highly sought after for upper level eventing.
I know the Irish are very keen on breeding for Eventing; it is a large portion of their breeding business there. Have they caught on to this sire being available?? Especially after seeing the results of his early offspring at inspections; excellent talent and quality in Gemini XX offspring.
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while I like the not-so-thinly-veiled snark in your post, I’m not going to be snarky back because I’d much rather have a civil discussion and not another TB-vs-WB brawl. You might recall that you and I have had a discussion about Heraldik in a long-distant thread, IIRC.
Sam is genetically less than 25% ‘warmblood’. I was responding directly to your post that wrongly insinuated that we were discussing the blood% of ancestors. We weren’t. We were discussing Sam’s direct thoroughbred blood, which comes from his sire and dam - not the culmination of all the blood in his ancestors. IF you did the math and calculated the blood% of his ancestors I am sure he is much closer to 80-90% “blood”, but that’s not really germane to the subject since we weren’t discussing his blood% through ancestors. The blood% is not really the same as TB%, as the blood% is usually tallying total blood throughout ancestors and you’re right, a horse can have 50% blood thru its ancestors and can in no way shape or form reflect that.
Since it’s kind of confusing to articulate the nuance between blood% and TB (as in the breed) % it’s probably just easier to say Sam is at least 3/4 Thoroughbred. His sire was a Thoroughbred and his dam was half Thoroughbred… Not 50% blood. 50% Thoroughbred.
And again, in Sam’s case, his sire is the one that makes his pedigree. Just my honest opinion. As someone else pointed up thread, Stan The Man has multiple offspring competing in just as high levels as Sam.
well, for a while, cloned horses couldn’t compete. That changed only a few years ago, I think.
