interesting article on German TB breeding

Here’s a link to the study which was published in Nature Magazine. It’s well worth reading. Bryon Rogers did a post on it when it first came out. http://www.performancegenetics.com/single-post/2018/04/24/How-inbreeeding-affects-racing-performance-in-Thoroughbreds Population genetics is not voodoo science, and when it uses a closed population, its findings are even stronger.

I suggest that everyone read it. If you don’t know, IBD is “identity by descent” which is explained here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23733848/

https://europepmc.org/articles/pmc5906619

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Arrogate was HOTY in 2016, at age 3.

Allegretta must have been one of those German mares you refer to. She may not have produced for American racing, but she certainly did for exported American horses who raced abroad. She was a genuine blue hen for foreign racing when bred to American stallions in the USA.

I don’t think many, if any, of her descendants have returned from overseas either to race or to breed. She just goes to show how insular and isolated racing is in America. That doesn’t say anything at all about the quality of American horses in general.

If we were to ditch Lasix in American racing, we might have very different horses. After all, the difference between dirt and European racing didn’t use to be so huge.

When I said 1 German G1 was the equivalent of 27 American G1s, I was thinking about the difference in foal crop numbers.