New recognition for TBs in sport

TB breeding will be recognized at Olympic and FEI events starting in 2024. Retired racehorses doing a new job in the Olympic disciplines were previously listed as “breeding unknown” but in future they will be listed as TB. This follows discussions between racing and sport horse federations, the FEI and the International Stud Book Committee. It is hoped to encourage owners to explore second careers for their racehorses and to show more people how TBs can excel in other sports. There is coverage in FEI news and Horse&Hound

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Surely a typo in the year? :slight_smile:

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2024 in time for the Paris Olympics.

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About time. :raised_hands:

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I’m confused.
At least 30yrs ago, I had a trainer who made buying trips to Germany.
He brought back a Studbook & showed me the “X” indicating TB in the lines.
I remember this as one 5yo he brought back got the hairy eyeball from the DQs at the barn because he had the scorned “X” on his registration.
Horse went on to do GP.
My own US racebred TB was schooling 3rd when I lost interest in training further.

As a TB breeder, rider and trainer for many decades, I just find this so amusing. Whatever, I’m sure it’s needed these days. The equine industry has just changed so much, and marketing of “sport specific breeds” and “dismissing the TB as a competitive sport horse” has progressed to this. “Ew, it’s a TB??? Well it won’t do well at the shows, will it? It’s not going to be competitive, and it’s not worth $$$$$”. They’ve done well to promote that automatic opinion. I guess it’s just a reflection of the current state of the equine industry.

All the professional riders, the GOOD ones, shopped at the racetrack annually years ago. It was “commonplace” to make a few purchases every year, likely looking ones, for not a lot of money, and turn them into the superstars of yesteryear. The huge bonus is that those who have had that early race training do have superior bone, tendon, ligament and joint surface development due to that early training (which non-TB breeds can NOT withstand at that young age). This helped with keeping horses sound for many years in their later life, without the use of a LOT of joint injections. Now, apparently, those horses go to “rescues” instead, which tend to not be top class situations for riding or training. Thus, the TB has been erased from the top echelon of horse sport, and sport specific breeders get the prices they get for their efforts to produce today’s sport horses. Which is fine if you are RICH, but eliminates the rest of us from participating… unless we still go shopping at the racetrack, making the selection, doing the retraining, and getting there. Then, apparently, the breeding of the horse gets called “unknown”. In decades past, the breeding of TBs who were going on to a superstar sport career were actually sometimes kept “secret”, so that no one would know what pedigrees had produced the superstars, so that the rider would not have competition to buy the next editions in coming years from the racetrack.

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XX is a connotation used to specify TB lineage.

The vast majority of WB stud books hail from some type of TB, anglo or Trakehner lineage that has been incorporated - all have been traditionally used to inject athleticism and refinement into WB lines. Without hot blooded refinement, we wouldn’t have the WB.

Also worth noting that just because a WB may be from a Dutch registry, for example, doesn’t mean the lines are purely Dutch.

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:partying_face::partying_face:

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I was going through some old eventing programs from the late 90s and early 00s. I was beyond frustrated that while more than half of the entries were listed as TBs, there was no breeding information on any of them. And the majority of them were not competing under their registered names, so there is really no way to figure out who they were without tracking down their old owners & riders and hoping someone remembers.

But to be honest, the connections might not have even known at the time-- this was back in the day when tracing a tattoo was not easy like it is now. I’m not sure what year TRPB started offering tattoo searches for a fee, but you had to mail (then later, fax) them the information and they would get back to you. I remember it was a big deal when the Jockey Club started putting the blue books on CD-ROM so you could search them.

I retrained and resold OTTBs through the mid 00s, then I just got burned out on sales. But most of the people who bought my horses never asked about the horse’s registered names. Some of my horses I never even knew their registered names! Of course I knew when they came straight from the horse’s connections, but some horses I would get through middle men. “Uh, I think they said his name was Mo something or other…” Gee, thanks.

*Edited- added info

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I read about this on the H&H forum earlier this week. It was interesting in how it devolved into a discussion on how great British breeds are. Threads going sideways isn’t just a COTH thing. :laughing:

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