@Flyaways The three so-called Foundation Stallions were three very successful ones that are to be found in most pedigrees of modern TB - but a very long way back. Those three were actually a small part of a large and mixed gene pool that evolved into a specific breed.
Darley Arabian 1700- 1730
Byerley Turk c1680 - c 1703
Godolphin Arabian c1724 - 1753
So the careers of these stallions did not overlap much, even as multiple horses were being bred for racing as it was a very fashionable thing for English aristocratic families to engage in. There were many, many other stallions active. They often have great names like Places White Barb or Grosvenor’s Bloody Shouldered Arabian. The “Levant Company,” a merchant venturers company, was set up in 1600 to trade between Britain and what is now Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Stallions to improve race horses at home were sometimes part of that trade. As the Arab breeders kept their mare very close it was fortunate that the Brits were convinced that the stallions were the more important in breeding. And of course war and diplomacy as well as trade have always moved horses around. The Byerley Turk was a warhorse captured at the siege of Buda.
Similarly, the “taproot mares” in English TBs are divided into families numbered 1-74 and that adds in more diversity. They are identified back into the 1600s and as a group they were stuffed with multiple generations of Arab, Barb, Andalusian, Neapolitan, Hungarian and a mish mash of anything else that might win races. The Irish Hobby horses were also famous coursers.
The first truly great “Thoroughbred” is Flying Childers (1715-1741) and he was active before the Godolphin Arabian began his career.
“Thorough” refers to “careful” and the first General Stud Book was published in 1791, based on the personal stud books maintained by breeders for the previous 100-150 years. It became a closed registry by accident, as the Thoroughbred had evolved into a fixed breed that could no longer be substantially improved by the addition of more foreign blood.
Personally, I’m curious about the decreasing genetic diversity within modern WB breeding, where producing horses for sport dates back to only the 1950s. Popular stallions are graded into multiple registers and with AI, they cover far more mares than TBs, limited to live cover only, could ever possibly manage. Balou de Rouet, for example, was accepted into seven studbooks.
