Hi i am new to the forum but have been told it is an awesome place to get advice re TB sports horse breeding,
i have a TB stallion, out there doing the job and just stepping up to advanced level…http://www.pedigreequery.com/sula+blue
i would like to try and breed TB sports horses like i did with this boy, specifically bred for sport and not racing, i know this is not going to be easy and he has been popular with WB mares,
i have a selection of my fathers mares i could use with him so looking for advice as to which would be the most suitable,
i have…http://www.pedigreequery.com/our+angel3
http://www.pedigreequery.com/flick+em+off
http://www.pedigreequery.com/sento+tryus
http://www.pedigreequery.com/im+all+ears2
and a so far unnamed mare out of the same mare “Abaklea” by this stallion http://www.pedigreequery.com/makbul
any input would be very much appreciated:)
You must be in either GB or Ireland.
I LOVE the fact that your stallion is Herod line and NOT Ahonoora.
What I suggest you do is go HERE if you are sure that all the horses are PURE TB:
http://www.equineline.com/Free-5X-Pedigree.cfm
and have it generate hypothetical foal pedigrees for each candidate’s foals. It’s free.
You can also enter the horses’ pedigrees HERE after you register:
http://sporthorse-data.com/
and it will also create hypothetical foal pedigrees, along with some other very interesting statistics. You may need to enter several generations of pedigree to get back to a horse that they already have in their database. I suggest that if you have to do that, you use the pedigrees from the Equineline site as your source instead of Pedigree Query, because Equineline is the Official US JC website and works together with Weatherby’s and other JCs worldwide to make sure that all the horses in the online database are as studbook registered. (although I have found a mistake or two where New Zealand horses were concerned.) The Equineline database covers most TB racing jurisdictions, including Argentina and smaller European ones, so you won’t have problems finding your horses. Sport Horse Breed database is also free to registered users.
Are any of these mares NH?
As a personal thought that might need to be researched more, it seems to me that there is very little racing success with Northern Dancer and the Herod line, which has contributed to the almost complete extinction of Herod line close up in racing. If you plan to use Sula Blue, I personally would avoid Northern Dancer/Nearctic as much as possible, at least for the first generation. I do note that many of your mares have Lyphard, but he’s just about the one exception to my thinking, simply because his dam has a quite wonderful french pedigree and has a Herod damsire line, so we know that the reverse worked well with him. Lyphard is an excellent sport horse line IMO.
Once you’ve got your proposed foal pedigrees, come back here and post them and I’m sure we’ll all comment. BTW, if the unnamed mare was registered, you can get her pedigree from Equineline by entering her year of birth and her dam.
If you’d like, you can also send me a private message, because this stuff is a passion with me.
Viney is truly a treasure to those of us who love the Thoroughbred without restraint. She should be featured in The Blood Horse IMO!
PennyG
thankyou Vineyridge,
these are the hyper foals…
http://sporthorse-data.com/dbtestmating.php?&sireid=10633772&damid=10959106
http://sporthorse-data.com/dbtestmating.php?&sireid=10633772&damid=10960389
http://sporthorse-data.com/dbtestmating.php?&sireid=10633772&damid=10959105
http://sporthorse-data.com/dbtestmating.php?&sireid=10633772&damid=10960390
and the unnamed one who is regisered weatherbys GSB
http://www.equineline.com/Free-5X-Pedigree.cfm?page_state=ORDER_AND_CONFIRM&sire_reference_number=6598643&dam_reference_number=6302547&color=+&sex=+&hypo_foaling_year=&breeder=&nicking_stats_indicator=Y&x=34&y=16
looking forward to your thoughts on his possible future wives
Now you need to do some reading–lots of reading.
I’d start with the articles that used to be on a particular website that is now defunct. You can find them on the Wayback machine here:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20100205100707/http://www.sporthorse-breeder.com/articlesbloodlines.htm There are more than a few that are specifically about TBs, but many of them are also more North American focused. There are some articles there about the TB in other sport horses. All are worth reading for background information.
You will find www.tbheritage.com extremely useful, particularly their section on TBs that Jump. The Portraits are also extremely helpful.
Then I would turn to breeding theories and genetics.
This site has a particular take on sport horse breeding theory and is well worth reading and digesting.
http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/ If I were you’d I’d read everything on the site.
You also need to study conformation and genetics. Conformation because there are certain skeletal angles that affect performance and soundness, and genetics just because all breeders should know basic genetics. I’d read scientific papers about horse physiology. especially the papers on TBs. Study horse breeding concepts of linebreeding and inbreeding and why they are supposed to “concentrate bloodlines.” When you chose a mare to compliment your stallion, you’ll want to consider all the different conformation aspects. Another thing that you already probably know is to choose a mare who is phenotypical similar to your stallion, so the chances of reproducing his good aspects are increased.
Since it’s fall now, you probably won’t be breeding until the spring, so you’ve got lots of time to study and learn.
Since these are your father’s mares, you’ll want to study any previous foals and the stallions who sired them to see if you can figure what came from the sire and what came from the dam and the quality of the foal. You’ll be able to determine if any of the mares are truly pre-potent. Then you’ll also want to study the pedigrees of those foals’ sires in detail, along with the pedigrees of the dams. Look for at least nine generations, and preferably twelve for doubles and multiples (preferably through both males and females) to very athletic horses and good chaser lines and other jumping TB lines. It’s a lot of work, but a mare is not just a uterus for a stallion to fill, and you want to maximize your chances for an insanely good athlete. It’s believed now that the dam is 60% of the horse, given nature and nurture.
I’ll see if I can make a full list of good sites to study and learn from.
If you attend some of the wb inspections you will be exposed to many good sport types to look at as well as a wealth of information about conformation and movement to help in the education of your eye and knowledge. Good luck!
PennyG
looks like i will have plenty to keep me busy over the long winter nights, i know which mares will suit him conformation/temperament wise, they are all homebred so i know them inside out but my knowledge of the TB in sport is limited, Sula Blue is my only attempt at breeding one purely for sport after many years of breeding for racing, he is going to have quite a few WB crosses on the ground and being produced before my pure TB’s are out there, you have been very helpful pointing out bloodlines to avoid and im excited for the future, breeding for a job, not just failed racehorses falling into eventing but bred to excel at it, although after years in the racing industry i do fully support retraining of racehorses and think they are amazing animals
I am no Viney when it comes to TB pedigrees for sport but a few of the mares had some nice bits that jumped out at me. I agree with Viney, these mares are heavily UK/Irish influenced and smack of National Hunt racing.
I liked Flick Em Off. Turtle Island is lovely, 2 x Derring Do is nice as is Kris.
I also liked All Ears. Roberto quite close is nice to see, and Mill Reef is a lovely sire for sport and well respected high-level National Hunt stallion.
Whether these mares nick well with your stallion’s bloodlines is for the Vineys of this board to comment on 
Best of luck in your venture. TBs bred to event are getting pretty rare so I support your concept whole-heartedly.
Just keep in mind to register your filly foals with the jockey club as JC papers are needed for these to be eligible for classification and possible entry into an international warmblood studbook of choice e.g. Hanoverian. This gives the fillies another job to do after competing without losing the opportunity to integrate those TB bloodlines into another studbook. Breeding TB/warmbloods may not be your bag but it may well be someone else’s, down the track, e.g. an owner of one of your fillies.
A very good source on sporthorse conformation is Judy Wardrope. http://jwequine.com/ She also does pedigree analysis and has certain reference lines that she looks for, even way back in the pedigree. Every issue of the magazine Warmbloods Today has an article by her, where she analyses a horse photo and discusses how and what its conformation predisposes it to. The magazine has an archive, and you can read her thoughts on what is functional conformation for each discipline.
http://warmbloodstoday.com/archive.html
And if you’re in Ireland, I strongly suggest that you get in touch with William Micklem who is a very nice man and VERY knowledgeable about TBs in sport.
Do you have access to either Goldmine or Tesio Power? Although they are racing based, they do provide huge pedigrees and other information on one page. As far as I know, there is no sporthorse software that is the equivalent of either of those.
Another thing that will take time is to investigate the photographs of sport horses and TBs who are related to both the sire and the potential dams on the Sport Horse Breed database. Seeing pictures of generations of ancestors is sometimes quite illuminating.
Lines to count in the extended pedigrees of the hypothetical foal
Mumtaz Mahal
Gondolette (and Myrobella and Snowberry) and her daughters
Lady Juror
Goody Two Shoes
Plucky Liege and her dam Concertina
Black Duchess
Knight’s Daughter
Roi Herode
Upas/Elf/Nimbus and all their descendants
Bay Ronald from all sources (Dark Ronald, Son-In-Law, Gainsborough/Hyperion, Forli, the whole Owen Tudor tribe including Abernant (who has a nearly perfect pedigree for jumping), and all the rest.
Teddy
Precipitation/Hurry On
Nearco with the exception of Nearctic
Habitat
Never Bend
Vieux Manoir
Massine/Mieuxce
Blandford in all his glory
Wild Risk!!!
Chateau Bouscaut/Chanteur
Gold Bridge/Golden Cloud
Bachelor’s Double
Sir Gaylord
Blue Peter
US lines in the far reaches of pedigrees.
Peter Pan and all his descendants
Fair Play and all his descendants
Eight Thirty
Ariel/Eternal/Adana
Rose Leaves
Padua
Count Fleet
There are others, but I’m blanking at the moment.
Mare families 5-e and 10-e in particular, as well as The Alexander Mare of 1790 (2-n) and her daughter branches, which are 2-o, 2-p, 2-r, 2-s. She’s a jewel for jumping horses.
thankyou Kerole, Flick em off is high on the list, and all foals will be registered with weatherbys,
Vineyridge thankyou again for taking the time to send me links to good information, i am in the UK but William is a member of a facebook group i am a member of so will send him a message
One thing that I find helpful is to see which TB bloodlines have been used in WB and ISH breeding. This is because (and I may be nuts to believe this) I think that the athletic ability of WBs derives mostly from their TB ancestors.
You can register for a database in Holland called www.equestrian-database.com.
It’s free for 30 days, then there is a subscription fee. On this website, you can search for a horse name, and if it’s in the database, a pedigree will be pulled up, along with two choices–progeny and results. The results are FEI level competitions world wide, so you can see what sport level the horse competed at and its places. It’s extremely useful and has many, many TBs although sometimes the pedigrees are not present or not complete. Nor are all the results complete, but it’s much better than nothing and the only place I’ve found that correlates pedigrees and sport competition results.
Actually all of the mares have very good points. I’ve only looked at Our Angel in depth, but she has a wonderful pedigree for sport, and as many Herod lines as I think I’ve seen in a modern horse. One odd point–not only is he the sire of Ghareeb, but there is a pure TB by a Dancing Brave son who does GP dressage in Japan. And her only Northern Dancer is a top and bottom, sex balanced Lyphard double, which doesn’t bother me at all since he’s in the fifth, and doubling Lyphard doubles Goofed.
Now this is very interesting, and it might be a database error/omission, but the one I just mentioned does not have an entry for Fairy King at all, and he’s certainly had many opportunities for his get to either become or produce FEI level sport horses. I just learned that there was a 2nd full Sadler’s Wells brother named Classic Music. Who knew?
I’ve now looked at all but one, and my pick would still be Our Angel without knowing anything but her paper.
There are a huge number of Danzig line foals in the world with about the same number of different dams, and he’s produced some nice eventers in the US and Australia through his myriad descendants. But, your Danzig line sire is double Mr. P, and that could well be a recipe for bad legs.
If you use Our Angel and get a filly, the next cross should probably to a Blushing Groom or Roberto line sire with as little Native Dancer as possible if any still exist by then. Actually almost any non-Northern D lines would work who have very good sport descendants, most from lines that have already produced eventers and chasers, like Moon Fleet’s sire Strong Gale or Primitive Rising or Java Tiger (although they are both Native Dancer on top). If you can find a Primitive Rising son, he would add Relic, a very good and Matchem sport horse line, which seems to be missing close up. The next generation I’d take a huge chance and breed back to Sula Blue or a full sister’s progeny if he has one. This would, of course, depend on whether the foals have excellent athletic ability. The theory would be to concentrate the Herod in the first generation, then an outcross to a sport proved TB line, then back to the well again.
BTW, I love that your guy has Road House. He’s the sire of Irish Cap, one of Bruce Davidson’s great event horses.
I bow to you Viney, you are awesome
