TBs down under aren't like US ones--Blood Horse Breeding article

[vineyridge]

The Blood Horse has got a newish breeding columnist named Robert Ferro who claims to specialize in biomechanics. This week he compares Down Under TBs to US ones and finds several differences besides just the “breeding for turf vs. breeding for dirt” that he expected.

According to his article, he found phenotypical differences in that American horses tend to be lighter and not as concentrated in what he calls Power, while the Anzac horses were all clustered in the Power segment to a striking degree. They are heavier, more muscular, and just plain denser.

I found that interesting since there have been many discussions and arguments over whether or not the American TB is its own strain since so many genetics are shared. Ferro say that, at least where horses from New Zealand and Australia are concerned, the strains are distinctly different phenotypically.

[gotpaints]

It seems like Australian TBs are built sturdier than the U.S. ones. They always seem more built bone-wise, though that could definitely be attributed to Danehill since he threw stockier horses. I’m always a fan of the Australian horses because they look like they could add more bone to the U.S. horses but they never really seem to catch on when they shuttle here.

[beowulf]

well, for a long time part of Australia and NZ was cordoned off from the rest of the world, it’s expensive to shuttle down there and there was not as much a demand for commercial stallions; at least, that is what I have been told by the ‘kiwis’ myself.

So when there is not a lot of new stallion/mares going down there, the lines tend to bottleneck. There’s a fair amount of concentration of several different stallions in NZ blood; it looks like that is changing over the last few years since there’s more of a market now and more horses have been shuttled under.

There is definitely a different ‘phenotype’, as the influx of new blood (new blood as in, new stallions) is not as common as it is in the US; lots of old lines down there that have continued and not bred out because, for a while, that was all they had. You start with a smaller concentration of the mare base and of course the result is going to be very different than the massive market that is US TBs.

I would not say sturdier. They are bigger, rangier, yes. Soundness seems about the same. They’ also as a rule are slower and not as much specialist.

I’ve worked with a few TBs from NZ. They were very similar to our chasers.

P.S Danehill is a USA horse through and through… though he is certainly blockier than what we associate with racing TBs he is by no means sparse in US population: both Danzig and His Majesty are bepopulate in the US and throw substantial build.

When I think of that population, I think of Bletchingly, Star Kingdom and Noholme or Double Jay. That line is very much alive in the mare base.

[gotpaints]

For the record I wasn’t saying Danehill is Australian. I was saying he throws stockier-type horses (as does his sire), which is something I’ve seen in a lot of Aussies (because he is obviously a very popular line down there).