It’s some time ago that I read Tesio, but, if I remember correctly, he said that mares leaving the races don’t produce good products in their first years at stud because their energy level is too low to transmit a significant amount. But they can produce good horses later on.
I find this interesting. This thread was started based on the reality that great horses more often come from great mothers. Then for some reason, we see 2 pages of people trying to make a case for TB motherlines. Last time I did this research there were Zero TB’s on the top 3000 jumpers in the world. That year nearly 35,000 TB’s were born. This is more than 4 times the next nearest WB book. No one is talking about the good mothers like Bravo mother of Contendro I/II, Caretano, Cassito and N-Ceratana, 2 1.5m jumpers and 3 1.6m jumpers, and G.Dam to two other stallions. How about Zivia mother of 3 approved stallions and 6 international jumpers including Cim Christo who went to the olympics. WIsma, mother of none other than Cassini I and II and Clarimo, and G. dam to many others. How about the Perra, mother to Carthago and Lord Calando, or Wodka mother to 6 1.6m jumpers including Clearway and Chika;s Way.
THESE are the great mothers that we should pay attention to. They could breed a donkey and make a 1.6m approved stallion Jack. Their daughters are producing, and their G.daughters are producing. Now I caution those who will only look for mares with exception production or from their mothers. However, keep in mind when a great mother has daughters, they are all swept up early, and so are their daughers. So you could easily go 3 or 4 generations without any production. At the end of the day those who know the motherlines that are producing grab those mares early. However I have seen a very mediocre mare from a great mother still out produce a great mare from a so so mother. If you go two or three generations from a great mother you have to see if you still have the goods. Selection is key whe choosing a mare from a great motherline. To choose well, you must know the mothers.
Tim
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I think you missed a point, Tim.
We are not discussing, not really, the quality of TB-marelines in modern sport.
What we are discussing is the maintenance of quality, over years and perhaps decades of WB-marelines. And on this specific topic, there are very very few informations available. They do exists, in the heads of the mareholders : owners of mares like Bourrée, Dirka, Bravo, Option, etc (sorry for the other SB).
the question is here in the actual discussion : when an event (fluctuation of quality) is observed in TB-marelines (race-TBs), is ou can the same event be relevent in another population (jumping WB-mrelines) of the same species .
A nice article that also mentions the importance of dam lines (Sorry, I have not translated it):
http://www.zangersheide.com/userfiles/file/nieuws/NEZMagazineoktnov2015p6875.pdf
I find it interesting that the % TB of the wonderful Holstein mares was as follows:
Bravo 48%
Zivia 54%
Perra 42%
Wodka II 44%
And each is touted as a dam of sires, which they are.
No mention of the dams of the TB sires that were key to the re-branding/re-forming of the Holstein into a top modern show jumper; though those dams are also proven producers of Sport if you are counting 3rd generation or better descendants.
“They could breed a donkey and make a 1.6m approved stallion Jack.” Probably not the wisest breeding program, there.
What an insult to the great breeders who wisely selected the mates to their mares and achieved the jumping results they did.
Their successful sons were ALL of 40% or higher % TB blood to their revered dams; many with TB on a 4 generation pedigree and, of course, showing linebreeding to those TB.
I think there was some discussion on ‘outlying’ dams of successful jumpers that were either unexpected or of widely differing tail female line origins. All were grade up to jumper sport with the addition of TB, which led to questions about TB dams and TB use going forward.
Which might be a better course than using a jackass…
I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with my joke. The “joke” about breeding to a donkey was just a joke, and was meant to demonstrate how prepotent those mares were. I can assure you that the breeders of those mares would take the comment as a compliment.
% of blood means “NOTHING”. It is a statistical calculation of the chances that genetics came from the TB. It is NOT the % of TB in the make up of the animal. % of TB does not tell you about the phenotype.
I don’t mention the dams of the sires, because those mares were not bred to those mares, they were bred their sons. When speaking of Bravo for instance, her pedigree is Reichgraf/Rasputin/TinRod XX stamm 104a. This is how you communicate a pedigree, because we are mentioning the stallions that the breeder chose when making her. That is how it is done, period.
Of course all great stamms started with their first good mother. The blue hens of each stamm started the foundation that made the stamms great. But in Holstein, the horses are mostly only bred for jumping, so when building a mare, you can refer to her stallions and see directly their contributions for the production of show jumping, and don’t have to imagine if they were used more would they have been more or less prolific. No speculation at all.
What would make this discussion great is understanding what defines a good motherline or dam. I believe this questions was asked. My contribution to that question is that a good motherline is one that has been bred for a particular sport over many generations (at least 5), and demonstrated a propensity to produce it, and has expertly selected each mare from each generation so they know that they have captured the best qualities of their mother. The best ones have been built over generations to more effectively distribute the jumping genes to the next generation with the other strong qualities need for the upper levels of sport.
Tim
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Farmers had their farmhorses and these were no longer needed. Riding for recreation and sport was growing at that time so the farmers started using their farm mares for breeding for sport. Sp of course most of the mare lines come from this stock.
And if you want to see what those horses looked like then please look at the second post here: http://www.bokt.nl/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1908225&sid=fe7c4c491c399c859e63081903623d75
"I don’t mention the dams of the sires, because those mares were not bred to those mares, they were bred their sons. When speaking of Bravo for instance, her pedigree is Reichgraf/Rasputin/TinRod XX stamm 104a. This is how you communicate a pedigree, because we are mentioning the stallions that the breeder chose when making her. That is how it is done, period.
Of course all great stamms started with their first good mother. The blue hens of each stamm started the foundation that made the stamms great."
The reason you communicate a pedigree that way is because intelligent breeders mentally fill in the entire pedigree by knowing the pedigrees of the sires as listed, because they are great sires and a breeder should know those pedigrees and what those sires brought to the end result.
Frankly the great first mother also had a mother… and that dam was not considered a ‘great’ because only one or at most 2 lines of her female progeny bred on: the ones bred to breed building stallions. What came after was not the same as what came before. Before that, the hens were ordinary brown.
http://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/354916
Scrolling down, the 4th mother is Tille - Heino/Elegant/
Only Tille’s produce by Ramzes (Ute) became producers of note, and Ute’s Tin Rod XX daughter (Holle) was far the best.
Phenotype?
You might want to look at the phenotype of the 5th generation tail female first dams and compare it to the phenotype of their modern offspring.
You are absolutely right the % TB means little when the TB is far back in the pedigree. I suppose so does the % original Holsteiner ‘blood’.
I am in no way disparaging these great Holsteiner dams or mare lines; the discussion is on ‘mare lines that produce jumpers’ and there are non-Holsteiners that were foundation mares for other countries.
There are mares that produced top jumpers that did not appear to be bred for jumpers. Rather than discarding outright, we ask why?
They are all welcome in the discussion.
I don’t have info on Ursula’s antecedents, but she would make the grade as a comes from nowhere mare viz her dam line: many registries/breeding goals were represented over the last 50 years.
I hope someone has more info on the family.
http://www.britishshowjumping.co.uk/…g-jumping-list
http://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/1487800/?levels=6&only_levels=1
Of course her sire topline was bred to jump Ahorn/Nimmerdor
She’s from a TB tail female way back in the 1920s. http://sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10845313
She’s a mixture of horses from a lot of different German registries on the bottom.
The Horsetelex and Sporthorse data are listing different mares (same name, Primel) as dam of Papillon.
Either could be correct, though the 1959 model (TB damline) is less likely due to age, since Papillon was foaled 1981.
Only HAN and one exception, Minerva who is HES (nowadays absorbed by HAN), female tail in the 7th generation is an unnamed TB (but the origins are known). It’s interesting that this TB-mare was bred to a HAN stallion and than we have several TB-stallions in succession.
It could be that the female tail in those times were meant to produce halfblood race horses.
The Dutch Ahorn is HOL in the female tail and Dutch / TB / HOL and a tiny little bit of OLD in the fatherline.
Horsetelex has the right dam. The dam line does not look very expressive but some other jumpers came out of it but not of the Ursula XII calibre I think.
Some nice pictures of her: http://www.nicomorgan.com/-/galleries/equestrian-photography/show-jumping/show-jumpers-gallery/tina-fletcher/page/1 . Despite the fact that she does not seem to have a lot of TB in her pedigree, she does seem to have some TB in her phenotype but she is not very refined.
This is an interesting thread that I am definitely not educated enough to fully understand.
I’m curious about what to make of the mare Marchenfee in the context of this discussion. She was the TB dam of Bouquet, and is grand dam of Bonaparte N, and Nabucco AA.
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=663437
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10551822
I know I have brought her up before on these threads… She’s an interesting TB who produced some great performing sons who certainly jump. Just thought I would bring her up again in this discussion. Maybe she’s irrelevant though, or not a significant enough producing mare to be of interest. It seems like an interesting mare line to me though.
if a TB-mare can produce horses like Bonaparte, Nabucco, be it directly or in the 2nd generation, she is significant enough, no problem.
But she was bred only to AA or SHAs. So we don’t know what her potentiel in WB would have been.
Born in 1966, she descends from what we now call the old German TB-lines. Those lines were very much of one typ, mostly big, and dark brown. Often lightly inbred. One could easy tell when a horse descends from those lines.
As for racing, those lines were mostly long distance which suited the SBs of those times easily as it was said than that the best TBs for crossbreeding with WB were stayers.
Vierzehnender, her father is a well known and liked name in, I think, HAN and OLD. The other names, Magnat and Teddy especially, are also known to WB-breeders for other sons working in WB.
There is another TB-mare, Nagaika (http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=259361) who has importance in sporthorse breeding with her sons (Narew, Nouveau Roi, Noble Roi). These 3 were all well above average in their production of sporthorses.
Some daughters of Nagaika have also brought stallions working in WB.
Thanks OBdB. I think I understand slightly better now.
So there is one example of that Marchenfee mare line being crossed on KWPN stallion.
http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=11149928
looks like the result is a performer who jumps. The KWPN stallion used has a ton of blood though and goes back to Relic… so it’s not necessarily the most definitive proof of much of anything. Interesting though.
