Thoroughbred Sire Line pages from the Bloodhorse

[Simkie]

I subscribe to The Bloodhorse, and one of the SERIOUS perks of that is the stallion register. But something that is very, very cool that’s in the print book and not otherwise available online (I don’t think) are the sire line pages. These show the current sires standing in the US and Canada and how they lay out from a sire lines perspective.

Here they are. The italic names are stallions currently standing.

Matchem

Eclipse

Himyar

Ribot

Royal Charger

Nasrullah

Nearctic

Native Dancer

I think this is such an excellent illustration of the concentration to just a few sire lines that we see in North America. But also just very, very neat to see it laid out like this. So I thought I’d share!

Caveat: only stallions that advertise or register or … something? with the Bloodhorse are included. A lot of smaller regional stallions aren’t here, as well as many who stand primary for sport.

[Texarkana]

I always enjoy these, like the prominent sire lines poster:

http://www.prominentsirelines.com/

Fun fact: Himyar stood “in my backyard” (or on the land of one of the present day contiguous properties) in Tennessee. Supposedly he has a headstone at his grave. The cemetery for the farm was on my land and his headstone was not there. I spent a ton of time asking around and scouring for it with no luck. I’m afraid it may have been lost in development or flooded when they dammed the river to make a lake in the 1950s. It’s possible it could still be on private land that I didn’t have access to since the original breeding farm was so large.

[LaurieB]

I love receiving my new stallion register each year. I sit down and read it page by page. What a wealth of information!

[Elles]

No Tourbillon line horses?

[Simkie]

@Elles

No Tourbillon line horses?

Nope. What’s in the first post is what’s in the stallion book. I’ve included all of the sire line pages. Didn’t leave anything out.

No surprise since it was called effectively dead in the US nearly a decade ago.

eta: there is Legal Jousting in Canada. He doesn’t appear in the book so isn’t included on the sire line pages. He might be the only one in North America?

[halt]

It does worry me that we are headed in a bottle-necking direction - there’s almost no genetic diversity in the sire line of top stallions standing anymore.

Disappointing to hear Ahoonora may soon follow Tourbillion, as he really is a stallion for eventers.

[Foxtrot_s]

Thank you.

Tourbillon was a French horse with strong links to jumpers/steeplechasers.

Another site many readers will enjoy is Thoroughbred Heritage - go to Historic Sires link and also Portraits link…and find your own horses’ ancestors and their successes.

[Texarkana]

“Genetic diversity” has never been a trait of the thoroughbred. Look at how much inbreeding was present in our foundation sires and dams.

[Elles]

@Foxtrot's

Thank you.

Tourbillon was a French horse with strong links to jumpers/steeplechasers.

Another site many readers will enjoy is Thoroughbred Heritage - go to Historic Sires link and also Portraits link…and find your own horses’ ancestors and their successes.

My Indian Ridge / Ahonoora sire line TB:
https://youtu.be/ZYMJ32vH2Sg
So you might be right.

[Miss_Woodford]

@Texarkana

“Genetic diversity” has never been a trait of the thoroughbred. Look at how much inbreeding was present in our foundation sires and dams.

The same is true for several horse breeds. Arabians, Saddledbreds, Standardbreds, even Warmbloods all have genetic bottlenecks.

Go look at some foundation QH pedigrees if you want to see some serious inbreeding. They will advertise stallions as being “52% Three Bars” or “Joe Hancock 7x”. I’ve heard that some of the big ranches who pump out lots of these horses are having problems with fertility in their stallions - wonder why?