Top 25 mare families in the world

[Edgewood]

@Fairview Horse Center;3693269

I think to be valid, like with stallions, you have to look at percentages.

If stallion A has produced 10 FEI horses, and Stallion B has produced 2, who is the better sire?

It seems like Stallion A, but if Stallion A has 2000 offspring of riding age, and Stallion B only has 100, then Stallion A has .5%, and Stallion B has 2%, then I would go with Stallion B. To take that a step further though, you would have to know how successfull of producers the mares were that had been bred to each, ages of the offspring, and how many offspring found themselves in a trainer’s barn that could produce an FEI candidate. and then there is the financial aspect, the match of horse to rider, etc, etc.

Only problem here is that if stallion B has too few offspring, the percentages will change in greater magnitude because there are so few numbers versus the stallion that has more offspring on the ground. Thus you also need to know the reliability of the statistic/percentage.

[ponygirl]

[QUOTE=alexandra;3690801]
As Kareen already said. Theere is no offical family numbering in Hanoverian breeding. Someone thought has collected mare line information a for making things easier numbered the damlines he listed. I find a 763 there and it icludses the privately owned stallion Tresor of Belgium (it does not give info on his show record tough) but also listed for this family are Olympic star under Todd Minikus, Borsalino Heike Kemmer, Walloony Tomy Hassmann.
And this should be the hanoverian mare family with the most success in international GP jumping ? I wonder who is lacking information there.[/QUOTE]

Not to interrupt the thread but Tresor was on the HK Olympic showjumping team. His show record is impressive. He’s owned by the Lams.

[bloomingtonfarm]

Keeping everything is perspective… meaningfull or not… it is nice to see one of my mare (yrantha mare line) being in the 8th position of this list.

Now should I be sad if what I consider my best mare line (1792) not being on that list? Nope.

Every piece of information is always great to help you make your opinion . More info you have, better decision you take and learning never stopped. I try to take statistics, opinion, index and research as a piece of a puzzle hoping to get the big picture alltogether one of these days.

Thanks to all for making this all so interesting and informative.

[siegi_b]

Tom - great post! And a whole new and logical way of looking at rankings, that’s for sure.

[EquineLVR]

[QUOTE=siegi b.;3696350]
Tom - great post! And a whole new and logical way of looking at rankings, that’s for sure.[/QUOTE]

Totally agree… very insightful… helps when you are looking at all these motherlines and trying to figure out how to apply them.

[tom]

Thanks to everyone who expressed appreciation.

[JGHIRETIRE]

I still think the Monday Night Football analogy is pretty good!!!

[Donella]

Only problem here is that if stallion B has too few offspring, the percentages will change in greater magnitude because there are so few numbers versus the stallion that has more offspring on the ground. Thus you also need to know the reliability of the statistic/percentage.

Yeah, that’s why I like the FN’s statistics. I see Sir Donnerhall has the highest breeding value for dressage BUT his reliability is 88 percent whereas Donnerhalls is a bit lower but his reliability is 99 percent.

I HATED statistics in Uni but the one thing I do remember is that they can be used to “prove” anything. You have to know how to read them to get any value from them at all.

[tom]

There is little substantive difference between a statistical reliability of 98 and a reliabilty of 99. What is driving Donnerhall’s very high reliability is the fact that he was a good sire PLUS the very very large number of offspring.

TH FN index is very suspect, in my opinion, because it overweights to an incredible degree performance test results, Bundeschampionate results, and young horse clases. So it is very common for a young stallion with not a single progeny in sport to be very highly ranked (an example is Stakkato early in his career) if he did great at the Bucha and the HLP.

Someone wrote about that each peice of data/information can be useful and in some respects this is true. But one must recognize the limitations of the data and analyses or silly conclusions are drawn such a 4-y-o stallion X is the “best” sire in Germany or mareline Y is the “best” motherline in the world.

[RunningwaterWBs]

[QUOTE=tom;3692513]
Or consider whose record is more impressive in producing Nobel Laureates in Literature? Ireland has one-third (4) the number of Nobel prizes in literature as does the USA (12). Who impresses you the most by their production of Nobels in Literature? Ireland or the USA? For me the answer is easy: Ireland. [/QUOTE]

I find this example the most interesting in terms of manipulation of data. Now I got my Master’s in Irish Lit and lived there for a year, so please don’t think I’m anti-Irish, but you could also look at the distribution of the prizes:

Seamus Heaney 1995
Samuel Beckett 1969
George Bernard Shaw 1925
Samuel Butler Yeats 1923

…and argue that Irish writers, having won only a single Prize in the last 39 years, are declining in talent. (I know! The blasphemy!) And what of the fact that Ireland’s most studied author – James Joyce – doesn’t even make the list? Surely this omission was due to politics.

My point is that rankings are only a single factor. If you don’t pick the right stallion for the right mare, the rest is, well… blarney.

[tom]

Sure, politics plays a role. But my example was to show how the denominators must be considered.

In any case, isn’t Toni Morrison the only US-born Nobel Laureate in Literature to have won the prize in the last 46 years, since John Steinbeck won in 1962, or am I forgtting someone? (Not naturalizd citizen but US-born.) That puts Ireland’s 1-in-39 years in a different light, not even taking into account the size of the relative populations!

Of course rankings are only one factor when making breeding decisions. But some rankings may be so useless that they should not factor into the decision at all!

[grayarabpony]

@tom;3698830

TH FN index is very suspect, in my opinion, because it overweights to an incredible degree performance test results, Bundeschampionate results, and young horse clases. So it is very common for a young stallion with not a single progeny in sport to be very highly ranked (an example is Stakkato early in his career) if he did great at the Bucha and the HLP.

Tom I have been shaking my head over this (over all of these statistical analyses), and yet I am not surprised.

It’d be interesting to see the data submitted to different criteria in analyses, and see how much the standings change.

[tom]

Precisely. But some people would rather just accept rankings, no matter how suspect they might be, because they like the results and/or are too intellectually lazy to do any further investigations.

[ShowjumpersUSA]

@tom;3699178

Precisely. But some people would rather just accept rankings, no matter how suspect they might be, because they like the results and/or are too intellectually lazy to do any further investigations.

Your theory is very interesting Tom. Noteworthy, actually. I’ve had some of these thoughts myself, since my stallion with one FEI offspring was ranked 25th, I’ve often wondered where everyone else would be with only 19 offspring on the ground.

However, I suspect you might be taking shots at Reece and me… that’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but the collateral damage cuts a pretty wide swath throughout the world.

I think it’s possible for you to effect a positive change in the system, which would be good for everyone. I also think you could do so without much resistance if you can keep yourself from insulting too many people along the way. JMHO

[tri]

Agreed.

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=tom;3699178]
Precisely. But some people would rather just accept rankings, no matter how suspect they might be, because they like the results and/or are too intellectually lazy to do any further investigations.[/QUOTE]

I am one of those people who accept the rankings (I certainly don’t use them to make my breeding decisions though) as they are published, because I have no other means, nor do I have an agenda to poke holes in them. Could they be compiled in a more deterministic fashion ? Maybe , but then one would have to have all the data that they used for the compilation.

Tom, You have twisted my words over and over again . I have NEVER said that the Holsteiner model was the only road to breeding top showjumpers , nor have I ever said that another model was inferior. What I have consistently said was that if you are not breeding within the rules , regs and model of the Holsteiner Verband , then you are not breeding Holsteiners. I am breeding HOLTEINERS. I breed with ONLY stallions approved by the Holsteiner Verband , or my AHHA registry and out of ONLY Holsteiner mothers.

This drives you nuts ! What also drives you nuts is my reporting of the top 25 mare lines in the world which Holsteiners currently hold 12 of the top 25 spots in the world, including the #1 position. What also drives you nuts is my posting of the list of sires from the last Olympics that had sired two or more offspring. Out of 12 sires that had accomplished this magnificent breeding feat…9 out of the 12 were Holsteiner sires, with them holding the first 7 positions on that list !

Then we have a Holsteiner winning the Olympic Gold in eventing. Then we have a Holsteiner (Carlson vom Dach) who helped Will Simpson and the U.S. secure team gold with his last round.

After all this amazing Holsteiner production…we now have doubting “Tom” trying to poke holes in that production simply because it doesn’t adhere to the model he represents.

You should be careful when you perform “Tom’s” compilation. The Holsteiner studbook only breeds with 7,000 mares. When you get through , they could very possibly be ranked even higher than they are now !

[ShowjumpersUSA]

Excellent post Reece! Couldn’t have said it better myself!

*** by the way, I love the Hosteiner Chatroom bb. Thanks for getting it up and running.

[Maren]

Thank you Tom for pointing out a very serious problem in the scientific community (and coming up with rankings is science in a way). Even in my line of work, where peer-reviews articles are daily business, I sometimes scratch my head and go “ouch” when I have to read statistical analysis on such delicate issues as stem cell biology or gene therapy - knowing where wrong conclusions based on “statistics” (that for some odd reason, everybody seems to believe w/o question) can lead from here.

FN/WBFSH etc rankings are flawed on many levels. I read them, and I acknowledge them (and all the hard work that goes into them), but I sure wish sometimes these organizations would employ the help of statisticians and experts in the field to get it done better. Or maybe these guys are already at work? That would be a scary thought indeed …

[Bayhawk]

[QUOTE=ShowjumpersUSA;3699855]
Excellent post Reece! Couldn’t have said it better myself!

*** by the way, I love the Hosteiner Chatroom bb. Thanks for getting it up and running. :-)[/QUOTE]

Thanks ! It is the way I feel .

Here is the link to the BB http://www.bulletinboards.com/message.cfm?comcode=hol101&SBS=yes

There is an interesting discussion about the AHHA’s approval of Hickstead over there.

[EquineLVR]

[QUOTE=Bayhawk;3700163]
Thanks ! It is the way I feel .

Here is the link to the BB http://www.bulletinboards.com/message.cfm?comcode=hol101&SBS=yes

There is an interesting discussion about the AHHA’s approval of Hickstead over there.[/QUOTE]

Reece,

I try exceptionally hard to stay out of the fray but I could not let this go.

I value your opinion on breeding but noting that there is an “interesting” discussion on Hickstead’s AHHA approval that you started was not very classy IMO. Escpecially since the dam is by Ekstein which was Tom’s stallion - seems like a deliberate pot shot to me.

This is a bulletin board and I love the info I get here - not only from you but Tom and Bonnie and Viney etc… lots of good stuff here… but shots below the belt are really uncalled for.

Very dissapointed as you seem above those types of tactics.