Gumtree and I seem to see eye to eye. 
And I also agree about Soup-- love his type, and my biggest fault with him is that heās gray. 
I havenāt seen enough of his get, personally, to offer a very educated opinion. But I like him; and like JER said, Caro lines tend to jump well.
While Iām fascinated with bloodlines, Iām much more concerned with the individual standing in front of me. Like BFNE, when I see horses I like, Iām inspired to look up the pedigree and make note of where it came from. But this only comes after looking at many horses, before you determine common traits and how prepotent they seem to be. We, as humans, like to consider a sample of 1 offspring to be relevantā¦when it isnāt, really. Clearly, ANY mare/stallion could potentially create a world-beater; and, commonly, ANY mare/stallion can make a dud. Statistically, there are a lot more duds than world-beaters. So you absolutely cannot look at a pedigree, with one or two Big Name X back in 4+ generations, and infer that the horse is going to be just like X.
More likely, that horse is going to be just like itās sire, dam, or grandparents, which may or may not be carriers of the desirable genes passed down from Big Name X. And keep in mind, those desirable genes may be present-- the horse is a phenomenal jumper, like X-- but it also has genes from the damās side who blessed him with downhill build, poor feet, and bad movement, meaning while he may jump the moon, he isnāt going to win Rolex. Again, evaluate the horse in front of you and donāt let a brilliant pedigree overshadow the phenotype. (When speaking for competitive purposes-- breeding is a different story, and might be worth a risk.)
For instance: people say they like Mr P in sporthorse pedigrees. The great success of Fappiano (by Mr P) lines in sport could be a reason for this, as well as other direct Mr P descendants who have done well. But, there are plenty of Mr P relatives who were not good sport horses, too. Carson City, by Mr P, tended to sire short-coupled, athletic, fast horses-- that were on the small side, possibly downhill, and ran with their heads straight in the air. The Mr P doesnāt matter much in the pedigree; I wouldnāt consider a typical Carson City son/daughter as an upper level prospect, due to the short stiff neck-- it would be a constant battle to develop collection with that conformation. However, I donāt know how far down the line the Carson City high-headed style travels; there are lots of successful (racing) CC broodmares, I just havenāt seen enough of those offspring off the track personally. The City Zips Iāve seen were a little too sprinter-type for my taste, so generally CC closeup on the page is a turn-off for me (sight unseen).
In short, a horseās conformation is much more likely to be dictated by its parents or grandparents. If the mom, dad, and granddad look like a downhill sprinting QH (and only raced 6 times at 7f), donāt expect the offspring to be a Rolex winner, despite the Buckpasser or Blushing Groom or Fappiano wherever in the pedigree. Look at the horse in front of you; and look at pics of the sire, pics of the dam (if found), pics of grandsires, and pics of grandsiresā other sons at stud. Some combination of that is probably what the horse will look like, and conformation will likely determine the horseās sporthorse potential.
