Would You Call This "Close breeding"?

[Anonymoose]

I read this in a “horsey” mystery novel:

Morning exercise at the training track on a TB farm:

Non-horseman: “All the horses look pretty much alike.”

Trainer: “They ought to. They’re all descended from one of three horses, most of them from a horse called the Darley Arabian.”

Non-horseman: “Close breeding.”

Trainer: “Um-hmm.”

Non-horseman: “Doesn’t it make some of them kind of weird?”

Trainer: “Oh, yes. Weavers, cribbers.”

This takes place in the 21st century, not the 18th.
I wouldn’t call TBs descended from the Darley Arabian, 300 years on, the results of “close breeding.” Would you? Nothing is said about their sire/s, dams, or damsires.

What do you say? Just another example of a non-horsey author writing a horse story? This is Hugger Mugger, by Robert B. Parker. I was reading it for the horse content, despite the sexism, but now I don’t know … lol

[danceronice]

No, obviously not. I wouldn’t even call my horse’s ultimate sire-line ancestor, Pot8os, too severely closely bred (okay, maybe a LITTLE, his second dam Golden Locks, was from the sire line of Crab and out of the Crab Mare by Crab, that’s a skotch close…but it was in 1795 so I’m not overly concerned.)

[poltroon]

Plus, thoroughbreds really don’t look that much alike, and especially compared to other domestic animals of the same breed.

[Howlin_Wolf]

I know how you feel.
(Like in the book “National Velvet”, they refer to Man O’ War as a “man-eating stallion!”)
Also, read MANY other atrocities (DO not read the Moonlit (I think it might child series, or written by a child) When-in at least a full third of the book, the protagonist is wailing/crying/howling “But I don’t understand!! WHAT is happening!! I don’t understand!!”

An older book - a good read! (1980’?) about racing & people, is:
“Bred To Win,” by William Kinsolving
https://www.amazon.com/Bred-Win-William-Kinsolving/dp/0385261233

FWIW ~ There were many, MANY other Arabians introduced into the Thoroughbred bloodlines - many of them called; something like Farmer Brown Mare by (desert- bred)
Consider this:
“Mahubah,” Dam of Man O’ War:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/mahubah.
Keep clicking back through the pedigree - pick sire or dam - you’ll see what I’m saying.
There were Arabian, Turkish horses, (Akhal-Tekes, the modern horse,) and horses of the Barbary
coast.

[danceronice]

Well, Man o’ War’s sire was a classic “talented jerk” who got by on being pretty fast even if his temper meant he probably never showed his full potential, his second sire Hastings was as close to a psychopath as a horse can get except for HIS dam, Cinderella, who WAS a killer, allegedly, with a vile temper. Mahubah from Rock Sand put a LOT of better temperament into the family.

[Anonymoose]

[QUOTE=Howlin’Wolf;8842904]
I know how you feel.
(Like in the book “National Velvet”, they refer to Man O’ War as a “man-eating stallion!”)
Also, read MANY other atrocities (DO not read the Moonlit (I think it might child series, or written by a child) When-in at least a full third of the book, the protagonist is wailing/crying/howling “But I don’t understand!! WHAT is happening!! I don’t understand!!”

An older book - a good read! (1980’?) about racing & people, is:
“Bred To Win,” by William Kinsolving
https://www.amazon.com/Bred-Win-William-Kinsolving/dp/0385261233

FWIW ~ There were many, MANY other Arabians introduced into the Thoroughbred bloodlines - many of them called; something like Farmer Brown Mare by (desert- bred)
Consider this:
“Mahubah,” Dam of Man O’ War:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/mahubah.
Keep clicking back through the pedigree - pick sire or dam - you’ll see what I’m saying.
There were Arabian, Turkish horses, (Akhal-Tekes, the modern horse,) and horses of the Barbary
coast.[/QUOTE]

I read somewhere that the Man o’ War mentioned in National Velvet was the Irish stallion Man of War, who apparently was more vicious, maybe as vicious as American Man o’ War’s grandsire Hastings? Man of War was the sire of Manifesto and was foaled in 1880, by Ben Battle out of Wisdom by Solon.

I don’t remember where I read this (it’s been years ago). But considering the time period National Velvet was set in, Mi could have been talking about the American Man o’ War.

[Anonymoose]

I read somewhere that the Man-of-War referred to in National Velvet was not America’s Man o’ War but an Irish stallion who was foaled in 1880 and was the sire of Manifesto.

I can’t remember where I read that, it was a long time ago. I was looking him up tonight and found at tcm.com that the horse who played The Pie in National Velvet the movie was named King Charles and was a grandson of Man o’ War.

I don’t know if that’s true; the same site also says that the horse who played The Pie in National Velvet the TV series was named King. IIRC, Velvet’s horse in the TV series was called King, not The Pie. In the National Velvet coloring book I had he was called King, but Velvet was Velvet Martin, not Velvet Brown, and Lori Martin was the actor who played Velvet. So go figure.