TESSIO'S BREEDING OBSERVATIONS

[louis finochio]

Fredrico Tessio believed the horse that which in Italy we called the pure blooded was anything but. He is in fact a hybrid and as a hybrid he or she must follow the law of Mendel.

FT found two traits to be common to all TB, a high degree of nervous energy and a certain quality derived from selection of TB breeding.

The fact that these two characteristics appear in all TB indicates that they are not inherited according to Mendels law, but they are passed directly from parents to offspring.

FT believed that stallions and mares that had long and strenous careers on the racetrack used up much of their vitality, or nervous energy. If they were to become breeding stock, such TB would need time and rest to restore their reserves to pass their vitality to their offspring.

The stallions that are pulling double duty in the US and down under are using up their reserves and this assembly line breeding will catch up to them and their offspring.

Thank You FT as your breeding observation is right on target.

[xfactor fan]

At one point Tessio thought that the color gray was a disease. To his credit after many hours of pouring over breeding records he found this not to be true, and went on the record with the new observation.

One can only wonder what Tessio would have been able to do with the modern science of genetics added to his keen observations of the TB.

[Pete]

Hi XFactor,

How have you been? We had several discussions of the DRF forum.

Regards,

Pete

[xfactor fan]

Hi Pete,

Mostly busy, and to be honest, got real tired of the levels of ... unpleasant, yeah, thats a nice word, stuff that was going on.
This seems to have settled down, thanks to the major efforts from the moderators. Very appreciated by the way.

Whats the DRF forum?

[Joe]

I actually think Tesio would be a success now because his strenghts were not rooted, he had the ability to change.

[Sheikh]

Grey is not a colour though is it ? It's some kind of genetic mutation right ? My chestnut mare had a chestnut foal although the Sire line has no chestnut until the fifth generation. I presume this is because the Sires dam is a grey but I think she is carrying chestnut.

[LSB]

Sheikh, grey is a pattern rather than a color. It's something that happens on top of the base color which will either be red (chestnut) or black (bay). If your chestnut mare had a chestnut foal and was not bred to a chestnut stallion then she was either bred to a bay that carried the recessive chestnut gene or a grey whose base color was chestnut.

[Sheikh]

thanks for clearing that up Lsb. Are there any theories that suggest any characteristics are transmiited with the colour gene ? Could you say the foal is taking after the sires damside (a grey who must be chestnut) or is colour just colour and thats it.

[louis finochio]

As Tesio observed, when his superior runners full siblings were chestnut and bay, the superior runners were ch. and the mediocre runners were b.

Keep notes on your superior runners and mediocre runners and see if this Tesio pattern runs true to color.

[Sheikh]

that was just particular to tesios families though as other wise all superior runners would be chestnut and thats clearly not the case or am I getting the wrong end of the stick entirely ?

[Bill from WA]

Hi

In his book "Breeding The Race Horse" Tesio has a chart of the winners of English Classic races and their coat colors, detailed from the inception of each race until the current running (at that time).

2000 Guineas: (8 furlongs) (140 races, 105 bays, 31 chestnuts, 4 greys)

Derby: (12 furlongs) (159 races, 118 bays, 38 chestnuts, 3 greys)

Oaks: (12 furlongs) (160 races, 124 bays, 35 chestnuts, 1 grey)

St Leger: (13 furlongs) (163 races, 128 bays, 32 chestnuts, 3 greys)

Gold Cup: (20 furlongs) (131 races, 99 bays, 31 chestnuts, 1 grey)

Bill

[louis finochio]

I didnt mean that all the superior runners of the breed follow the pattern of the example of what Tesio said.

Every family has different genes that proudec those SR and it may be the gr. are SP and not the ch.

It pays to keep notes as you will learn the color patterns of your family of TB, that are those SR.

[Pan Zareta]

Hi

In his book "Breeding The Race Horse" Tesio has a chart of the winners of English Classic races and their coat colors, detailed from the inception of each race until the current running (at that time).

In the examples cited, bays won 75-79% of the races. Did Tesio happen to mention how that correlated w/ the % of bay in the general TB population of the time?

TIA

[parlo]

Tesio made this analysis to proof the mendelism law that chestnut is recessive to bay and therefore bays outnumber chestnuts in the ratio 3 to 1 (75 to 25 percent). By the way he further proofs that coatcolor has nothing to do with racing-ability or class. Nevertheless he mentions that in his opinion the best sires from the Eclipse-Line were chestnuts (Eclipse was himself a chestnut), so he contradicts in some way his own discussion.

But this is typical Tesio (see the examples given by his partner Mario Incisa della Rochetta in "The Tesios as I know them")!

[Bill from WA]

I believe Tesio was purposely cryptic, only giving glimpses of his genius. I don't think anyone has truly figured out that gentleman, or his total breeding philosophy, although there are many opinions.

Bill