Breeding Winning Racehorses

[ratherrapid]

Comments? mine in parenthesis.

"A report claiming breeding a winner is 10% genetics and 90% nurture has been branded "irresponsible" by the chairman of the new Lead Body for Performance Sport Horses and Ponies (PSHO).

Lynne Crowden of the British Warm Blood Society says the research will encourage indiscriminate breeding (a bad thing, presumably.)

Nurture is very important but the potential of the horse is determined by the gene poool. That's why 90% of Derby winners were bred with that race in mind (90%??? or 100%?). said Mrs. Crowden. It is irresponsible to let people think it does not matter what they are breeding from if they can spend a fortune on training, she added.

The report by researchers at the University of Edinburggh claims to prove that up to 90% of a racehorses' lifetime winnings can be attributed to the way the horse is reared, trained, and ridden, rather than to its genes. (are Ms. Crowden's comments are directed to the substance of the study???)

Accodring to the study, reported last month in the Biology Letters Journal, only the remaining 10% of winnigs can be attributed to parentage.


The scientists compared the stud fees, winnings and lifetime earnings of more than 4000 horses in racing and found that although there is a genetic variation for how much prize money a horse wins, PAYING HIGHER STUD FEES DOES NOT NECESSARILY BUY ACCESS TO THE BEST GENES AVAILABLE.

Dr. Alistair Wilson, who led the research , said: The offspring of expensive stallions might tend to win more money, but not necessarily because they have the best genes.

It is likeely that those breeders best able to pay high stud fees are also able to spend more on the care of the horse, how its trained, and WHO RIDES IT.--all of which will contribute more to how much it will win.

Of course, if every breeder is spending lots on the care of the horse, then the difference between winning or losing will come down to the smaller details such as parentage.

articles goes on to note the MS. Crowden "feels" their research must be flawed as it contradicts her own experience--

[zinn21]

Certainly if a horse is not genetically predisposed to racing aptitude no amount of excellent horsemanship will overcome his lack of ability.

However, if racing aptitude is present, the better caretaking and horsemanship should give an advantage for those equal or even less than equal animals.

[xfactor fan]

By this logic you should be able to take--oh let's say a Quarter Horse--and with the right training win the Derby, after all training is 90% of the job.

[madelyn]

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Certainly good training makes the difference, but it won't make a runner out of a plough horse. In the same way education doesn't create intelligence where none existed, training won't create racing aptitude, it can only refine it if the natural talent is there.

[DDT]

This topic was discussed somewhat in another forum that I participate in and most of the comments reflect what has been said here. It is obvious that throughout the history of the breed the best chance for success has been to breed the best to the best and hope for the best. Any survey or data you care to inspect will reflect the fact that, for the most part, leading sires are leaders because thay sire more stakes winnners and higher money earners than the rest and leading broodmare sires have daughters that produce more stakes winners and higher money earners than the rest. Sure, we have our Skip Aways, Holy Bulls, Real Quiets and such, but generally speaking, the overwhelming majority of year end champions, in any division, descend from leading sires and producing female families. Enviornment surely has a lot to do with ultimate success, and when you look into the relatively new aspect of epigenetics, and the notion that genes can be turned on or off simply because of exposure to or the lack of exposure to certain environmental elements, how the horse is raised could be the difference in superior performance regardless of the genetic pool available at conception but 90% is very hard to accept. IMO it is at least 50/50 while most conventional opinion is 25% genetic and 75% environmental.

DDT

[casallc]

I contend that a true racehorse is a freak. You usually need something to work with but I have had some cold-blooded horses that could run a lot. They weren't supposed to - but they could and did. If you get that freak of nature he will make the same effort to win at 1/4 mile and at a mile and 1/4. Look at Olympia he competed with and beat the best QH's of the time and also could win at the classic distances in stakes company. People wouldn't do it today but 60 years ago a $100K match race was worth while. I'm sure if there were a reason to train a QH, like Dash For Cash, for the KY Derby he would have been very competitive if not winning. There is no rocket science to this business and there is certainly no formula - if so you would be able to consistently reproduce racehorses.

[DDT]

casallc

You sure you are not from Texas??? That's what I call bold talk. I am not a QH follower but I would venture to say that no good QH has ever defeated a good TB at a mile or longer. Please let me know if you have knowledge of such an incident. And there have been many TB breeders that are successful year after year. It certainly is not rocket science, but there are tried and true formulas that produce success, the kick is there are many more failures than successes. Dash For Cash winning the KD, now that would be the freak to end all freaks, although he did have a lot of TB blood didn't he.

DDT

[casallc]

casallc

You sure you are not from Texas??? That's what I call bold talk. I am not a QH follower but I would venture to say that no good QH has ever defeated a good TB at a mile or longer. Please let me know if you have knowledge of such an incident. And there have been many TB breeders that are successful year after year. It certainly is not rocket science, but there are tried and true formulas that produce success, the kick is there are many more failures than successes. Dash For Cash winning the KD, now that would be the freak to end all freaks, although he did have a lot of TB blood didn't he.

DDT

If those tried and true formulas produce more failures than success I doubt the validity of the formula. A drunk monkey can come up with a formula that will produce more failure than success. DFC was for the most part TB, his heart and desire is established, he had the conformation and pedigree to compete at a distance. No one will ever know but I believe if he were trained for more ground he certainly would have done well.
Dash For Cash was better than 3/4 TB as are most QH runners , always have been. Some of the foundation QH's were actually TB's. There has never been any desire to move QH's up because there is not an official race written over 870yds. It is kind of a moot point because I don't know of anyone who would put the effort into proving it. I assure you, if a TB can compete at 1/4 mile there is a QH that can compete a 1 & 1/4, somewhere.
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/dash+for+cash

[Des]

I've always contended that breeding the BEST to the BEST will result in a well bred horse BUT not necessarily the BEST runner......

Some horses are just FREAKS as mentioned........... good well built athletes that can simply run.

If one considers Breeding an ordinary bloodline to a ondinary bloodline that produces a runner " Lucky"

Then what would we call breeding the BEST to the BEST that produces a dud...

GO FIGURE

[DDT]

casallc

I guess I should have been more specific, on average 2-3 TB's out of every 100 eventually win a stakes race of some kind in their lifetime. The breeders and formulas I am talking about produce 10-20 stakes winners out of every 100, so on average they do much better than the normal expected rate and by failures I meant not winning a stakes race.

So you agree with the report that training and enviornment (feeding, exercise, vet care, room to grow) have a 90% influence and that genes only contribute about 10%. You are entitled to your opinion that a quarter horse, Dash For Cash in particular, could be trained to successfully compete against TB's at a mile and a quarter and I say maybe with a drunk monkey riding him he could make it to the finish line but I highly doubt he would have any TB's behind him.

DDT

[dray33]

The harsh lessons of pedigree, family influence, environment. The age old question of genetic influence versus environmental influence. The point you are missing here is simple. The act of breeding winning racehorses is not a game of throwing darts. It's a game of odds and advantage... plain and simple.

In human terms:
I want to create an exceptional athlete, lets say a ballplayer. We need one male, and one female. According to the dart method, it should not matter ONE BIT if we chose a male from a room of slow, heavy-boned, non athletic males and mated them to the chosen slow, heavy-boned non-athletic female... the odds of producing "Derek Jeter" are just the same as if we chose mates from a room of athletic All-Stars (that is to say if we took the offspring of those union, and selected identical environments, the matings of the the 2 categories would yield exactly the same results, on average).

I don't buy it. Beyond environmental, genetics has to play a role. Back to the time honored "best to best". That DOES work... remembering there is a wide range of how we each describe "Best". If you believe in "class" within horses, then you probably believe in genetic influence.

I remember something I was told about genetics and class and racing. I believe they were talking about the Derby: "Genetics and class are irrelevant for about 90% of the race".

[casallc]

casallc

I guess I should have been more specific, on average 2-3 TB's out of every 100 eventually win a stakes race of some kind in their lifetime. The breeders and formulas I am talking about produce 10-20 stakes winners out of every 100, so on average they do much better than the normal expected rate and by failures I meant not winning a stakes race.

So you agree with the report that training and enviornment (feeding, exercise, vet care, room to grow) have a 90% influence and that genes only contribute about 10%. You are entitled to your opinion that a quarter horse, Dash For Cash in particular, could be trained to successfully compete against TB's at a mile and a quarter and I say maybe with a drunk monkey riding him he could make it to the finish line but I highly doubt he would have any TB's behind him.

DDT

No, I don't agree with the 90/10 ratio. I do think pedigree has more than 10% influence. However, I do think environment and opportunity have more relationship than pedigree alone. I would always encourage breeding the best to the best.

"The breeders and formulas I am talking about produce 10-20 stakes winners out of every 100, so on average they do much better than the normal expected rate and by failures I meant not winning a stakes race."
I contend the above results are just as much results from environment/opportunity than any formula.

Having trained both Quarterhorses and Thoroughbreds, I know that if a TB were trained like a QH and had the kind of blood count QH's run with the TB couldn't make it to the finish line either. It is like the difference in a drag racer and a NASCAR racer, they both have the same basic engine - you just need to build them to meet the requirements of the race. Cars are much more reliable, though.

[DDT]

casallc

By "formulas" I mean to say using a genetic match that has worked well in the past keeping in mind that, except for identical twins, the genetic makeup of each horse is different. I did not mean to imply, nor do I believe that any one formula would lead to success and I stated earlier that the ratio of 25/75 is an accepted norm by most people not 10/90 as stated in this report.

Using your drag racer vs Nascar racer is about as funny as the drunk monkey comment, however, I think you would agree that even with the same basic engine, in order for the drag racer to be competitive in Nascar the engine would basically have to be rebuilt, horse power alone would exclude most drag racing engines from Nascar. Now equating that with your original statement that a QH could be trained to successfully compete in the Kentucky Derby, you could apply training methods to build muscle and endurance but you could not, in my opinion, rebuild the engine to the extent needed to win a Kentucky Derby.

Every year we have claiming horses that are claimed and climb the ladder and compete successfully in allowance and stakes races, Lava Man and Budroyale are just two that come to mind, however, an examination of the pedigrees involved almost always shows that the genes are there to help in the process. Granted, the new trainers have a lot to do with the new found success, but not everything, and certainly not 90%.

DDT