Pedigree Query

Just an interesting study here.

This horse was an unraced son of CUTLASS (3 x 3 *My Babu), who was only a minor winner, no stakes placings. Out of APHONIA, a half sister to GAMELY.

His dam placed once in 2 starts. Also out of APHONIA.

Thus, CUTLASS FAX was inbred 2 x 2 to APHONIA (3 starts, 1 win).

Not what one would consider a high probability sire.

Yet, with what I can only guess was an unremarkable group of mares, produced 42 foals, 30 starters, 24 winners of $2 million, including three stakes winners, two stakes placed runners; average earnings per starter of about $70,000.

Beyond this, his stakes horses were remarkably tough:

FAX A FREDDY ($396,000--58 starts, 14 wins, 7 years racing)

DAZZLING DR. CEVIN ($341,000--22 starts, 6 wins, 2 years racing)

SILVER FAX ($178,000--75 starts, 7 wins, 7 years racing)

Kathie's Sibling ($161,710--48 starts, 6 wins, 5 years racing)

Flowers by Fax ($81,000--24 starts, 5 wins, 3 years racing).


My hat's off to CUTLASS FAX, the horse who broke all the rules.

One of my favorite families . . . Cutlass Fax is inbred through Aphonia to *Rough Shod II, and the "footwear" tribe is one of the best sire producing families there is. Oddly enough, some of them are lightly or even poorly raced. I believe Fairy King's race record reads unplaced in one start, yet he became a leading sire anyway. Storm Boot and Stormy Atlantic are two more from this family whose stud records far exceed what might have been expected based on their race records. Perhaps it was soundness issues rather than a lack of ability that kept them from demonstrating their true potential as racehorses. Cutlass Fax and Stormy Atlantic probably benefitted more than a little from those tough Florida racemares they saw when they entered stud.

This might be a good example of inbreeding/outcrossing with inbreeding depression.

Cutlass Fax is the product of genetic half siblings. He may have a good number of duplicate chromosomes which would lead to inbreeding depression. ( There is an additional strain of My Babu via the dam of Damascus)

The couple of his offspring that I looked at were outcrosses. No close duplication with horses in Cutlass Fax's family.

This can work very well if you select the inbred animals with care.

Nice example.

X factor, I agree completely with you. It's the working principle behind Cutlass Fax's pedigree that makes his success so fascinating. His intense inbreeding provided a vehicle to create hybrid foals when he was mated to unrelated mares. Much like the success 80 years ago of the similarly inbred HIGH TIME (3x2x2 Domino).

Most of High Time's best offspring were produced from mares devoid of Domino blood. Best among these was champion SARAZEN, whose dam carried no Domino blood, but was inbred 3x4 BEND OR and 3x3 to ST.SIMON and his full sister ANGELICA.

Another dramatic pedigree is that of PRAISE JAY, one of the top handicap horses in 1969. Check out Pedigree Query to see what I mean.

Other famous hybrids off the top of my head:

JOHN HENRY
SEABISCUIT
SKIP AWAY

Notice that all these examples are not what most people would consider "well bred." To the contrary, they would have been commercial disasters based solely on their pedigrees. Yet, no doubt due to the extreme concentrations of superior genes in one or both parents, far outperformed the "blue bloods" of their eras.

Yet another example of the genetics lottery. It would be interesting to know why the horse failed to race or what type, if any, racing ability he possessed.