Early patterns of the TB.

[diomed]

In re. the linked article and the remarks about Pocahontas, it seemed to me that the author was tying to make the point that *Glencoe significantly "improved" his mares, which is arguably true.

No doubt that Glencoe was a great broodmare sire.
Perhaps it was the way he worded it.
Seemed to me that he was saying that Pocahontas was from an ordinary family, which IMO she was not.
There were many other horses from that family minus the Glencoe cross that excelled.
Thats all.(Not that Glencoe didn't help)
If he would have specifically stated that Glencoe was a great improver of mares, I would have no issue at all with that.
Oh, well.

[vineyridge]

Interesting set of pictures on TBHeritage.

I was looking at the Herod line and their pictures, since they were so influential in the United States. The picture of the Byerley Turk shows a horse that looks very much like an Akhal Teke but with a huge butt and definitely camped out in the rear. That look is found in Herod, Highflyer and Sir Peter Teazle, but Walton looks almost completely Arabian.

Very odd when you look at the pictures, because Marske is sort of similar to Walton, but Eclipse is far more like the Herod look.

Messenger looks very Spanish and very ugly in his portrait.

I'm having an interesting time with the pictures on that site. I only wish that owners in the far past had done as many portraits of their great running and brood mares as they did of their stallions.

[Pedigree Ann]

Portraits were not made of mares because the genetic theories of the day said that the mare was not important, only the sires were. Using the agricultural model, they thought the stallion planted a seed, which grew in the mare but to which she added nothing genetically. That was why the mares were not given names to distinguish them unless they raced; one Fearnought mare was considered little different from another, for breeding purposes. A good broodmare sire got daughters who provided good environments for growing the stallions' seed, that was all.

[diomed]

Portraits were not made of mares because the genetic theories of the day said that the mare was not important, only the sires were. Using the agricultural model, they thought the stallion planted a seed, which grew in the mare but to which she added nothing genetically. That was why the mares were not given names to distinguish them unless they raced; one Fearnought mare was considered little different from another, for breeding purposes. A good broodmare sire got daughters who provided good environments for growing the stallions' seed, that was all.

So true.
I believe that the Arabian breeders were the complete opposite though.

I have always believed that both the sire and the dam were just as important.

I have a theory about sireline nuts.
They are too lazy to follow the families. There are so many of them. LOL!!

[xfactor fan]

I think the female side is more important. There's both the Chromosomes and the mtDNA on the genetic side, and uterine enviornment on the nurture side.

I blame the Bible ie the begats for the sireline nuts.

[diomed]

I blame the Bible ie the begats for the sireline nuts.

It's not the Bible as much as the idiots that misinterpret it.

[vineyridge]

To some extent I'm a sire line nut. Not exclusively, though.

I wanted to ask about early patterns of female family to female family breeding. In the early days did breeders follow some of the principles that seem to be widely recognized today? I'm thinking of such things as breeding halfs and fulls to halfs and fulls or picking up the sires female family in the dam's female family. They didn't have the convenience of numbered female families, but is there a pattern expressed of any focus at all on females?

There is an interesting article on the internet about "incest in the early TB", but I don't have the cite handy.

[Matchemforever]

This doesn't answer that question but I find it interesting that one of the more successful sons of Man O' War is War Relic, who seems to follow that pattern. I also don't think he looked a lot like MOW or passed on that shoulder or high neck set.

However, via bloodlines from Fair Play and Rock Sand, he carries a lot of Rock Sand and Fairy Gold. WR is by MOW, who is by Fair Play by Hastings out of Fairy Gold.

MOW's dam, Mahubah, is by Rock Sand.

War Relic's dam, Friar's Carse, if by Friar Rock, by Rock Sand out of Fairy Gold.

I'm thinking it was that intense blood that allowed him to carry on, at least as a broodmare sire and to some extent, sire of sires.

War Admiral, on the other hand, looks more like MOW through the head and neck, at least to me, and certainly ran more like him. However, he was a bit of an out cross, if I'm using that term correctly. His dam, via Ben Brush, did carry a cross of Australian and West Australian way back there, but that's about it. I have not looked much further back.

I think that although the cross on the Domino-bred mares was successful, I don't think it was the best way to keep the MOW line alive. I wonder what would have been if they had bred back to the West Australian line more, with a little more of the Hampton thrown in? Or did they think along those lines back then? I know the Domino got doubled up on a lot but there were so few of them to begin with. It would have seemed worth the risk to say, cross a War Admiral on a daughter or grand daughter of MOW.

I'll always wonder what if it had been War Glory or American Flag who carried the male line on?


Ooops, is this the site you're referring to:

http://www.highflyer.supanet.com/

(Scroll down, other stuff, too)

[Matchemforever]

http://tinyurl.com/5wp947

This site, via a discussion of color, has some information on the Bald Galloway.

(Thanks Vinnyridge for the tinyurl link)

".....Bald Galloway's color and markings are unknown, and his pedigree nearly so. He was by St. Victor's Barb (pedigree unknown) out of Grey Whynot, by Whynot (by Fenwick's Barb out of a Royal Mare), and his second dam was a Royal Mare. His name hints that he was a horse with a lot of white markings. In those days, the term bald was not used to refer to a lack of hair but instead, as we call a horse with a broad blaze "bald-faced," the term was used to describe excess white. The famous mare Bald Charlotte (1721) was a blazed-faced mare with hind stockings. In Old English, "bald" means "bright" or "shiny," which could refer to a hairless head or flashy markings (like a bald eagle), just as we say a horse with a lot of white markings has a lot of chrome. In other words, it is very possible that Bald Galloway was a blazed-faced horse, or one with stockings, or both. He may have been a sabino. He may also have been a rabicano, with extensive white hairs on his flanks and white in his tail, since we know the rabicano can have a silvery sheen to its coat. Bald Galloway had a daughter named Silverlocks.

While guessing that Bald Galloway and his sister Points were possibly sabinos or rabicanos may be a stretch, the same conclusion could also explain why Regulus and Cade, both out of daughters of Bald Galloway, might sire so many roan horses. Since many of these roans came from parents neither gray nor roan, we have to presume that one or both of their parents were minimally marked rabicanos, perhaps, like Cox's Ridge or Birdcatcher, just with white ticks in their coat and white hairs at the root of their tail. And, quite possibly, when a minimally marked rabicano is crossed with a minimally marked rabicano, the result can be a strikingly marked rabicano who appears for all intents and purposes to be a roan. "


Here's a site with pictures from the past. Most are QH but some TB in there too and the only picture (non-racing) that I've ever seen of Golden Broom.

http://www.mtnwindranch.net/Album.html

For kicks, click on the D's and look at Doc Bar. Another that reminds me of Northern Dancer. I know, blasphemy again.

(Apologies for anything I have duplicated. Getting to busy to keep up)

[Matchemforever]

Re: QH and TB bias

I'm going back a lot of years now, to when I was a kid.

My perception of the time was that anything that wasn't a bulldog was nothing. I think fads have a lot to do with that and the halter craze was the beginning of the end of the "all around" aspect of the QH.

There also seemed to be a temperment issue and I remember being a fan of the Music Mount's- and getting a lot of resistance from some to them:
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/music+mount

The resistance came from the perception that they were "hot," i.e., could behave like a TB. Music Mount certainly had some TB parentage. I tend to think that is one of the biases about TB blood. Some just didn't want to deal with a horse they had to be sensitive to. Fortunately, I think a lot of those types of people are less now.

I think if you look through the site I listed above and here:
http://www.mtnwindranch.net/Album.html
you will find several types of QH but the most interesting to me is that, in general, the early QH were not the bulldog type. Maybe in later years the stallions kinda looked that way, but even most TB's these days tend to look QH to me after some years off the track. There are some photos there of horses I haven't seen before, in their younger years.

I also don't believe that you will find too many performance type QH who are bulldog type.

I think the issue for some is temperment and the fear that the "cow" will be lost.

As for the appendix, hunter-type QH, I would tend to side with the foundation people- what the heck are they doing? But I come from a history of, you jump when you got to out on the trail, not take off from x amount of feet back in a manicured arena and call yourself a QH. Now, that's MY bias coming through! (There was a reason a good "timber horse" was valued) I remember getting a lesson in pretty is as pretty does, when a half TB-half QH mare I just drooled over couldn't get out of her own way on a trail ride when I took her on one. On the other hand, I never worried about what was underfoot of my half QH-half grade mare. I know, depends on the horse.

[vineyridge]

Yes, the Highflyer.supranet site is the one I'm thinking of. Fascinating stuff there from someone who appears to have access to large amounts of information on early pedigrees. It's been a while since I did research into the early TB.

The Arabian people have been doing close inbreeding for a very long time; perhaps it's time TB people started doing the same thing, since early breeders did it quite regularly and managed to develop and stabilize a damn fine Breed.

Since I'm primarily interested in the jumping lines, my normal treks into the past don't go much past 1850.

[Elles]

I am into the TB and the QH as well and have read everything I can put my hands on. Also I have loads of books about both breeds. I love going trough the pedigrees and looking at the pictures.
This is my QH I bred myself, he is an appendix QH:
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/docs+lucky+bet
I saw Docs Cinch Bet a number of times because he lived in the Netherlands for many years. He died about three years ago. Docs Cinch Bet was out of a daughter of Music Mount. Docs Golden Partner I know well. The most sweet, cooperative and forgiving horse you could think of. And Docs Cinch Bet won a cutting contest in Holland when he was around 20 years old and had not been competing for quite a while.
Edit: the picture of Docs Cinch Bet in the allbreed query is a picture I took of him about ten to twelve years ago.

[Elles]

I don't like the hunter type, tall, long legged and rather narrow. But the problem is that QH people here in Holland seem to think that that is the only type of horse you can end up with when TB blood is used. And that is just not true. Look at how much good a horse like Three Bars TB did. Ofcourse not every TB horse is like a Three Bars to the QH breed. In Holland a lot of people just do not know anything about QH and TB pedigrees and looks. They think that both breeds are each others opposites.

[Elles]

The picture of Berrys Cold Deck I added to the allbreed pedigree. I found it in a QH Journal and scanned it, not sure it that is allowed... But anyway, does he have a kind of TB look or not do you think?
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/berrys+cold+deck
He has Timoleon twice because of Steel Dust. That horse Grinder has his share of Janus blood. It is such a shame that a lot of older QH lines are unknown.

[vineyridge]

I had a wonderful TB mare, now dead, who was the QH sprinter type. Here is a link to her picture:

And here is her pedigree:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/third+cousin

I bought her for jumping and for weight carrying, but sprint racing had fried both her brain and her joints.

She was not sprinter bred particularly, but she was raced as a 4 1/2 to 6f sprinter, and she would have made lovely QH babies.

Where in her pedigree did the sprinter look come from? Her female family was American, so maybe it came from there.

One thing from the early days that I find interesting is identifying horses who carry the jump gene. It's known to be 40% or more heritable, so it should be fairly traceable. And we don't know if it is sex linked in some way.

The Herod line is dense with jumping horses, but 90% or more of them are from the Woodpecker line, not Highflyer or any of his other sons. Woodpecker was Byerley Turk tail male and tail female, and his root mare is family #1. The great American TB grand prix jumping dynasty started with a sire who was tail male Atlantic, and with a dam who was tail male Dollar. Both branches of Woodpecker have produced an inordinate number of good to great jumping horses. Although I will admit that many of the other sire lines in the jumping dynasties do go back to Highflyer.

I posit that the Byerley Turk line is probably where the TB jump got fixed in the breed, but beyond that you can't tell. We have so few Byerley Turk sire lines left in America, and I do believe that the breed needs a reinforcing sire line for jumping every four or five generations. Sort of like you have to breed speed into lines or they will turn into plodders.