Early patterns of the TB.

[Bill from WA]

Hi Pan Zareta

Here is another study that I found very interesting that seemingly opens more doors for further research.

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/gkm424v2

Bill

[Matchemforever]

Haun agian, on the X theory here:

http://www.circledhorses.com/The%20X-Factor.htm

This site is interesting for TB and QH. There are some cool pictures and some of horses I've not seen before:

http://www.circledhorses.com/great_horses_A-L.htm

Does this guy remind you of anybody:

http://www.circledhorses.com/Blade_bw.jpg

http://www.pedigreequery.com/blade

A 3/4 brother to Secretariat, out of Round Table's full sister. I don't know if the Bold Ruler/Princequillo cross was always this consistent in looks. Blades croup is a bit better than Secretariats, it's not so steep. Looks may tell but apparently, the blood is another matter. Looks from the information I have he was a decent sire with opportunities.



OK, I'm getting peeved with the "Eclipse heart" thing. Yes, he had the X factor, a big heart, and passed it on to his daughters. BUT, he was not the important factor- it's his dam, Spilletta. More appropriately, it should be the Spilletta heart. Why the light should be shone on Eclipse and therefore, the Darley line, is a little beyond me.

http://www.pedigreequery.com/spilletta
(I don't think this is coming up quite right in pedigreequery)

Spilletta was by Regulus, and likely she got one copy from him. He had to have gotten his copy from the Grey Robinson Mare who is by Bald Galloway (Diomed is right on in interest in this particular horse, but he had to have had the help of the mares he was bred to) out of Sister to Old Country Wench (what a name). Spilletta's dam was Mother Western, by Easby Snake out of Old Montagu Mare.

If the assumption is made these mares were mostly double copies, the bulk of the large heart factor is not a factor of the three foundation sires.

Which brings me to a question- has there ever been research done on the X factor and Arabians/Barbs/Iberian, whatever? I could be running down the wrong road here if those breeds are double large X horses.

Is the TB X heart a result of importation of hot-blooded, desert horses, or the Hobbies, Galloways, whatever, that they were crossed on?

And if that is extrapolated further, is it possible that the large heart was always a double big X in those Hobbies, Galloways, and whatevers, until the "hot" blood was brought in?

Much as I would like to say Regulus was far more of a factor in passing on the large, double X gene to his daughters and therefore, responsible for Eclipse being able to do so, Regulus could not have gotten the gene from the Godolphin.

Stopping at Eclipse is a bit disingenuous to me. The evidence, because they saw his heart, lies with Eclipse, but if any SIRE is to be pointed it out, it's Regulus- and that also would be disingenuous, but closer to the facts.

Regulus:
http://tinyurl.com/5fbpddl

Regulus was undefeated and prominent in the broodmare lines of quite a few families, thought to be SUPERIOR to any other horse of his time...hmmm, reminds you a bit of Secretariat or Man O'War.

http://www.bloodlines.net/TB/Bios/Regulus.htm

"Regulus b c 1739 (Godolphin Arabian - Grey Robinson, by Bald Galloway). Sire Line Godolphin Arabian. Family 11.
Bred by Lord Chedworth, and later owned by Mr. Martindale, he was considered superior to any in his day, winning eight Royal Plates as a six-year old1. He ran his first race under the name of Sweetlips. Never defeated on the turf he was thought to be superior to any other horse of his time.......
.....However, it was his daughters who provided his legacy. Spilletta (b f 1749) became the dam of Eclipse (ch c 1764 Marske) and his sister Proserpine (b f 1766 Marske), the dam of Luna (ch f 1779 King Herod), taproot mare of Family 12-g. Sister to Miss Belsea (b f 1749) is the taproot mare of Family 3-a. Regulus Mare (br f1757) is the taproot of Family 8-a, A-La-Grecque (ch f 1763) taproot mare of Family 23-a, Regulus Mare (gr f 1753) taproot of Family 15-d and Regulus Mare (f) taproot of Family 63."


I just wonder why Eclipse was the stopping point, when it's obvious it had to have been Regulus, IF you are going to stop at a sire. Regulus looks to have been far more influential in possibly passing on the large X gene to other families. Was taking the research further back a problem?

http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/large-heart.html
(Spilletta has a LOT of Hautboy- but the dam line goes to the Brimmer Mare, which suggests that line also carried perhaps a double copy of the gene)

"Further study has traced the large heart gene all the way back to Hautboy, one of the very earliest Thoroughbreds, but they have lost the genetic trail after that. Hautboy's got his large heart gene from his dam, who is only named "Royal Mare". Early bloodline research is difficult, and there has been confusion about what the Royal Mares were. Alexander MacKay-Smith cleared up alot of this by going over all the original records, and he found that the Royal Mares, and there were over 100, were bred at Sedbury Stud, usually by Lord D'Arcy and his relatives. Close review of the old records show that they were not imported as is so often stated, but that they had been bred from the English Running Horse and its forerunner, the Irish Hobby, with some Oriental blood added. He published his findings in his ground breaking "Speed and the Thoroughbred", a fascinating and excellent read."


Really would like to know if the large heart factor is common in the "hot" breeds other than TB. I'm trying to figure out if the ability to pump a lot of blood fast would be an advantage or a detriment in a desert horse in regards to cooling- would it heat up more blood faster by getting it in circulation in areas more exposed to heat or would it be a cooling factor? I don't think of endurance, other than running fast constantly, as necessarily in need of the big heart.

But I could be all wrong.

On edit:
Just found this site:
http://www.robertsfox.com/x_factor.htm
Potential disagreements-
Matchem might have gotten the big X from the Brimmer mare, which I speculated on above. Carrier?
Man O' War's dam, Mahubah, could have been a double copy via both Rock Sand and her dam line.



(Maybe OT, but I found this site with a book from around 1892 and this author claims the height increase was largely due to the Goldophin.
http://tinyurl.com/6epavs)

[Matchemforever]

Apologies for posting so much in one day- I don't have a lot of time right now to do otherwise!

Some things I would like to know more about from those who know more about them:

Are there lines that produce soft tissue problems as opposed to bone, or do they go hand in hand?

Star Shoot-
Bad feet. Sir Barton was afflicted with foot problems and it's indicated elsewhere that's a trait Star Shoot tended to pass on.

Domino lines-
Domino was not a sound horse but appears to have suffered bowed tendons from early bad training. However, pictures of him seem to indicate long, steep pasterns. Just about everything I've read regarding his offspring would indicate they were prone to, at least, tendon problems. (Colin, for example)
Was the Domino line considered a source of unsoundness and at what point with what offspring did it get better? I've heard Broad Brush was a good sire but that's generations away from the source.

Bold Ruler-
Had always heard this line could be unsound but stories of Bold Ruler seem to imply he suffered from arthritis. What type of unsoundness was most often found in this line?

Native Dancer-
What I've read on ND is the tendency to pass along soft/thin bone issues. Is that correct?


I'm thinking I see where a line known for soundness might correct or help the unsound line in the first generation cross but that help seems to peter out further back even if there are several instances of "sound" blood. Wondering if there is some genetic dominance somewhere in the soundness arena.

[Matchemforever]

Just found this, hope it isn't a duplicate:

http://www.stallionsoftware.com/amfam.htm

Forget what it says in the address- this is about foundation mares in North America.


On edit:

Went back to get a better look at this site and it's interesting to find two mares with "...Quarter Mares" in their names.

[aethervox]

Question for you all on female families - are any female families known more for speed than stamina and vice versa?

I've been giving myself a crash course in molecular systematics and I've run across some interesting data. I'm not going to post it yet for fear it will influence answers to the above question (yes, I'm a tease )!

[Pan Zareta]

are any female families known more for speed than stamina and vice versa?

Harrison's report (2006) identifies a positive sprint distance/speed correlate in three TB haplotypes belonging to his "cluster C5" that by percentage of TB population appears to = [clade/cluster/]haplogroup D. (See also Hill's report 2002, which identified 7 TB haplotypes w/in haplogroup D, including the one they designated "J" that was found in all members sampled from Lowe[English] families 2,7,8,17,22 and some members from families 1 and 16.)

There is also the small family, a86, mentioned previously.

OK, I'm getting peeved with the "Eclipse heart" thing. Yes, he had the X factor, a big heart, and passed it on to his daughters. BUT, he was not the important factor- it's his dam, Spilletta. More appropriately, it should be the Spilletta heart. Why the light should be shone on Eclipse and therefore, the Darley line, is a little beyond me.

Eclipse is the point of interest b/c Haun determined that descent w/ no male repeats from a daughter of Eclipse was the single common factor among pedigrees of individuals believed or known to have large hearts. If a mutation is involved, it may be unique to that particular horse.
* * *

Bill - do you happen to have full-text of 'Phylogenetic relationships of German heavy draught horse breeds inferred from mitochondrial DNA D-loop variation' (April 2007, Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics)? Per the abstract, significantly more D-loop (610bp) was analyzed for that study than for previous within-breed studies.

[Matchemforever]

Another viewpoint from the site I posted before. It will be interesting to see what those of you who know way more about the genetics think of this alternative:

http://www.robertsfox.com/large_hearts.htm


.....
" think the genes or genes responsible for heart size when found will be on a non-sex linked chromosome and merely influenced by factors carried on the X chromosome. If the theory is wrong the X factor supporters have successfully identified a number of horses that are homozygous and heterozygous for heart size and their observations can still be used to guess the probability of any given mating producing offspring with larger than average hearts. If the theory is correct and I am wrong then I will have an increased chance of getting this trait by default by breeding to my preferred pattern. Either way there are no losers. The research carried out by Marianna and her partners is invaluable information for all horse breeders. I am inclined to think their observations are correct so far as what horses have large hearts and rather than wrongly classifying certain horses they have attributed the trait to the wrong chromosome. "


On edit:
(Let me try this one again, sorry, too sleepy last night to see I forgot the link and I did read it over!)
http://www.secretariat.com/brother.html

Secretariat's brother-well, half, by Riva Ridge. So does this mean that Somethingroyal was not homozygous or just that all the other necessary attributes weren't there? Regardless, this looks like one neat old guy and you gotta wonder if he ever had the right mares. (Has since passed away. One of those that looks like you'd want him in your pasture)

Looking back on Somethingroyal's list of kids, certainly no shabby mare! But, obviously, the big heart didn't always come through or something else is in play, as/per Fox.



Re: Haun and Eclipse

Do they know for sure a mutation is involved?
I think the circumstantial evidence points to horses before Eclipse and in this case, Regulus, as probable carriers. Regulus certainly fits Haun's pattern. So if it is a mutation, I guess the question is, with whom did that mutation happen?
And if no mutation is involved, again, is there potential that the double X factor may have been the norm in some horses before the importation of the desert horses? Maybe the three foundation stallions had the big X, but Eclipse could not have gotten it from the Darley nor nor could Regulus from the Godolphin.

[Matchemforever]

Female Families-

I suppose you mean the numbered families, but the filly that comes to mind is Mumtaz Mahal- although she's in the pedigrees of a lot of horses who were not just sprinters.

[xfactor fan]

Robert Fox raises some very good points about the whole X-factor theory. There is a tendency for folks to decide without much proof that any good racehorse had a large heart.

Haun also either doesn't have a grasp of X chromosome inactivation, or doesn't seem to be able to write about it effectively. And the whole X chromosome inactivation is very important to understanding what is going on with the mares.

As for calling whatever is going on after the stallion--the stallions express what is going on with the X (if there is something going on). They only have the one X so express what is on the X in a pure form.

The Eclipse X is easier to understand that "One of the two possible X's from Spiletta".

Speculation that any given mare is a single or double copy mare is pointless, especially in historic pedigrees where there is no possible way to test the mare in question.

Does anyone know for sure if Mr. Prospector had a large heart? Like heart scores or the actual weight of the heart? Haun has it both ways in her two books.

And to follow the X factor theory, Mr. Prospector sired lots of good sons, and was not just a broodmare sire. If he was a large heart sire, he should have been a much better broodmare sire than sire of sires. While it is possible that all of Mr. Prospector's many sons were from dams who carried the large heart X, this does seem unlikely.

What is known is that there is a wide range of heart sizes in the modern TB.
There also seems to be a connection between larger heart size and performance.
Evidence suggests that the large heart is not a simple dominant. It might be a recessive, but this seems unlikely too, given the degree of inbreeding in the TB.
That leaves sex linked--on the Y or X, or determined by maternal or paternal expression of genes on the regular chromosomes.

Or it could be something that will be discovered in the next 50 year that we haven't got a clue about right now.

My vote on the matter is that there is something going on with the X. There also may be some other factors that are needed to create both a large and efficient heart.

As always a very interesting topic and discussion.

[Dave C]

I was reading this past week on the impact on ancient Rome of the incursions of the Huns on the northern borders of the empire. What struck me as relevant to this topic is that the Huns were able to crush and assimilate nomadic tribes of the European plains because their horses were although smaller were much faster and could run all day. Given the nature of warfare it is extremely likely that some of these mounts would have escaped and been collected by surviving farmers.

Moving forward about 800 years the Mongols essentially did the same things to Eastern Europe for the same reason: their horses were faster and could run all day.

This raises the question for me that perhaps what we see in the TB is a reversion to type when the descendants of these escaped Eurasian warhorses were bred back to 'Turks'. Given that both the Huns and the Mongols swept across the Middle East destroying everyone in their path, that the Arabs also owe a good deal of their abilities to the stock from the Asian steppes.

Just food for thought.

[Matchemforever]

This is one I had included above and is from the Fox site but different author:

http://www.robertsfox.com/x_factor.htm


CHASING THE X-FACTOR
by Lynn K. Joris

While Joris seems to accept the X factor, she is way more realistic about its potential to express.


Fox, (http://www.robertsfox.com/large_hearts.htm) makes mention of double muscling and kinda connects that as a potential X characteristic, if I read that right. I could see that in Secretariat but I don't in Man O' War. Not that MOW was lacking anything, just that he appears to be more, simply, Thoroughbred looking whereas Secretariat could almost be a Quarter Horse. Of course, MOW is another that is speculation but a pretty good bet!

On the other hand, if we want to speculate on trivial, is it happenstance that they are both chestnuts? Didn't the Arabs say the chestnuts were faster?

[Matchemforever]

Interesting story on the history of Joe Reed:
http://www.wwrqtrhorses.com/franklin.html
from this site:
http://www.wwrqtrhorses.com/legends.shtml

There is some information there about early use of mustangs and a TB that time has lost information on.
However, it should be noted that there seems to be small discrepancies in the story of Joe Reed II, especially when he was broke to ride. However, the gist is the same-great disposition.

(The All Breed site gives different information on the breeding of Della Moore, Joe Reed’s dam. Suspect?)

What is interesting is the story told of early racing QH, via the Joe Reed story, that talks about crosses with mustangs.

Would be very interesting to know who that early TB was, as it would seem to predate most of the ones known about.

[Pan Zareta]

(The All Breed site gives different information on the breeding of Della Moore, Joe Reed’s dam. Suspect?)

Different than what? The pedigree for Della Moore in the allbreed db is that under which she was raced and sold.

What is interesting is the story told of early racing QH, via the Joe Reed story, that talks about crosses with mustangs.

Would be very interesting to know who that early TB was, as it would seem to predate most of the ones known about.

Mustangs used for breeding during the 19th cent. were most likely not pure Spanish feral stock. There is copious evidence in the records for native feral mares being crossed with blooded (TB and/or Quarter-type) horses from early colonial times through ~1900, but even in the QH only a handful of currently active female families have one at their tap.

By date, "Old Butler" may have been Butler 1870 ch c x Planet - Elkhorna x Lexington.

[re. Eclipse & the LH]

Do they know for sure a mutation is involved?

Not that I know of.

[Matchemforever]

Della Moore

All Breed:
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/della+moore
(And there are two Della Moore's)

Then there is the description here, which, going back, doesn't jive:

http://www.diamondhquarterhorses.com/Della_Moore.html

Or this one:

http://www.wwrqtrhorses.com/familytree.html

(Perigwig's sire, for example)

At this late date I suppose it doesn't matter.

[aethervox]

Does anyone know for sure if Mr. Prospector had a large heart? Like heart scores or the actual weight of the heart? Haun has it both ways in her two books.

Per this article http://www.ctba.com/02magazine/mar02/JWEQUINEHEART.pdf neither Mr. Prospector or Danzig had large hearts when measured.