Origins of the TB jump

[madelyn]

Wait - high knee action is not undesirable in eventers - just in HUNTERS.. and only hunters on the flat. Actually, good knee action is very helpful in the dressage phase of three day eventing.

[Sylvie Hebert]

may be since the Northern Dancer era that this daisy cutter movement has become prevalent and "desirable" in TBs.I remember those old grass lines(herbager,princequillo...)were not like that.

[vineyridge]

Now I'm on a search for active St. Simon line sires in NA. I know that the Prince Rose sons (including Princequillo) are rare as hen's teeth, that Siphon is sire line St. Simon, and Wild Risk is dying. I don't know if Joe Who is still standing. Ribot is hanging on through His Majesty. These guys are all Blacklock line from King Fergus. St. Simon may more active in South America.

Can you all help with a list of sires, most of whom are going to be in out of the way places?

One huge problem with Wild Risk is that so many of his sons stood in GB/Ireland, and the Irish geld almost all of their NH bred colts as yearlings.

I was also thinking about the Alexander Mare, who, IIRC, has only one line to Eclipse in her whole pedigree, and that's tail male. She does have several lines on her damside to the Darley Arabian, but all are through mares.

[xfactor fan]

Take a look at the colored sport horse lines, Glitter Please is male tail to Princequillo.

[Matchemforever]

I think, in general, the stayers tend to be built more uphill. When you think of lines that have produced jumpers, like Fair Play, they don't slant downhill. Well, except maybe the War Relic line which, unfortunately, is about all that's left.

(Probably more accurate to say the War Relic line tends to have low set necks. I wonder if it was all the linebreeding to Rock Sand? Where did that come from?)

IMHO, the "modern" TB looks more like a downhill built QH. I guess breeding for speed will select the downhill, heavily bodied type. There is, however, a difference between a low set neck and downhill, although I don't like the low set neck, either.

In the end though, what jumps, jumps and many horses don't perform true to type. But I'd consider those as exceptions and not breeding stock unless they passed on the jump irrespective of conformation. I wonder how many have done that?

[vineyridge]

Matchemforever, that's one reason I look to Steeplechasing lines for sport.

On another interesting note, Pilate, sire of Eight Thirty who has produced showjumpers and eventers in the TB Glory days, is tail female to Bronze.

FWIW, there is a lovely statue of one of the Childer's--can't remember if it's Flying or Bartlett's, but it's Eclipse's GG sire--on bloodlines.net, and he looks so much like St. Simon it would take your breath away.

Speaking of Eclipse, y'all all do know about Dennis O'Kelly and his wife who ran a brothel, don't you?
http://www.johnkellymagic.co.uk/hoaxers.htm

[xfactor fan]

purple comet another male tail to Princequillo
Standing at Eagle Point Farm in Virginia

Is still on their website.

[vineyridge]

Just found out that Gainsborough, sire of Solario and Hyperion, is tail female to Bronze. Both of those sire lines are know for producing jumping horses. Solario was the sire of Sun Princess, dam of Royal Charger; and Hyperion is a source of athleticism through most of his offspring.

[Matchemforever]

Viney,
A quick look back re: Bronze, her sire is Buzzard and crosses back to that line may be meaningful. Buzzard has a LOT of Godolphin Arab in his pedigree, especially via his dam.

Bronze looks to have had four foals, based on the information in Pedigree Query, 3 by Clinker and one by Sorcerer. May be interesting to see which sire she was bred to helped carry the jumper lines forward, or if both sires did.

Looking at the tail male line of Gainsborough, which goes to Hampton, I found one cross to Buzzard in Hampton's dam's line. Yet Hampton is very well known for producing jump and sport horses. (Dark Ronald probably the most famous line)

That's just with a quick search.

Seems that dam line may have crossed well with the Hampton line, but why?

[vineyridge]

One of the reasons that I wonder if jumping ability is as much female based as male based is that of the show jumpers in this year's Olympics, all but two or so are tail male to the Darley Arabian. This is all Warmblood sire lines, as no pure TBs competed that I can recall. (I have done the research, but my brain is foggy.) But, except for the Blacklock line of Eclipse, the modern Eclipse (Waxy) males who pass on the jump are heavy in mares who carry the Matchem Marco line, and the Buzzard Dollar and Le Sancy lines. In the US we find jumping in the Matchem Hasting line from West Australian. So my gut feeling is that all of the foundation sire lines have to be present on the first page, and that the jump really comes through Matchem and Herod more than Eclipse--except for Blacklock.

Family 2 is an incredible source for jumping horses. Bronze goes back to Miss Makeless, and so does Blacklock.

Hampton, who IS Waxy, carries the jump, and he is a good mix of all three of the sirelines. Lord Clifden sired chasers. But, just as important, Hampton is ff 10 to Queen Mary, and a large number of that family can jump. I've had my suspicions about the Family 10 Snap Mare for a while.

Take a look at Teddy's pedigree and you'll see what I mean. He is an incredibly fertile source of "the Jump", as in show jumpers. He is tail female to Bronze, has a Selim/Dollar line through Amie, a Hampton line through Rondeau, a Castrel line through Rouge Rose, Macaroni (twice) is Highflyer sireline, Selim damsire line and linebred to Blacklock, The Flying Duchess is also Selim, as is Pocahontas, etc., etc. Teddy's Matchem lines are all pretty far back, but when he was bred to Plucky Liege or other mares who were heavy in Matchem, magic happened. There is also a lot of linebreeding to Herod lines in the Teddy/Plucky Liege offspring.

I also have my suspicions about Wild Dayrell and the Wild Dayrell Mare. And the Matchem line sire, Smolensko.

[Matchemforever]

Regarding mare lines and jumping, I don't know if there is any correlation with or even the ability to evaluate the TB in warmblood mares predigrees regarding "jump." I just know that, in general, in Holstein, good mares were gold and anything else culled. They brought the TB in via the sire side.

So, in general, it seems the source of the Holstein "jump," regarding the mare lines, is not TB. This is not pertinent to your discussion of TB mare families and "jump" except perhaps to find a commonality between those Holstein mares and certain TB lines. What "nicked?"

That or maybe the TB sire line was more influential in that respect. We know that Holstein for years used a lot of the Dark Ronald or Hampton-based TB lines.

What "nicked" in the Dark Ronald lines with those Holstein mares?

Were the mares the "jump" source or those TB stallions?

Bringing in this question because of the discussion of mare lines and jumping. Did the Holsteine's jump before the outcrossing to certain TB stallions? Also, they did not value the first generation crosses as much as the latter ones where the TB ended up two generations back.

[vineyridge]

The Holsteiner Verband does value the mare lines tremendously, as do the Trakehner people. But the history of the Holsteiners in jumping doesn't really begin until the importation of Ladykiller and the Furioso sons back in the 1950's. From what I understand the Holsteiner was an all purpose horse, sort of like the Dutch Gelderlanders. They rode, plowed and pulled carriages; and when agriculture in the Holstein region went to mechanization, the breed almost disappeared. There is a story, which may be a fairytale, that the Holsteiners were bred to be cavalry mounts for the Holstein equivalent of the National Guard; they were pulled out of the field and went to war when there was a war, but were otherwise used as farm horses. Unlike so many regions, unless I'm not remembering correctly, Holstein never had anything resembling the great Trakehner stud in East Prussia. In the early 50's, there was a concerted effort by breeders in Holstein to find mares and breed them to the best stallions they could find to upgrade their athletic abilities and give them a place in the modern world of sport horses. The upgrade stallions were TBs in the main. So, unless you believe that farm horses carried a world class jump in their genes, you have to suspect that even the Holsteiners got it from the TB sire lines. I have yet to find a Warmblood that doesn't trace tail male to a TB. Even the Farn/Nimmedor line that is almost pure Holsteiner tail male traces back to Young Marske through some imported Cleveland Bays.

I once did a review of pedigrees of the showjumping horses in the Olympics before 1964, but I'll be damned if I can remember what I found. I do know that immediately after WWII, the great show jumpers tended to be Selle Francais and all sorts of odd "mutts". Halla, for instance, was by an American Standardbred out of a French Trotter mare. Only the USET used TBs almost exclusively.

[Fair Play]

I did a bit of an informal study of TBs that were good jumpers in the sixties and seventies as there are lots of books on show jumpers that included pedigrees. Dark Ronald came up repeatedly and more recently Bold Ruler. Perhaps people look to Secretariat as carrying that on though I see no evidence of it. That is likely because there are fewer and horses to look at.

[vineyridge]

For what it's worth, Bold Bidder had three grandget competing on medal winning teams in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics in eventing. There are far more successful jumping horses from Bold Ruler sons other than Secretariat. Bold Bidder had a full brother who was a champion steeplechaser. Of course it probably didn't hurt that their dam, High Bid, also foaled another champion chaser in Top Bid, who was steeplechase champion in 1970.

I was doing some looking up of Hanoverians and Trakehners, and they are all very much linebred in the early twentieth century to Stockwell and King Tom, which means Pocahontas, which means Herod. One Trakehner sire, Abstaz (or Abglanz, I forget which) has multiple lines to Pocahontas through four different sons and daughters. Alnok, a Hanoverian foundation sire, was by Adeptus, who was sireline Stockwell. King, another Hanoverian foundation sire, was by Kingdom, son of King Tom. Dark Ronald had three lines to Pocahontas, two through Rataplan and one through Stockwell.

The German WB breeders linebred very heavily. You almost can't count the number of lines to Alnok in modern day Hanoverians. King is twice in Fling, once as sire's damsire and once as damsire, and Fling shows up almost as much as Alnok.

It's conceivable that the affinity of Dark Ronald's offspring with the German WBs had to do with Pocahontas. Many of the TB mares he was bred to (and I don't think he was directly bred to WB mares, but I could be wrong), carried at least two lines to St. Simon, whose damsire was King Tom, and it is their offspring who were bred to WBs. Since Pocahontas was already entrenched in Germany through Alnok and King in the Hanoverians, bringing more Pocahontas in through Dark Ronald descendants could explain why the Dark Ronalds worked so well on the German mare base.

[cewright]

Now I'm on a search for active St. Simon line sires in NA. I know that the Prince Rose sons (including Princequillo) are rare as hen's teeth, that Siphon is sire line St. Simon, and Wild Risk is dying. I don't know if Joe Who is still standing. Ribot is hanging on through His Majesty. These guys are all Blacklock line from King Fergus. St. Simon may more active in South America.

Can you all help with a list of sires, most of whom are going to be in out of the way places?

This is an interesting thread. My avatar is a picture of my daughter riding her World Champion Jumping QH mare which is tail male to Bold Ruler. We also have a TB broodmare we use to breed Appendix QH hunters which is tail male to Bold Ruler.

As far as active His Majesty line sires, I think there are quite a few and for the most part they are reasonably priced for the jumper market. Pleasant Tap and Pleasantly Perfect are probably a bit expensive for most HJ breeders. However, Cormourant decendents Go for Gin, Albert the Great and No Biz all look to me like viable sires for this market. Other decendants of His Majesty which I think should be considered include Cetewayo and Raffies Majesty. I continue to be amazed with how unpopular Ribot line horses are commercially considering how often Ribot appears in the pedigree of classic horses.

Chuck