Lines Tracing to Pocahontas, and more.

[Bast]

Finished 6th and last, 41+ lengths in the 1st race at Finger Lakes, an $8000 claiming race:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/yes+no+whatever

Finished 9th and last in the 2nd race at FL, beaten 15+ lengths in an 8k claiming race:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/run+mikey+run

Finished 10th and last in the 4th race at FL, beaten 14+ lengths in an 8K claiming race:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/zip+to+the+city

Finished 10th and last in the 5th race at FL, beaten 16 lengths in an 8k claiming race:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/jordanna+bananna

Finished 6th and last in the 1st race at Louisiana Downs, beaten 20+ lengths in a 6.5k claiming race:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/jennys+say

I'm not really picking on these animals, but I had to have some criteria for deciding how to choose Not Wonderful racehorses, so I picked last place finishers.

Look at the 5th generation of each pedigree. They look like the 5th generation of some very good horses, don't they?

Has anyone ever done any serious sorting of pedigrees without an agenda to prove a particular theory to decide what is actually meaningful and what is not?

[kimberley mine]

Cutoff point: the performance of the sire and first dam.

Pedigrees were THE cutting edge science in the 1700s. It's still a useful proxy for analyzing the prevalence of performance genes and of physical types.....but by themselves, names on a page only say so much, and the immediate parents are where the action is.

Consider Plugged Nickle: http://www.pedigreequery.com/plugged+nickle

Bred in the purple, a champion, and his foals couldn't outrun their shadow on a moonless night. Whatever he had that made him so good didn't get passed on. Didn't matter how many big-ticket names were further up the page, he was just no good as a sire.

A good producing dam might save a horse by a poorly producing sire, or vice versa, but talent that skips generations doesn't generally breed true.

[karenkarenn]

Magic fable
My fillys grand dam not so good
she has the Pocohantas however
look up Southern Truce Magic labels half brother
The dam had 6 winners in six foals.

[Bast]

Cutoff point: the performance of the sire and first dam.

Pedigrees were THE cutting edge science in the 1700s. It's still a useful proxy for analyzing the prevalence of performance genes and of physical types.....but by themselves, names on a page only say so much, and the immediate parents are where the action is.

Consider Plugged Nickle: http://www.pedigreequery.com/plugged+nickle

Bred in the purple, a champion, and his foals couldn't outrun their shadow on a moonless night. Whatever he had that made him so good didn't get passed on. Didn't matter how many big-ticket names were further up the page, he was just no good as a sire.

A good producing dam might save a horse by a poorly producing sire, or vice versa, but talent that skips generations doesn't generally breed true.

I agree. These theories attributing excellence to a mare foaled in 1837, or other Super Mares foaled a hundred years ago leave me puzzled.

But has anyone done any serious database studies to prove that only immediate ancestry is a reliable predictor, and that 5th generation and older are going to be essentially the same for all TBs?

[parlo]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 722a0.html

Since the establishment of the Stud Book in 1791, the population has been effectively closed to outside sources, and over 80% of the thoroughbred population's gene pool derives from 31 known ancestors from this early period. Despite intense directional selection, especially on the male side, and the generally high heritabilities of various measures of racing performance, winning times of classic races have not improved in recent decades.

The obvious lack of any serious database studies to prove thesis is still a big problem in tb-breeding and opens many "gurus" opportunities to sell preselected, subjectively perceived notions as knowing / expertise / "science" to their believers.

But there is a fundamental technological problem: who possesses such a huge database with all the data needed to analyse a certain question or has access to it?

[Bast]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v332/n6166/abs/332722a0.html

Since the establishment of the Stud Book in 1791, the population has been effectively closed to outside sources, and over 80% of the thoroughbred population's gene pool derives from 31 known ancestors from this early period. Despite intense directional selection, especially on the male side, and the generally high heritabilities of various measures of racing performance, winning times of classic races have not improved in recent decades.

The obvious lack of any serious database studies to prove thesis is still a big problem in tb-breeding and opens many "gurus" opportunities to sell preselected, subjectively perceived notions as knowing / expertise / "science" to their believers.

But there is a fundamental technological problem: who possesses such a huge database with all the data needed to analyse a certain question or has access to it?

Times for major races are still dropping outside the US--the record for the Melbourne Cup was set in 1990, if memory serves me correctly; the Epsom Derby and Arc de Triomphe times are still improving.

[kimberley mine]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v332/n6166/abs/332722a0.html

Since the establishment of the Stud Book in 1791, the population has been effectively closed to outside sources, and over 80% of the thoroughbred population's gene pool derives from 31 known ancestors from this early period. Despite intense directional selection, especially on the male side, and the generally high heritabilities of various measures of racing performance, winning times of classic races have not improved in recent decades.

The obvious lack of any serious database studies to prove thesis is still a big problem in tb-breeding and opens many "gurus" opportunities to sell preselected, subjectively perceived notions as knowing / expertise / "science" to their believers.

But there is a fundamental technological problem: who possesses such a huge database with all the data needed to analyse a certain question or has access to it?

The Jockey Club will have such data available.

There HAVE been some studies of performance versus pedigree, such as one Mahubah referenced in another thread about the percentage of graded stakes winners foaled by graded stakes-winning dams. At least with that, there is a clear and definite link between racetrack performance and success in the breeding shed. The number sounds small, but when you break it down, 1 in 6 graded stakes races is won by a horse whose dam won a graded stake, and one out of one hundred races are graded stakes. That's a big skew at the top end.

Leaving aside the question of times, the "nurture" side comes into play. Consider all the foals born in Australia during the EI outbreak--one bad virus as a foal can wreck a racing career, even though the genetic potential is there.

[parlo]

My intention to post that link above was only to show that research on pedigrees will ultimately guide us to a very small group of individuals in a far away past.

Not to mention the research of Harrison & others that showed that some maternal families have other sources than indicated by the names given in the GSB.


How huge is the database of the JC? Have your free access to it in order to put your individual questions to test? Will all data needed to answer your question correctly be in that database?

Concerning your

... about the percentage of graded stakes winners foaled by graded stakes-winning dams ...

Yes, this corrsponds with my own research on my home-population of tbs. But don't forget that "better" mares will on average have a better environment during their stud-career. Most probably they will have more kids than a comparable group of low-class mares, because they will get more chances if their first foals should fail.