STALLION DIRECTORY OF THE FUTURE

[louis finochio]

It would be of value to the TB breeders to add the following info to a stallions page.

Stallions temperment, Docile and quiet, Nervous and high strung.

Stallions progeny winning colors.

45 bays/ 25 winners/ 8 SW
22 chestnuts/ 8 winners/ 2 SW
12 grays/ 10 winners/ 4 SW

I have been a student of color in TB for many years and some colors are dominant, and some are recessive. My research shows that dogs and pigeons follow suit.

[Derring]

What about your white thoroughbreds, sabinos, etc. Has your research shown any trends?

May be too few whites for a study?

[Sam]

If you really think colour plays any part in a horse's success, then you may well believe that a horse with socks has fragile hooves or that Black horses are more high strung than chestnuts.

Fairy tales and mysticisms have NO place in modern times except as bedtimes stories told to children.

[Swaps1955]

Would also like to see average winning distance, average number of starts for horses with crops over 4 years of age, average level of competition (which would be interesting for horses which had progeny to race over many years; that could be factored in). Other sports have such minute statistics. Wonder why racing hasn't gotten there in terms of stallion progeny?

Regarding color of progeny having no effect, I remember one of (I think it was) the Hancock's-Bull, maybe (don't remember when he died) commenting on Secretariat's failure to reproduce himself. He said that Secretariat failed to reproduce his body type and they were all different colors. He felt that if you were going to reproduce yourself, you might as well start with color. (Of course, this doesn't take into consideration horses like A.P. Indy, who produces flashy chestnuts and plain bays, etc.). An interesting theory about color. Anyone have any statistics or thoughts on it? Seems unimportant but it would certainly be an interesting statistic to check out.

[Derring]

New Trieste by A.P. Indy is a chestnut with white markings. All (I think he has one crop so far) of his offspring except 1-2 are chestnut with white markings.

It's interesting to me how certain chracteristics are dominant in some horses.

[adrienne]

The beauty if statistics is that they are random... the only way to find the underlying rules is to take a huge sample over time to find the prevaling values.

I might flip a coin 10 times and get all heads... but on the next flip I still have a 50/50 chance of getting tails.

My point being... if a stallion has a large number of one color or winners of one color... that doesn't mean that there is a connection... unless it is studied over time with a large sample because, I do believe you will find that it will eventually correct itself and come to the genetically accepted probablity for that color and wins will equal out amongst the colors (given that the stallion wasn't bred to only good chestnut mares and only poor bay mares )

~Adrienne

[LSB]

An interesting note about a possible correlation between color and performance: for many years I bred Poodles, which come in a variety of colors. As it happens, each color within the breed exhibits a different temperament. Those color-related temperaments breed true whether you are looking at different colored siblings within the same litter; or, for example, a brown puppy that was produced by two black parents--it will have the brown temperament.

At first, when long-time breeders told me that I was highly skeptical, but after twenty years of finding the same thing myself, I became a believer. So although it sounds counter-intuitive, I wouldn't unilaterally rule out the possibility that in certain TB lines, performance could be related to color.

[Swaps1955]

Interesting you should mention colors and temperments in Poodles. My sister bred dogs professionally from 1939 until her death 3 years ago. She bred toy Poodles from the mid-sixties until her death. I once asked her about color differences in Poodle temperments and she said there was generally a clear difference in temperments from one color to another (apricots being quite "ditzy"!).

[Sam]

Interesting you should mention colors and temperments in Poodles. My sister bred dogs professionally from 1939 until her death 3 years ago. She bred toy Poodles from the mid-sixties until her death. I once asked her about color differences in Poodle temperments and she said there was generally a clear difference in temperments from one color to another (apricots being quite "ditzy"!).

And with anything, there are exceptions to the "rule".

I had an apricot as a kid that was the most docile and intelligent thing I'd ever met. Only small dog I've been near that was smarter is my mother's Kyi Leo ... but he was raised by cats so I figure it's intelligence through osmosis. My Sibe was smarter than all of them combined.

My grandfather bred toys as well and they were all extremely well mannered/even tempered regardless of colour. The ONLY one he had that could be classified as a pain in my ass (quite literally since I was a baby and it loved to tackle me and rip off my diaper .. none of which I remember, but grandpa and mom have pictures) was the brown one, Amber.

[sb]

It would be of value to the TB breeders to add the following info to a stallions page.

Stallions temperment, Docile and quiet, Nervous and high strung.

I sincerely doubt whether any stallion manager/owner would want to point out ANY negatives in their stallions. Rather, I opt for decent video footage as do the sportshorse folks. While limited, I find the videos offered online quite helpful. At least you can see them walk from the side front and back. Stills can be touched up, and they ever show the front and back of a stallion.

SB

[sb]

Fairy tales and mysticisms have NO place in modern times except as bedtimes stories told to children.

I believe there is some truth in the relationship between color and temperament, even though you can always come up with some exceptions. Grey has been known for gentleness/docility; chestnut for 'firey temperaments' at times as well as for durability, in particular those which also have black spots in teir chestnut coats. I suppose SECRETARIAT has disproven the 'myth' about the white feet being softer than the dark ones, but since race horses wear shoes, this might not tell the entire story. I can tell you from my own horses that white feet are easier to trim because they tend to stay softer than the dark ones, even in dry wheather. ThAT does not have to mean that these softer feet are inferior in quality, however; they may just be more pliable. A healthy foot is a healthy foot regardless of color. Appies are known for their great feet, and they have stripes, lol.
Bay is the most prevalent color in TB race horses. SECRETARIAT was the only chestnut until you come to Discovery in his pedigree. Interesting?
There was a time when there was the belief that grey TBs don't make good race horses. Guess that myth has been disproven as well.

SB

[toadie]

I believe there is some truth in the relationship between color and temperament, chestnut for 'firey temperaments' at times as well as for durability, in particular those which also have black spots in teir chestnut coats.
SB

Very interesting to me, since I just got a gelding off the track who ran 48 times over 6yrs. and is still sound. He's the 1st chestnut I'd ever seen that has black spots. He also has some "roaning" and a very irregular looking sock. I suppose he has the sabino gene and I really wish he was a mare. LOL

[HJ]

I have often wondered why Tesio devoted a whole chapter in his book to the subject of colour. It comes accross as simple musings but I suspect that he included it for a reason and was important to him.

[BenB]

In our country (warm) halfblood KWPN studbook. any colts before getting their certificate for the breeding shed, are trained for 36 days in a central place.
And all are examinted for behaviour, traits, co-operative etc.
So having traits ( windsucker), boxwalkers etc, very nerveous give them no certificate as well as bad x rays, and air problems not to speak about bleeding etc. As well as conformation faults, bad hawks etc.
Afterwards the foals are inspected, the yearlings and the foals and
as 3 year oldstock, at any time a stallion can be ruled out so avoiding numbers, off worthless expensive foals.

[sb]

In our country (warm) halfblood KWPN studbook. any colts before getting their certificate for the breeding shed, are trained for 36 days in a central place.
And all are examinted for behaviour, traits, co-operative etc.
So having traits ( windsucker), boxwalkers etc, very nerveous give them no certificate as well as bad x rays, and air problems not to speak about bleeding etc. As well as conformation faults, bad hawks etc.
Afterwards the foals are inspected, the yearlings and the foals and
as 3 year oldstock, at any time a stallion can be ruled out so avoiding numbers, off worthless expensive foals.

BenB; I was born and raised in Germany, and I'm quite familiar with these 'culling processes,' but I tell you that this would not be possible or even practical with TB race horses. They would have had to cull out Mr. Prospector [crooked] and Raise A Native [unsound ankles] and Ribot [kind of a crazy horse] and God knows how many others, and while correctness in conformation and soundness of temperament is a valid culling criteria, what sorts the best and the worst race horses is -- for the most part-their racing talent and prepotency. And by the way, I have looked at many pictures of Warmblood horses which had passed the culling process, and they had pretty poor leg conformation, at least from the profile, such as short stubby pastern, a neck way too long and out of proportion of the rest of the body, and even what could be considered slight club feet.
Having said all the above and speaking as a tatal amateur. the most correct and perfect breed according to such criteria you are mentioning above are- to my mind- the Arabian horses [I don't own any]

Greetings, SB