Ask Princess - 2013

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The date is not set in stone, more of a guideline, but you walk a very fine line if you cover too early!
 
More first season stallions have had their first mares scanned in foal:

MAYSON
SIR PRANCEALOT
JUKEBOX JURY

Don't expect to hear anything about Frankel's first mare, Midday, until tomorrow at the very earliest. She was covered on 15th February and the first scans are usually done anywhere between 15 and 18 days after.
 
I once heard it said that there are NO white horses, as they are all greys of different shades. I know that grey horses get lighter as they get older (as do humans!) but Dessie was seemingly as white as a white could be by the time he retired.

The question is - is this correct? And if so - how come brown and chestnut horses have WHITE blazes, socks etc?
 
There are a few true white horses, but they are few and far between. Generally speaking, most white horses are born ga darker colour and get whiter with age. Dessie was bay when he was born but he evidently inherited a grey gene from each of his parents (his sire was grey and his second dam on his mother's side was also grey). To turn grey a horse needs to inherit two copies of this gene.

To go over some basic genetics, every gene inherited has two chromosomes, 1 inherited from each parent. With regards to colour, the Grey gene is a recessive gene which comes in two forms G and g. If a copy of the G gene is present then the horse will always be Grey, if the horse gets 1 copy of the g gene he will not be grey, but if he gets 2 copies of the g gene he will be grey. With me so far?!

If you look at Silver Patriarch as a racehorse, he was much darker:

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Whereas as he got older, at stud, he became much lighter:


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Markings are a little more difficult to explain, it is all to do with the migration of melatonin within the foetus whilst in utero. The migration is also dependent on the position of the foetus, hence why full siblings never carry identical markings.

Does that help?!
 
I should add that there is a farm in the USA that has specialised in breeding pure white thoroughbreds - ie those that are born white - since the 1960s. None of them appear to be any great shakes on the racetrack though!

Pictures here
 
Just to correct you slightly, but genes have different alleles, not chromosomes. A chromosome is a much larger structure that contains many genes on it, but it's true that organisms (should) inherit one copy from each parent. And just to complicate things, some genes have multiple alleles, such as blood type, which has three possible alleles.

Quite a handy wiki article on the genetics of grey coats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_(horse)

Sorry to cut in!
 
Don't apologise, I was sure I'd get my science-language muddled up! I knew what I was trying to say, it just didn't quite come out right!
 
I had to triple check to make I was remembering right and I did a lot of genetics at Uni! (The human variety though, anti social behaviour and all that). I do find equine genetics fascinating, especially as we have such a complete history of pedigrees so we can really put it all in perspective.
 
It is a brilliant book, I've been using it for research the past couple of days and it has so much information. I had to laugh at some of the older theories of breeding: it's easy to say with the benefits of advances in science but what were they thinking?

Thanks for the heads up re the book, that's a steal!
 
From Racing Post:

Second date for Soviet and Speightstown

By Tom Pennington 10:21AM 1 MAR 2013

THE Elite Racing Club's multiple Group 1 winner Soviet Song will be covered by WinStar Farm resident Speightstown in the coming weeks after a near miss with the sire in 2012.

The 13-year-old daughter of Marju, who has been blighted by problems conceiving, lost her Speightstown foal last year having initially been confirmed pregnant.

"She's still in Kentucky and is in great form at the moment - healthy and enjoying life," said Matthew Budden, racing manager of the Elite Racing Club.

"She had various infections and for whatever reason they weren't able to be dealt with in Britain. When she went to Kentucky they were cleared up within a matter of weeks, so we're in a different position to where we have been.

"Last year was unfortunate, we nearly got there and fingers crossed this year it all comes together."
 
According to Twitter Frankel has covered 28 mares during the first two weeks of his new career, and the first scans will be taking place this weekend.
 
By the way, I'm on a course all week so am only able to check in first thing in the morning and in the evening, so apologies if I take a while to answer any questions.
 
Hi PN. Slightly random question, but do you know any bloodstock advisers/agents who concentrate on French bloodstock? Preferably near Newmarket. Thanks!
 
Highflyer Bloodstock are based in Newmarket, they buy an awful lot in France, mainly for the NH market.
 
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