If anyone is interested in seeing behind the scenes at Banstead Manor Stud (where Frankel was born and will stand as a stallion) you can watch this video. The first part is a preview of the Eclipse, but if you skip through to the 20min mark you can see the likes of Dansili and Oasis Dream, as well as Kind and Midday.
Really enjoyed that Princess... Many thanks... Dansilli looked stunning, well actually they all did...!!!
Just a thought on Frankel if i may...(i know you dont mind...) If Frankel never runs past his current distance of a mile, and stays unbeaten until he retires, how will that affect any of his offspring...? I ask this as the debate on this forum, and within the media, is of moving him up in trip with a few people saying it will be as easy for him to replicate his form at a 1mile 2 as he dos at the 1mile trip... Dos his pedigree suggest he will get the further trip and that's why people think he will, or is just that he is winning by so far and so comprehensively that people say that he needs to step up to get a challenge... Will the fact that he never ran past a mile be passed down through his progeny and therefore mean he is more likely to produce 1 milers...? Or will it ultimately depend on what the dam did in her career...? I'm very green when it comes to this sort of thing, and so i'm learning all the time, but to me we just have a bit of a freak and that its going to be anybodys guess as to what he really passes on to his next generation... Many thanks Princess...
Hi Red. I think Princess has gone to bed. Whether he runs over 10f or not will have no affect on his offspring. Princess is more the expert on thoroughbred breeding but I would have thought his pedigree suggests he could stay 12f. I would think if he went to a top mare that was sprint bred you would get something that would be best at 6-8f and if you put him to a stamina bred mare you would get a very good middle distance horse. I'm just guessing really. Can't wait for Princess to put me right and learn a bit more about thoroughbred breeding.
Morning both, the first thing I'd say is that if you want to learn more about breeding and pedigrees I highly recommend this book . It's quite a pricey book, but appears to be on offer at the moment. Pedigrees are quite a complex issue. In theory you can look at a pedigree and attempt to predict what a horse will be like, but it's not quite as simple as that. A horse inherits 1 gene from each parent for every trait (such as coat colour) so it really depends what combination of genes they receive. For example Galileo was a middle distance horse and Kind a sprinter, although this is oversimplifying the matter, it depends which particular genes were inherited. To take it further back Kind was out of a middle distance mare (Rainbow Lake) and by sprinter Danehill. The fact that she herself was a sprinter suggests that the combination of genes she received was speed dominant. Some horses have very dominant genes, looking at the percentage of Galileo's progeny that are successful at the top level suggests that he has strong, dominant genes. Then look at pedigree of Brigadier Gerard, who was very poorly bred and himself failed to produce any foals of real note, thus suggesting that he was simply lucky in getting the right combination of genes. I'll pop back later and see if I can explain myself a bit more coherently!
I'm with you so far Princess; same as dogs so far. Except as I said once before, with dogs you do get 10 or so in a litter and, in a pedigree as mixed as we seem to get in thoroughbreds, the range of puppies would be quite wide, with a few up to show standard and some clearly not. With the litter of course one can take your pick as to which one(s) you keep for yourself. The main difference seems to be that, in dogs, a bitch produces several eggs, each containing a combination of genes from her parents, grandparents etc, whereas in horses a mare only produces one egg (occasionally two), one of which is terminated. So the element of choice is non existent. The chances of an even litter in dogs (and hence relatively significantly greater predictability) is increased with careful line breeding (the occasional necessary outcross I've covered in more detail somewhere*) and is the route to successful breeding in dogs. I may be wrong but, with horses, it seems to me that line breeding is the exception rather than the rule which, also to me, would seem to explain why it is so difficult to predict what a sire/mare combination might produce. If horses are anything like dogs, then the more "choppy" the pedigree the greater will be the element of chance and, without the element of choice, is a very risky business. I hope that makes some sort of sense. Edit * Found it. Sorry much is repeated
Thanks so far PN... So the fact we have joked somewhat that IF Frankel and Black Caviar got together so to speak, it wouldn't necessarily mean we would get a champion horse... If they both passed on their size factor gene then were looking at a Shirehorse not a sprinter, as they are both big units...!!! I may have a look at that book also... Thanks...
The levels of inbreeding within racehorses are usually restricted to the 3rd and 4th generations, though Jim Bolger has experimented by sending daughters of Galileo to Sea the Stars, thus inbreeding to Urban Sea 2 x 3. It will be interesting to see the outcome of these matings. Frankel will be given every opportunity to succeed at stud, he will have the very best mares in Europe, if not the globe, sent to him so expectations will be high (as they are for Sea the Stars' first crop 2yos next year). He has a good chance based on Galileo's start as a sire of sires. To date Galileo has four sons at stud in Europe with progeny of racing age (I'm discounting those that are being marketed as NH sires): Sixties Icon - leading 1st season sire this year in terms of number of winners (6 winners from 9 runners inc G3 winner Chilworth Icon) New Approach - leading 1st season sire in terms of prize money, sire of G2 winner Dawn Approach & G3 winner Newfangled Teofilo - oldest crop 3, inc G1 winner Parish Hall Heliostatic - oldest crop 3, sire of G3 winner Crius from just 8 runners to date
Cross-posts with you there, no there are definitely no guarantees when breeding champions together, if only it were that simple! Top class racing fillies in particular are notoriously bad at producing good runners, some people speculate that they whatever it is that makes them a good runner is detrimental when trying to breed from her. I'll have a look at some recent top class fillies to give you some examples.
Pebbles might be one Princess. Fantastic filly but have never seen or heard of any of her offspring, if she had any. Princess, although the genes of the offspring are a mixture from both sides, am I right in thinking that size is the one gene that is determined by one or the other?
I bet the breeding world cant wait to see what the Frankel offspring do come out like when he dos eventually get to stud... Its a waiting game, but could well be worth the wait with him... As you say, See The Stars first crop are out next year and the expectations from the connections must be nerve tingling... Im starting to get into this Breeding thing now... Maybe my next thing to read into... Thanks...
Just to show how risky a business it is, Black Caviar's sire, Bel Esprit, produced 29 other foals (known to RP) who between them won a grand total of 5 races (see attachment) What is interesting is that BC's sire is by Royal Academy, who is by Nijinsky who, in turn of course, was by the great Northern Dancer. The dam Helsinge (AUS) is by Desert Sun who was by Green Desert, by Danzig who was of course also by Northern Dancer. So an element of line breeding. It would be interesting to know if Northern Dancer was on both sides of the pedigree of any of the 29 failures. PS I've checked the first few and 3 have. I'll check out some of the real failures as some of the "29 failures" couldn't really be called failures (unfortunate wording on my part).
Ron, I'm not sure about size to be honest. The main thing about size is that it is limited by the size of the mare. A small mare will never do a big foal well, but a small foal on a big mare will thrive. Experiments have been done by crossing ponies with shires. Unsurprisingly the foal from the shire mare was bigger and stronger than it's fellow, but the foal out of the pony mare was smaller and weaker than other foals. If you have the time, read the write up of the report onto this experiment from 1938. With regards to Northern Dancer, it is now estimated that between 50%-75% of all racehorses in Europe contain ND in their pedigrees, so it is almost impossible not to inbreed to him!
That is really interesting because we were informed that the height gene comes from one or the other. We bred our 148cm European pony mare to Calvaro and got a fantastic 163cm colt who was granted a full stallion licence. He has now gone to America to a very large stud but we've kept a large tank of semen from him. He is apparently a perfect specimen with perfect technique which he got from the mare. So I can say categorically that size is not limited to the size of the mare.
The size issue probably levels out when you breed two horses of a similar(ish) stature. Obviously going to the extreme like crossing Shires with Shetlands is going to produce very variable results.
