Biomechanics, Inbreeding & Breakdowns

Understanding pedigrees, inbreeding, dosage, etc.

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Shammy Davis
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Postby Shammy Davis » Fri Jan 15, 2010 5:23 pm

Here he is.

http://www.pedigreequery.com/straight+flush

Appropriately, by RIVA RIDGE.

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Pan Zareta
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Postby Pan Zareta » Sat Jan 16, 2010 12:29 am

xfactor fan wrote: You mentioned a few warhorse gelding from each sire. Just looking at geldings might give a true picture of soundness, as it eliminates the financial pressure to retire horses for breeding, which skews the statistics.


Under some sires, geldings can be hard to find. I recently verified & updated stats for Reviewer's sons in the db here. Only one of them is officially recorded in the APR as a gelding. (Having thrown a few darts at Reviewer's reputation for soundness in the past I should mention his son, Brands, who made 131 starts in 9 years on the track. :shock: He wasn't his sire's only durable winner, either.)

aethervox wrote:What's intriguing to me is how similar the conformation of Dash for Cash was to Secretariat. See http://www.circledhorses.com/dfc_and_secretariat.htm for details, including a conformation diagram with measurments of Dash for Cash done by a sculptor who did bronzes of both horses.


Secretariat & Dash For Cash were quite similar in conformation. But imho DFC favored his sire Rocket Wrangler, whereas Secretariat most resembled his damsire Princequillo. About the only obvious common denominator between RW & PQ is a lot of Stockwell.

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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:19 am

As a young farrier starting out, I spent a great deal of time on OK QH breeding ranches. To be honest, one QH stallion's conformation looked much like another. IMO that QH conformation is pretty consistent while TB conformation is not.

QH breeding throughout has been inbreeding. I don't see how they could have escaped it.

JMO, but I would guess that DFC looks like his sire and there is a keen resemblance to SECRETARIAT.

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Postby Matchemforever » Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:55 am

xfactor said:

Pan Zareta, thank you for taking the time to crunch the numbers, and applying some science to the breakdown topic. You mentioned a few warhorse gelding from each sire. Just looking at geldings might give a true picture of soundness, as it eliminates the financial pressure to retire horses for breeding, which skews the statistics. Something you probably have figured out.

Drugs and steroids in particular are high on my list of culprits. The only thing you have to do is look at the numbers of horses that breakdown in the US (drugs allowed) vs the rest of the world (no drugs)


OK, maybe it's too early for any logic functioning by my brain, but a couple of things-

Wouldn't you need to then compare all the geldings by a particular sire, who raced, who didn't, how long, before any gelding comparison gave a more complete picture? Could just a couple, long running geldings skew the gelding comparisons?

And if drugs and steriods are culprits, isn't it still a factor of running horses who may need them, who are soundness compromised, where they may never get to the track in the rest of the world?

What happens to horses who can't run in the rest of the world? Are they returned to the gene pool as they often are here?

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Pan Zareta
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Postby Pan Zareta » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:11 pm

shammy davis wrote:As a young farrier starting out, I spent a great deal of time on OK QH breeding ranches. To be honest, one QH stallion's conformation looked much like another.


Yep even down hyar in Texas we ignernt cow people got to use ear tags on them ponies cuz it jes so dang hard to tell em apart. :lol:

IMO that QH conformation is pretty consistent while TB conformation is not.


Do you mind if I forward this remark to the ranchers' forum? Those guys love a good laugh and that one will have them ROFLMAO.

QH breeding throughout has been inbreeding. I don't see how they could have escaped it.


This gets better and better. [pause to clean Diet Coke off keyboard] Please tell me that you don't really think inbreeding is or was more common in the QH than the TB.

JMO, but I would guess that DFC looks like his sire and there is a keen resemblance to SECRETARIAT.


Why guess? Reno's (the sculptor) measurements are objective evidence that DFC and Sec. were similarly conformed.
Last edited by Pan Zareta on Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Pan Zareta
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Postby Pan Zareta » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:16 pm

matchemforever wrote:Wouldn't you need to then compare all the geldings by a particular sire, who raced, who didn't, how long, before any gelding comparison gave a more complete picture? Could just a couple, long running geldings skew the gelding comparisons?


You're absolutely right w/ all of the above. As I said, it was a rough and unscientific assessment. Unfortunately, few of the sires I looked at got enough geldings to yield meaningful comparisons. The most that can be said with confidance is that all of them *could* sire at least a few apparently sound and durable offspring.

And if drugs and steriods are culprits, isn't it still a factor of running horses who may need them, who are soundness compromised, where they may never get to the track in the rest of the world?


I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but concur that horses are running and winning in NorthAm that couldn't do so w/out medication.

What happens to horses who can't run in the rest of the world? Are they returned to the gene pool as they often are here?


Australia takes bleeders off the track, but I'm not sure whether they can still be used as breeding stock.

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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 2:03 pm

Pan Zareta: Yep, for what it is worth after a couple of years looking at you ranchers try to breed QH's, I decided to give up the Diet Cokes, the tin horn saloons, and the loud belching noises and head back east where I could recognize a horse without knowing the halter color. :wink:

To prevent anymore Diet Coke spilling to your keyboard, I will give you that using the term "inbreeding" related to the QH was a major error on my part. There is no more diverse breed genetically.

I should have said that to me they all look like they were inbred and color coding the halters was helpful to my Eastern eye. My experience w/QH breeders involved a great many halter class breeders. :roll: I guess they weren't real cowboys though their hats were definitely western. Thinking back to then TX wasn't top heavy w/real cowboys anymore either. The hats fooled us.
Last edited by Shammy Davis on Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Shammy Davis
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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:31 pm


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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:41 pm


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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 9:18 pm


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Postby Shammy Davis » Sat Jan 16, 2010 9:29 pm


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Postby Shammy Davis » Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:39 am


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Pan Zareta
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Postby Pan Zareta » Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:54 am

Shammy, a horse bred strictly to look pretty at the end of a tie lead is not something I can or would defend. In fact, I think halter classes ought to be open only to stock proven in the ring and/or on the track. Nor could I defend the registry's response to the problem (HYPP) that obviously did arise from inbreeding to Impressive. But I'd offer that the reason something similar hasn't happened in the TB is more likely sheer luck than better breeding practices.

The racing QH is essentially a subset of the TB selected for short dash speed. (DFC was 29/32 reg. TB, undoubtedly more unless one is naive enough to think that La Gallina V & Clear Track had no TB blood.) I'll grant you that conformation among those sires is probably more consistent than among TB sires overall.

looking at you ranchers

:lol:
Any allusion to me as rancher is a gross insult to competent stockmen everywhere. I'm a city girl that married into a cattle ranching family. But I didn't get much hands-on experience in the family 'bidness' until the past 3 yrs. In that time I've developed a healthy respect for great working horses. Most tho' not all IME are reg. Quarters, and they encompass a wide range of conformation and pedigree. A few are reg. TB. (The Sixes is currently standing a reg. TB son of Salt Lake as a performance sire.) More than a few have no papers or known lineage. If they do a good job, that's no impediment to progress here. ;)

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Postby Shammy Davis » Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:43 pm

Pan Zareta: All of your points are very well taken. In the early 70's, QH show breeding was the rage as was the overpriced sale of Arabians.

I'm truly sorry that your keyboard was gummed up w/Diet Coke as a result of my inarticulate references to the QH breeder and "you" ranchers. My thoughts on Diet Cokes are limited but they should only be drunk in moderation. The way this economy is going we all may need a little bulk. I, of course, prefer Coors. Banquet Coors to be certain. That was one enjoyment I took back East with me.

To lump all ranchers into the same category was unfair of me, because I'm often offended when I'm lumped in w/VA rednecks. I do have a red neck, but I don't drink BUD LIGHT, nor chew tobacco, nor smoke, or go hunting on holidays like Thanksgiving and Xmas, as many of my neighbors do.

I am from an old VA family, but we moved to a county where my neighbors do not have the same last name as ours and I don't call them cousin. Inbreeding is often a sore subject with my wife as she is from New England. I'm not sure if she is worried more about my inbreeding or hers.

I was browzing last night and did find a couple very interesting articles on the Colonial Spanish Horse that I was going to post but alas they are lost to google as I type.

I've know for many years that the working strains of western horses were predominately crosses. The use of the term "QH" has been bastardized to include just about everything that does "not" have a pedigree certificate.

Any allusion to me as rancher is a gross insult to competent stockmen everywhere. I'm a city girl that married into a cattle ranching family.


As with my wife, I've been truly amazed by the adaptable nature of "city girls." Don't be too critical about your role, you probably helped to soften the social edges of your "cow poke" family. You probably go a long way to amazing them w/your genetic lingo. Growing up I thought a pedigree was something my mom went to the beauty parlor for.

Xfactor has posted some pictures on a new thread. I going that way to take a look. I hope if they all look alike to me, I can identify them by colored halters.

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Postby xfactor fan » Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:14 pm

Shammy, I made sure that they were all different colors to make it easy for you. :wink: