too much of a good thing?

[siegy]

To go back to the example of palominos, knowing the exact genetic color of the horses allows the breeder a much better chance of producing the desired color.

Knowing the T/C genes of the horse allows selection for distance and maturity.

Better information allows breeders to make better choices.

Hi xfactor,

Ditto,

Siegy,

[xfactor fan]

Other than numbering female families, how were the Lowe numbers supposed to be use in breeding? Or betting for that matter. And why were they considered a failure?

[Barcaldine]

Lowe's numbered tabulations of classic winners were thought to be a predictive breeding tool. I don't know if they were used as a gambling aid but, assuming there were enterprising con men in those days too, it's probably likely that they were packaged as a betting tool.

Ultimately breeders and other pedigree pundits discovered the truth about Lowe's invention: it didn't work.


Nowadays the nicksters sell the equally bogus recommendations which they derived by essentially the same method: tally the numbers of loosely-related nicks and assign to them a letter grade. Folks who still think that Lowe's family rankings are successful rush to buy the newest addition to the snake oil line of pedigree "tools."

[zinn21]

xfactor wrote:

To go back to the example of palominos, knowing the exact genetic color of the horses allows the breeder a much better chance of producing the desired color.

Knowing the T/C genes of the horse allows selection for distance and maturity.

Better information allows breeders to make better choices.

I did not realize all the performance traits had been completely identified... That would take some of the guess out of the equation.

[Pan Zareta]

Exactly how does genetic testing make "matings less of a guessing game" ?

For one example from the cattle industry, selection of bulls with a particular genetic profile has enabled many producers, including our family's cattle op, to greatly reduce the need for assisted calvings among first-calf cows, yet keep the avg. weight of those calves as yearlings within close proximity to the avg. weight of calves from mature cows. Producers have been trying to achieve this, probably since cattle were first domesticated, by selecting on phenotype alone. Phenotype is often deceiving. Knowing the genotype improves the bottom line.

Obviously, the selection criteria for someone breeding TBs to race will be quite different and undoubtedly more complex than for cattle producers. But the principle is the same.

[xfactor fan]

zinn21, performance and genes are slowly being sorted out. However the interactions are going to take a huge amount of work, as is figuring out the interaction between nature and nurture.

Maybe the best way to think about it is that the current level of information allows the breeder to load the genetic dice for a better outcome.

[zinn21]

Thanks X.. Something tells me genetic mutation will never make this an exact science.

[vineyridge]

Until people can manipulate the actual genetic package, horse breeding will still be an art. There are too many variables and complex interactions to make breeding a science unless you're cloning. You can breed to fix a single trait complex easily enough, I suppose, if you are willing to go to the expense of multi-generational breeding without reward until you get to the end. Ruthless culling and inbreeding is required. Who in the TB world is willing to do that, especially when there are so many different phenotypes in the breed?

I was sort of thinking about this when I found a horse named Ole' who stood in California. He's by Danzig out of Princess Rooney and the result of a best to the best and hope for the best mating. He was a flop, as were the rest of her foals. Why was she so good and her foals not good? Danzig was a great sire and should have passed on to her foal the same or similar things that he passed on to his others. she was bred to the hottest sires of her day, and NONE of her foals were anywhere near her quality.

[Tappiano]

Perhaps she was only bred to stallions who were very different to her physically. Were Danzig's most successful sons one's who were out of dams who were physically alike? If he passes on his large heart to a foal that has really small legs and a long back or really big legs and a short back it's not going to make any difference, it's stride is so inefficient that the only thing it might be good for is one of those 25 mile races through the desert because it would never get tired. Of course it might take it a week to finish!

[ElPrado]

You're on to something, Tappiano. At least one poster to this board has no clue what many of the horses he posts about look like. Yet he calls himself an expert pedigree researcher.
If you don't know the physical attributes of the sire and dam, you can't know what the result would be.

[vineyridge]

Sort of OT, but there was a poster of Kentucky Derby winners to 1974 (?) at my motel this past week. It's amazing how few of them founded lasting lines. Most have ended up OUT of the current TB gene pool. And most were males with plenty of opportunity to scatter their genes around.