What were they thinking?

[Matchemforever]

As usual, I'm looking at another pedigree and ran across the mare War Plumage looking at the progeny of War Feathers. War Feathers, by Man O' War, descends from the mare Lily Agnes in the dam line.

War Plumage:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/war+plumage

Although it only lists three wins for her, she has several champion titles. So maybe not the best mare to ever grace the tracks but not exactly chopped liver. So why in the world was she not crossed on better stallions?

http://www.pedigreequery.com/progeny/war+plumage

Not trying to knock those stallions but they don't exactly scream out as the creme of the crop at that time. I sort of understand the cross to Alsab picking up the Fair Play again but it seems like the mare earned the right to the better stallions of the time.

Or am I off base here

[vineyridge]

Bahram was a truly great stallion on European mares. Bred by the Aga Khan, won the English Triple Crown as a three year old, retired undefeated. Chef de Race. He was sold over here in 1940, right after WWII hit. The Aga Khan sold quite a good bit of his breeding stock to keep them out of the hands of the Germans, since his major stud was in France, although he did have a stud in Great Britain.

When Bahram was sold to the United States, he did not do at all well on US mares, so after a stint here was shipped off to Argentina, where he did slightly better.

If you want to find jumping horses, you can't do better than a horse with Bahram in its lines. He's used a lot by NH and WB breeders through his sons Big Game and Persian Gulf, and Persian Gulf's son Tamerlane and HIS son Tschingis Khan--who are huge in German TB breeding.

[Linda_d]

War Plumage was owned by James Cox Brady who was a part of New York society and the racing scene in the Big Apple. Brady is listed as the "co breeder" of her second foal (along with her breeder) and her breeder of her last one. The last one is listed as a New Jersey bred (where JCB had a large estate). I suspect that the stallions she was bred to were horses that either Brady owned shares in or somehow had connections to.

Back in the "good old days", just having a good mare wasn't enough to get her a "date" with a top stallion -- the owner also had to have the "right" connections. It was sort of a closed system that ensured that the "best people" (ie, noted racing families like the Vanderbilts, Phipps, Chenerys etc) kept the best mares, best stallions, and best foals for themselves. In the biography of Secretariat (which I can't remember the author), the author explains how Meadow Stable made a deal with the farm standing Bold Ruler to "split" the resulting foals (each side getting the resulting foal in alternating years). When stallions only bred 40 mares a season, the seasons to the top horses were, literally, "priceless".

[Matchemforever]

Hmph....society and connections...

In some ways, back in those days, some superior horses were produced. Sometimes one wonders how that happened given ego and racing families if the system were closed. I suppose if the family had given good consideration to the horses it produced and the ones it introduced, good things happened.

Sometimes it seems certain farms paid attention to line breeding and the right out crosses while some just seemed to get lucky on occasion.

[Tappiano]

There are a lot of good stories in "Sire Lines". And boy were people taken about and shocked if these "elite" went out and bought or claimed a mare who was from an "undesirable" family.