The importance of the TB

[Shammy Davis]

http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2010/1 ... ce-horses/

[karenkarenn]

Three bars- alot of Quarter Horse people here think that they dropped from the sky. And God gave them the " Pure " Quarter horse without tbs..HA!
I got into a fight with our hay mans daughter- she REALLY REALLY thought that... I WAS LIKE
IT common here.
HELLO!

[diomed]

The QH breed is a really interesting study. Those supposed "old lines" were developed by a lot of old TB blood. Lexington, Sir Archy and even further back....Janus II.
In fact, there are many damlines that are either know TB female lines or suspected ones(and they probably were).
The modern QH has tons of Three Bars, Top Deck, and Beduino blood. All TBs.
The QH wouldn't be what it is without the Thoroughbred.
But then again, they are genetic cousins..LOL

[Pan Zareta]

The real irony is that the early Quarter Horse registrations, the first ~27K or so that are revered by the QH foundation people, had about as much TB blood in them as the avg. QH registered since 1950. The notion that several names which crop up frequently in those pre-1950 registrants were falsely registered TBs falls apart like a house of cards if you actually go dig around in the old records and have a look at the "proof".

[diomed]

Ironically I was just looking at Pan Zareta's pedigree and found she descends from the great foundation QH mare Mittie Stephens, dam of the great sire Locks Rondo. LOL.
The TB and the QH are oh so closely related. I don't think many people know how much IMO.

[Pan Zareta]

Mittie's female family produced several stakes-winners in addition to Pan Zareta, as well as leading QH sire Question Mark 1937, and QH foundation sires Booger Red 1905 & (his full brother) Kid Weller 1902.
http://www.bloodlines.net/TB/Families/A ... ilyap1.htm

[xfactor fan]

[i]The real irony is that the early Quarter Horse registrations, the first ~27K or so that are revered by the QH foundation people, had about as much TB blood in them as the avg. QH registered since 1950. The notion that several names which crop up frequently in those pre-1950 registrants were falsely registered TBs falls apart like a house of cards if you actually go dig around in the old records and have a look at the "proof". [/i]

Would you expand on this? I'm sure it would make perfect sense to someone who knew more about the history of the QH. Are you saying that the early QH's were supposed to be TB's that somehow "lost" their papers? Or that they were raced as TB's but weren't?

The whole racing paper/two sets of names two different pedigrees has always been confusing. I wish someone would just come out and say they put a new name/papers on horses to confuse the other owners, and race going public.

[cng]

If you really dig down you will find that the "wild mustangs", that the government spends billions feeding and protecting, usually has more thoroughbred blood than that of the Spanish Barb they were supposed to have descended from. The US Government turned thousands of "remount" thoroughbred stallions over to ranchers who in turn turned them out with feral herds. Most notably was Sir Barton. Many of these were decent former racehorses. The "wild mustang" is as much related to the original Spanish conquistadors mounts, as I am to the Queen of England.

[Pan Zareta]

Would you expand on this? I'm sure it would make perfect sense to someone who knew more about the history of the QH. Are you saying that the early QH's were supposed to be TB's that somehow "lost" their papers? Or that they were raced as TB's but weren't?

The whole racing paper/two sets of names two different pedigrees has always been confusing. I wish someone would just come out and say they put a new name/papers on horses to confuse the other owners, and race going public.

I'm talking about the horses first recorded in the ASB or HBSB that ended up with different pedigrees when recorded later in the pedigrees of AQHA registrants. That's difficult to explain succinctly, but I'll give it a shot.

From the AQHA's inception (1940) there were different factions within the directors and stockholders (voting members) re. how to best preserve the QH as a distinct breed. For the first ~8 years the 'bulldog' faction managed to maintain control of registration practices and procedures. They believed it best to breed away from the TB. Anything over 50% TB by pedigree was ineligible for registration. That fact was seldom spelled out by the AQHA, but it's set forth in the 1945 AQRA yearbook, as well as in Nye's Outstanding Modern Quarter Horse Sires, et al. It would be understatement to say that this issue caused contention within the AQHA. It was a major factor in some of the original directors & stockholders (including Ott Adams & George Clegg) breaking ranks in 1945 and helping organize other QH registries.

Denhardt and Michaelis were among the bulldog faction. He served as AQHA Secretary from 1940-42. She succeeded him as Sec. and served from 1942-1946. Applicants for registration were inspected in the field. Afterward, the Secretary was in charge of investigating the pedigree, and making recommendation to the BoD. The pedigrees of most of the earliest registrations were incomplete or in error. (If you've seen any of the Combined Errata that shouldn't come as a surprise.) Pedigree research continued even after registration was completed. Remember, these regs. were tentative. The first permanent stud book wasn't opened until 1947.

Michaelis did the vast majority of the pedigree research, corresponding not only with the owners at time of application for registration, but with the breeder of that horse, as well as owners/breeders of the sire, dam, et al. The AQHA's policy re. TBs was no secret. The inquiries often put people who had no business with or interest in the association in the position of either affirming a pedigree as recorded in the ASB, and risking rejection or cancellation of registration(s), or providing an alternative pedigree with the TB reduced or eliminated. Bear in mind that the vast majority of early AQHA registrants were bred in a region where for nearly 30 years breeders had been improving their stock with Remount TBs. If Nye's remarks about the AQHA registration practices of the 1940s are any indication, I doubt that they had much trouble telling Helen that 'Old So & So was really out of New Mexico by Stock Trailer'- figuratively speaking.

At any rate, Michaelis came to believe that many TBs were falsely registered. The only explanation ever offered for why this would be was that they had to have "TB papers" to be eligible at major tracks. That claim doesn't hold up. Barring talented runners from the track was not one of the JC's goals when it was founded. Providing a standard proof of identification was. The JC issued foal registration certificates remarked "for racing purposes only" to hundreds of non-TBs between 1894-1932. They weren't ASB-eligible. They weren't considered TBs. But they could run at any JC-sanctioned track. Not to mention the fact that many, maybe most, of the horses claimed to have been falsely registered as TB were bred by people who never raced anywhere except at the local county fairs, where identification papers were usually unnecessary.

This didn't exactly turn out to be succinct , but I hope it's of some help.

[xfactor fan]

Ok,

I get the breed politics, ruling powers that be, strangle hold on breed type.

Here's where I get lost.

At any rate, Michaelis came to believe that many TBs were falsely registered. The only explanation ever offered for why this would be was that they had to have "TB papers" to be eligible at major tracks.

If they weren't accepting horses that were 50% TB, wouldn't they claim TB's were something else? Not registering them as other types of TB's? Or are you saying that they did register full TB's as Mustangs or something so as to get them in the AQHA book?

Sorry to be so dense, just trying to understand this point.

Still trying to figure out the King Ranch mare Woven Web aka Miss Princess. I've seen her with two different pedigrees depending on what name she's under.

[Pan Zareta]

If they weren't accepting horses that were 50% TB, wouldn't they claim TB's were something else? Not registering them as other types of TB's? Or are you saying that they did register full TB's as Mustangs or something so as to get them in the AQHA book?

Sorry if I was misleading - yes, they were usually recorded under names that were recognizable as non-TB, or at least plausibly unknown to Michaelis. Barney Lucus x Dr. Curtis (broodmare sire of Band Play 1934) became Barney Lucas x Traveler (or a son of Traveler per Michaelis' notes). Cutthroat aka: May Mattison x Adamant (dam of Oklahoma Star P-6) became Cutthroat aka: May Mattison x Gulliver. Etc.

Still trying to figure out the King Ranch mare Woven Web aka Miss Princess. I've seen her with two different pedigrees depending on what name she's under.

Officially, there is no "Miss Princess" (1943) in the AQHA db anymore. She's strictly Woven Web TB T0067232 now. Her old unregistered ID U0076486 is still there, but if you try to pull up a report it generates a 'horse does not exist' error. Ditto her 2d dam Chicaros Hallie, T0187278 & U0069460 (as Chicaro's Hallie), whose dam is the question mark in this case. I have a theory about what happened there, but it's pure speculation. Whoever Hallie's dam was, her descendants have by performance earned their way into two registries.

[xfactor fan]

So the fraud was taking TB's who most likely had Jockey Club names and #'s and making up a ranch sounding name so the offspring could get past the pure types folks controlling the registry?

That version of events makes lots of sense.

Do tell, what's your theory on Chicaro's Hallie? Maybe we can include her in Bast's mystery horse site. And wouldn't it be possible to sort out via mtDNA is anyone wants to know?

[Bast]

So the fraud was taking TB's who most likely had Jockey Club names and #'s and making up a ranch sounding name so the offspring could get past the pure types folks controlling the registry?

That version of events makes lots of sense.

Do tell, what's your theory on Chicaro's Hallie? Maybe we can include her in Bast's mystery horse site. And wouldn't it be possible to sort out via mtDNA is anyone wants to know?

Another Mystery Begotten? Why not!?

Long ago and far away I came across a reference to an article appearing in the Blood-Horse, I believe in the 1940s. This was decades before PCs or the Internet, and I had no way of tracking it down. The title was "How serious is the taint?" Has anyone read it?

[Linda_d]

There was also a non-breeding "registry" called the American Quarter Racing Association in the 1940s that registered horses running on QH for the purpose of id'ing them. It was open to all race horses. The AQRA ran QH racing, primarily in the Southwest, from 1940 through 1948.

It registered QHs, TBs, Paints, Appys, etc. If it could run between a furlong and a half mile, it could be registered with the AQRA. Lots of horses in the AQRA registry had different names for racing than they had in their breed registry. Woven Web, TB, was registered with the AQRA as Miss Princess, and she won her world championship under that name. Another TB, Piggin String, was also a year end champion, but raced under his own name.

In 1949, the AQHA took over the racing functions of the AQRA, which resulted in QH racing being closed to all horses not registered with the AQHA.

An alternative breed registry for QHs was the National QH Breeders Association which had much more open policies for membership and registration. In order to have "peace" among the QH breeders, the AQHA and the NQHBA merged in the late 1940s (that may have been what caused the demise of the AQRA). NQHBA registered horses, many of which tended to have more TB in them than the AQHA horses of the time, were allowed to compete against AQHA horses in races and shows, and breed with AQHA horses with the foals fully eligible for registration.

[Linda_d]

Part of the confusion with TBs and QHs prior to the formation of the QH registries is that there were no hard rules for naming or advertising them.

It was very common from the late 1800s into the 1930s to slap false papers on QHs to race them because only full or half bred horses were allowed to race on the tracks -- at least that's the explanation that I've seen. Moreover, a "registered" TB was worth more than any unregistered horse if you were selling it or standing one at stud.

Therefore, the great QH Peter McCue, a half bred, was registered as a TB with a different sire. He did run under his own name and he sired horses that could be found in the ASB into the 1970s IIRC. As a QH, he remains a prominent tail-mail line more than a century after his birth.

Peter McCue's grandson, Joe Hancock, raced as Brown Wool. I suspect that he probably had half-bred papers, as his dam was half Percheron and he looked somewhat like his maternal grandsire. As far as I know, he was never claimed to be a TB.

Also, there are lots of historic horses with the same names. There are 2 Joe Baileys, Weatherford Joe Bailey, and Gonzalez Joe Bailey, which I can never quite figure out which is which. There are a couple of Red Clouds, Red Birds, Yellow Jackets, Yellow Wolfs, etc. Then there's King -- a registered one (P-234) as well as one from the early 1900s that was a son of Traveler, that is more confusing because he was also called Possum. That's yet another problem -- the same horse with more than one name.

That doesn't even scratch the surface of people who were just plain dishonest or the poor spellers who spelled the same name three different ways or the old timers who were asked about a horse's breeding a half century after the horse was foaled and didn't get it right.