Conformation and Unsoundness

[kimberley mine]

Following on to the above post, I want to make special note of the following observation.

Fifteen years ago, it would have been entirely reasonable to compare the pedigrees of Australian, Chilean, and U.S. bred and raced horses and wonder if there was a genetic reason that Aussie and Chilean horses started so many more times than US horses. At the time, Star Kingdom (tail-male Hyperion) was THE dominant sireline down under and Cipayo (tail-male Blandford) was dominant in South America.

Then came Danehill, and suffice to say, the game changed. A lot.

Now, half of the leading sires in Australia are sons of Danehill and most of the other half are sons of some other northern-hemisphere male line: Street Cry sired a Melbourne Cup winner AND a very good middle-distance horse. Tale of the Cat is always near the top in New Zealand. Southern Halo (by Halo out of a ND mare) took over in South America, and in Chile in particular you had Hussonetbecome a champion sire several times over.

Even though the bloodlines changed, to the point that "old" bloodlines were mixed and in some cases supplanted entirely by the new.....the performance did not change. Even racing stock by sires that are reviled or shied away from as sources of "unsoundness" in North America race longer and more often than US-raced horses.

Like this one: http://www.pedigreequery.com/omnitrader
Or this one: http://www.pedigreequery.com/zipping3
Or this one: http://www.pedigreequery.com/time+and+moment

Once again, new evidence came up that refuted the theory.....and the "experts," rather than admit the theory didn't work, sought to explain things in context of the theory.

[Deltalady01]

Since Ellen Parker spent a long stint working at The Jockey Club on a rather large project for them, I'm guessing she might have access to some information which would lead to her conclusions about the horse you mentioned. I'm guessing it would not be the first time some question has surfaced about the pedigree of a horse and that there was no clear cut resolution.

If her concerns were based on Graustark's looks and being very unusual for a son of Ribot, it's important to note that Swaps and Flower Bowl are very close relatives, both sired by a son of Hyperion and out of a Beau-Pere mare. Throwing to the dam is not uncommon--a good recent example might be Giant's Causeway--and that Graustark threw to his dam's side would explain why he was a chestnut who looked more like Hyperion than Rabelais.

It's also worth mentioning that blood typing didn't start until 1977, and before that you had horses like he palomino Milkie, who was judged to be pure thoroughbred because he had front feet like his supposed sire.

As to your other conclusions and assertions that everything can be attributed to "management" alone, you obviously have studied the subject quite a bit and have some very good reasons for what you believe. I certainly am not capable of a debate on the subject. There do seem to be differing viewpoints, and I've read what Bill Nack and even Andy Beyer, and others, have said on the subject. They tend to fall in the Ellen camp. Given that Ellen has spent the better part of her life in this field, it's hard not to give credence or at least take her theories seriously.

I'm about to do something that might invoke disbelief, Godwin's Law, the Moderator Ban Hammer, so please read over all of the next carefully. (No sarcasm and no disrespect intended--I'm about to go into knee-jerk territory and want to give everybody fair warning first.)

There used to be substantial bodies of academic literature, research, and popular literature documenting the superiority of the white race in every aspect, physical and mental. It persisted in official, government-sanctioned form as late as the 1960s in the USA, 1975 in Australia, and the 1990s in South Africa.

One of the tenets of this popular argument was that black people were not intelligent or sophisticated enough to be trusted around high technology, nor to be mentally disciplined enough to reach high-level athletic success (the dumb-as-a-rock Olympic jock is as much as a myth as the disorganized slob mad scientist). Both of those bedrocks of the white superiority theory had their foundations shaken between 1930 and 1945: the latter when Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals in Berlin, and the former when the Tuskegee Airmen demonstrated convincingly that black people were equally capable of piloting and crewing military bombers.

Theories are only as good as the supporting evidence behind them. The head of state presiding over the 1931 Berlin Olympics had this to say about his theory, once presented with stunningly fast evidence to the contrary:

Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.

Source.

Emphasis is mine.

The reason I used this particular analogy is that we are getting a very similar argument from the "we are inbreeding our way to unsoundness" crowd. Please note that I am NOT comparing anybody who agrees with this theory (e.g. Louis) to the little insane Austrian, as so far as I know Louis is neither a mass murderer, a dictator, nor insane. His reaction to having his theory challenged by rock-solid evidence, however, is identical: ignore it, adjust the theory to fit, or declare that there must be some kind of extra-special genetic magic to explain it.

When presented with mounting piles of evidence about the longevity of Aussie, Kiwi, Chilean, Singaporean, and Hong Kong raced horses, their argument is that there must be something different about the horses. When presented with the pedigrees of those horses, showing that they were either foaled in the US and exported OR that they were sired by US-bred shuttle stallions, their argument is that there must be something in the back genetics that gives them this extra soundness that US horses do not have. When demonstrated that these horses may have as many (if not more) crosses to Phalaris than his "fashion-bred" cutoff will allow, he says, well no, THESE are not fashion-breds, just those other horses are.

Ellen Parker may have years of experience in the industry, but years of experience doesn't mean that her theory is right. Since her theory has a pair of significant, enduring flaws--it does not and cannot explain why foreign-raced horses run longer and have less wastage than US-bred horses, nor why the horses in the US who on average have the most starts and run at short intervals are geldings--it's easy to conclude that the flaws are indeed with the theory, and not with the population of thoroughbred racehorses upon whom she formed this theory.

On a happy note, three cheers for this guy:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/last+monarch

http://eventingnation.com/home/2010/08/ ... narch.html

He is an off-track thoroughbred who ran 18 times, never won a race, had about $5500 of prize money, and after leaving the track got himself another job and finished 17th at last year's Rolex. Rolex. As a nine-year old....when he got off the track at four!

Y'all are way over my head here! We are talking about horses, and I think I will stick with that! I have no agenda other than broadening my education....one thing though, the more I feel like someone is trying to sell me something, the more I question that person's credibility. In the case of Ellen Parker, she does have credentials, she does have a reputation, she is held in some regard by people in the industry whose names I recognize and have come to trust that they "know what they are talking about.". Until someone with a differing opinion provides information to support their credentials and a reason for me to listen with more than just slight interest, I'm inclined to take anything that person says with a grain of salt and discount it as so many sour grapes, for whatever reason. Not sure what's going on here, but I'm done with this for now. Thanks for tolerating me! Think I will go read more of what Ellen has to say!

[DDT]

Deltalady01

I was going to stay away from this post but I can't. First, you seem very genuine in your search for knowledge, and you have come to one of the best forums about the business of horse racing. Along with new information comes the first disagreement and you bow out to read more of what Ms. Parker has to say. Second, after over 50 years of participation in the game of horse racing, I have no credentials that say I am an expert at anything, but I do know a little about horse racing, as do many of the members of this forum. Remember, your goal in coming here was to acquire knowledge.

Ms. Parker is entitled to her opinions, however, go to her and ask her to prove to you that the Phalaris male line and especially Phalaris is the curse of the breed. She cannot provide that, it is only theory, not backed by scientific proof or supported by meaningful statistics. It is hard to find any stallion, let alone a leading one, that does not have Phalaris in his pedigree, yet Ms. Parker would have you breed to a regional stallion in Montana because he has stamina in his bloodline, and sometimes the root of that bloodline is more than 5 generations removed.

Ms. Parker has credentials as a writer and pedigree analyst. To my knowledge she has never owned, bred, raised or raced a thoroughbred.

Her development of the Reine de Course list should be her real claim to fame.

DDT

[Bast]

Y'all are way over my head here! We are talking about horses, and I think I will stick with that! I have no agenda other than broadening my education....one thing though, the more I feel like someone is trying to sell me something, the more I question that person's credibility. In the case of Ellen Parker, she does have credentials, she does have a reputation, she is held in some regard by people in the industry whose names I recognize and have come to trust that they "know what they are talking about.". Until someone with a differing opinion provides information to support their credentials and a reason for me to listen with more than just slight interest, I'm inclined to take anything that person says with a grain of salt and discount it as so many sour grapes, for whatever reason. Not sure what's going on here, but I'm done with this for now. Thanks for tolerating me! Think I will go read more of what Ellen has to say!

No one here is trying to sell you anything. Like everyone else, you are free to believe as you please.

However, if you are going to learn about anything, you have to learn to sift through the evidence yourself, and not rely upon "authority".

For 50 years now, I have following Thoroughbred racing. I've been following TB bloodlines since 1964. I've been disappointed as the best TBs started less often, and then very much less often. Like a lot of other people, I began to suspect that the spread of the Northern Dancer and Mr Prospector lines were partly to blame, but I also thought that training methods were suspect because even on a 19" tv screen, 3 y os in the Triple Crown races looked unfit.

I'm now convinced that

1-genetics are not the primary culprit--but there are a lot of mediocre horses in the US
2-training methods are shamefully lacking, and all but guaranteed to produce disasters
3-trainers overseas are in general far superior horsemen in terms of getting a horse fit and keeping them that way, as are Standardbred trainers
4-most of the people bemoaning the "extreme inbreeding" of the TB have not looked at extended pedigrees

Why did I change my mind? I did a lot of reading and my own digging. I read many of the links posted here and in the Undying Thread. I pulled up a lot of pedigrees and looked at them. I learned. I changed my mind, because I wanted to know the truth more than I wanted to shore up what I believed at the moment.

Ellen Parker and Louis are both stuck on Phalaris as the Stallion of Doom. Phalaris himself raced at 2, 3, 4, and 5. They would have you believe that Phalaris is some sort of unique source of unsoundness, and they don't name any other possible source. There were unsound animals before Phalaris, but they do not consider that other lines are producing unsoundness.

People here are passionate about the Thoroughbred. We love horses--I even like mules. What you are hearing in our posts is not a desire to sell you anything, but our passion for the TB and for the truth.

[Venusian]

Phalaris as well as being an absolutely top class sprinter, had all the attributes you'd want to see in a racehorse, toughness, soundness, determination, an excellent temperament, an ability to shoulder spine-bending weights, and he kept on improving throughout his four year career.

He didn't have a reputation for siring unsound horses either.

His famed trainer, George Lambton, said of him, "he had absolutely first-class speed, an excellent constitution, and was up to very high weights. Furthermore, he had very good action and was as true as steel as far as he could go."

[Bast]

Phalaris as well as being an absolutely top class sprinter, had all the attributes you'd want to see in a racehorse, toughness, soundness, determination, an excellent temperament, an ability to shoulder spine-bending weights, and he kept on improving throughout his four year career.

He didn't have a reputation for siring unsound horses either.

His famed trainer, George Lambton, said of him, "he had absolutely first-class speed, an excellent constitution, and was up to very high weights. Furthermore, he had very good action and was as true as steel as far as he could go."

Exactly how did the Phalaris-the-Stallion-of-Doom idea get started? Does anyone know?

[xfactor fan]

It got started as a satirical comment on the undying thread. From someone who wasn't buying the idea that Phalaris is the root of all evil.

I've used it, don't remember who came up with it first. Maybe Shammy?

[Bast]

It got started as a satirical comment on the undying thread. From someone who wasn't buying the idea that Phalaris is the root of all evil.

I've used it, don't remember who came up with it first. Maybe Shammy?

The phrase might be mine, but I was wondering how the notion that Louis and Ellen Parker are peddling got started.

[xfactor fan]

Maybe Leo Rasmussen. I'm pretty sure Louis didn't come up with the idea himself.

If anyone wants to look at another stallion--Domino might be worth looking at. He's all over. I don't think Domino himself was a great source of "doom" but because he left so few offspring--20 or so, there was lots of inbreeding to the few that were around, and since there were so few, much less "culling" . And they could run.

They pretty much don't exist via the male tail line so Louis is going to dismiss them out of hand, but there's a whole lot of that blood via the female side of the pedigree.

[Bast]

Maybe Leo Rasmussen. I'm pretty sure Louis didn't come up with the idea himself.

If anyone wants to look at another stallion--Domino might be worth looking at. He's all over. I don't think Domino himself was a great source of "doom" but because he left so few offspring--20 or so, there was lots of inbreeding to the few that were around, and since there were so few, much less "culling" . And they could run.

They pretty much don't exist via the male tail line so Louis is going to dismiss them out of hand, but there's a whole lot of that blood via the female side of the pedigree.

There is a lot of Ultimus in pedigrees.

[kimberley mine]

On the topic of management issues related to soundness, the following article is not written for racing thoroughbreds but contains a useful piece of information regarding shoeing:

http://www.foxtrotters.org/natural_balance_shoeing.htm

Since square toed shoes lessen the amount of stretching on tendons then it stands to reason that a horse with bowed tendons, or pulled muscles associated with this part of the body's movement will benefit from such shoeing. Horses with hooves that are long from heel to toe are obvious benefactors of Natural Balance shoeing, as the square toes make up for the poorly shaped hooves.

Sounds great, right?

I have seen huge numbers of horses that had their joints stressed out due to "dubbing" of the hoof rather than "Natural Balance" square shoeing. When they apply square toed shoes and dub off the hoof they often have the horse trimmed at a very low angle and then make it look "ok" to the untrained eye by cutting off excessive amounts of toe, resulting in a deviation from the natural angle of the pastern joints.

In other words, corrective shoes need to be properly applied by a trained person who understands the way those shoes work, and not just doing what needs to be done to make things look right. Shammy probably could tell us all more about this than we ever wanted to know.

FWIW, I've seen these shoes in use on polo horses, and one in particular had some of the nicest feet I've ever seen on any riding animal. The whole standard of care at that barn was top-notch.

[kimberley mine]

On corrective shoeing in standardbreds, with comments from a farrier:

http://www.oddsonracing.com/about_racin ... arrier.cfm

Common problems with harness horses like cross-firing in pacers and scalping in trotters are usually do to defects with confirmation, Chuck said.

"Horses that cross fire and hit their knees are usually horses with confirmation defects," Chuck said. "Knee knockers you really can't stop, but you can shoe them to make them hit their knees either less or less hard. Cross-firing horses you can do a lot with, by just changing shoe types and adding some borium here and there."

[Sysonby]

It got started as a satirical comment on the undying thread. From someone who wasn't buying the idea that Phalaris is the root of all evil.

I've used it, don't remember who came up with it first. Maybe Shammy?

The phrase might be mine, but I was wondering how the notion that Louis and Ellen Parker are peddling got started.

My best guess is that it originated in the 70s when Phalaris really started to crowd out other tail male sire lines with the rise of all the Bold Ruler sons, Raise A Native and Northern Dancer. Bloodhorse had grey sireline pages in its stallion register and also put out a graphical chart of sire lines which looked like a lopsided wheel. Even then Phalaris dominated but there were still others like Man O'War, Bull Dog, Hyperion etc. in existence. But as time went on, each non Phalaris sireline fell by the wayside and people who care about such things started to become concerned.

FWIW, my feeling is that TBs are some of the most objectively bred performance related horses out there and Phalaris won in a fair fight. Breeding to an obscure line because it is obscure or "rare" has been the road to ruin for some breeders.

[ElPrado]

I think they re-issued that wheel looking thing again last year. It comes out every few years.

[xfactor fan]

And all they are tracking is one Y chromosome. Smallest chromosome in the equine genome.
Genetic diversity is preserved by the females.