CARO --- What made him such an extraordinaire?

[Patuxet]

Caro's grey is just another expression of The Tetrarch's which is also transmitted through Mahmoud and is now showing up in Hansen and Paddy O'Prado.

Coat color is basically a matter of dominant and recessive genes, I don't see how it could be characterized as exhibiting "prepotency".

[vineyridge]

Actually, Abram Hewitt mentioned the same thought in connection with the fact that the two excellent sons of a gray stallion (can't remember which one in the Roi Herode family it was) were gray, while non-grays did not compare.

I've noticed in jumping horses that many, many of the top ones and top sires, especially from Holstein, have gray coats. Top mares in the ring tend to be not gray.

So, even though it seems a stretch, others have thought there might be a connection. I wonder if anyone has done statistical studies on performance and gray versus non-gray in the same families and similar work on the same thing by sex and also in pre-potency.

[zipperfoot]

No Mahmoud in Caro's pedigree. I understand the genetics of gray, but it's interesting that he has a rather high percentage of gray foals, at least according to PQ info.

[Patuxet]

vineyridge wrote: "I wonder if anyone has done statistical studies on performance and gray versus non-gray in the same families and similar work on the same thing by sex and also in pre-potency."

I've never seen any studies analyzing greys for performance superiority, but many, many moons ago there was a studing involving chestnuts. As I remember it someone noted that chestnuts won a disproportionate number of certain significant stakes and posited that chestnuts therefore enjoyed an inherent superiority. Statistical analysis of the performance of the total get of the sires of those stakes winners disproved the theory.

[Jorge]

Caro had the great ability of producing very talented
greys. Not every sire possesses that ability. Some are better
known only when producing sons and daughters of a different color.

Some time ago this topic was posted:

"Cees Tizzy's gray males"
http://www.pedigreequery.com/forum/view ... hp?t=20091

[Patuxet]

Under "Racing" jagger notes that Indy Point, in winning the John Henry, "may have run the 2nd fastest 1 1/4 in history. He covered the 10f distance on the turf in 1:57.47. The world record for this distance on the turf is 1:57.4."

Indy Point is an Argentina-bred. His dam was sired by Parade Marshall, a half-brother by Caro to Buckaroo. In his PQ pedigree Parade Marshall is described as a major influence in Argentina -- despite his not being a grey.

http://www.pedigreequery.com/parade+marshal

[Jorge]

There is no doubt that CARO possessed the ability to sire extraordinarily
dominant racehorses of all colours. But the great thing about him is that along with that ability, most of them were greys and that most of his sons,
grandsons, great-grandsons, etcetera, also possessed that very rare tandem of ability plus coat color. Seems like this ability was also present among many of Unbridled's Song progeny, albeit in a little less dominant fashion.

We all know that ability is an independent trait and that coat color is also an independent trait but the question is why this happens? Native Dancer had the ability to "stamp" racing aptitude to many of his offsprings but not necessarily he "stamped" his gray color. That is the reason why coming across any talented gray Thoroughbred owing his or her coat color to Native Dancer is almost a luxury, a rarity.

As opposed to Caro's ability, Cee's Tizzy sired his good share of talented runners but not necessarily that lucky in achieving talented gray males.

Opinions are quite welcome in favor or against