Was Seth Hancock Right About Overbreeding??

[Pan Zareta]

Mahubah,

Just for a giggle take a look at these two photos of Charismatic yearlings from an online sales catalog.
One looks like he's got the Princequillo/Secretariat X, the other doesn't. The fourth or fifth dam in the direct tail female line is by Secretariat. Long way for the X to have travelled.

I'm not Mahubah, but I have to say Hip 142 is quite visually impressive and a striking example of the PQ/Sec. morphology. It's his 3rd dam that's by Sec., but his dam Millywakay is loaded with other lines to St. Simon (suspected as the source of Cosquilla's LH) that have no male repeats, including at least one that goes through Sir Gallahad, who had that same body type.

[Mahubah]

142 is sure a nice looking colt regardless of where his looks come from. By the way, wouldn't St. Simon (and thence back to Pocahontas) also be the logical source of the large heart X for Man o' War, whose maternal grandsire *Rock Sand was a maternal grandson of St. Simon, he in turn a maternal grandson of Pocahontas' son King Tom?

[kimberley mine]

Speaking of sires who have a certain "look", try Cozzene. Very, very balanced with proportions, straight legs, and an elegant head. In the same catalogue, Hip #158 (by Running Stag) definitely has the Cozzene look to him.

[xfactor fan]

The St. Simon look seems close to the Man' O War body type, tall, lean, long necked.

Anyone know where there is a good comformation shot of St. Simon? Most of the photos online he's (the horse) looking at the photographer.

Any guess as to where the Princequillo look comes from?
Sir Gallahad does seem to have the family look.

Hip 142 may be named Gaboyoyo, at least that is the name of the 2003 colt by Millywakay. Will be interesting to see if he can run. Or what his heart score is.

[Pan Zareta]

142 is sure a nice looking colt regardless of where his looks come from. By the way, wouldn't St. Simon (and thence back to Pocahontas) also be the logical source of the large heart X for Man o' War, whose maternal grandsire *Rock Sand was a maternal grandson of St. Simon, he in turn a maternal grandson of Pocahontas' son King Tom?

St. Simon or Stockwell. *Rock Sand's dam Roquebrune was 4s x 4d (Stockwell being in the latter line) to Pocahontas w/ no male repeats top or bottom - a potential double copy mare. Did the performance on the track or in the stud of her other offspring support Roquebrune as a double LH carrier?

[Pan Zareta]

Princequillo, imho, resembles his damsire Papyrus far more than anything in his sireline, and Papyrus harkens back to his sire Tracery's damsire Orme. Another outstanding sire who seemed 'stamped' by his damline was What A Pleasure, who always struck me as looking more like a refined version of his 2nd damsire Ariel than anything like his sire Bold Ruler, but he didn't pass along his 'look' to his sons as emphatically as PQ did.

The good-looking and well-proportioned Cozzene imho most strongly resembles his 3rd sire Grey Sovereign, and I think a lot of GS's tail male descendants tend to favor their sire line in appearance.

[zinn21]

Addrienne writes, "On average, a normal stallion produces 35,000 spermatozoa per second and then up to 70,000 per second during the peak of breeding season. Thus, the average stallion produces three to six billion sperm per day."

If three to six billion sperm are produced per day what is the mathematical drop off when breeding a stallion to 65 mares or 200 mares? My guess is it's so small the odds of reducing the potential quality of a conception for racing purposes cannot be measurably factored.

Also, if there is any creedence to the super sperm theory, why hasn't anyone identified those sperm, seperated and impregnated resulting in a genetically superior conception? Let's here from math/genectic wizards..

[bcassidy]

Zinn21---Two great questions that I would like to hear answered as well. Super Sperm and Nervous Energy (while interesting to think about) do not sound well based IMO.

[llbean]

Once again people on this forum fail to put a number in a meaningful context.

6 Billion sperm per a day may sound impressive; but each ejaculate in a normally fertile stallion includes about 3 Billion Sperm!!

FERTILTIY

There are a significant number of factors that influence the fertility of a stallion. Such things as descended testicles, testicular size, testicular consistency, sperm morphology (conformation in horse lingo), sperm concentration and motility (ability to "swim") as well as how often the stallion is used for breeding are a few of the more obvious factors influencing fertility. The quantitative measure of a stallion's fertility is a pretty difficult concept to get a person's mind around. In general fertility is a measure of the number of motile sperm present per ejaculation of a stallion. Through collecting semen from the stallion and doing some fairly precise counting of moving sperm under a microscope, the number of motile sperm per ejaculation is estimated and compared to norms for stallions. A normally fertile stallion produces in the neighborhood of 3,000,000,000 motile sperm per ejaculation. That is a bunch of sperm. The literature states that typical adult stallions produce approximately 6,000,000,000 sperm per day.

When a person takes into account the definition stated for fertility, the number of motile sperm per normal ejaculation and the number of sperm produced per day by the normal adult stallion, it doesn't take too much figuring to recognize that there are barely enough sperm produced per day for two ejaculations under perfect circumstances. When one factors in a percentage for motility, the fertility will drop below two ejaculations per day for optimum fertility.Young, developing stallions have a number of factors that reduce their general fertility from that of the adult. One of the limiting factors to sperm production is size of the stallions testicles. The testicles of young stallions have not fully developed. As a result, they are not yet able to produce sperm in the quantity per day that they will when they are a fully developed stallion. Less available sperm production equates to fewer ejaculations in order to maintain the normal fertility of 3,000,000,000 sperm per ejaculation.

The bottom line is that young stallions are not able to breed mares at the same frequency as adult stallions and maintain fertility. Normally young stallions have a huge portion of libido and are eager to breed mares. Mares can be covered, however the important factor of sperm/ejaculation is the overriding determiner of fertility. If the young stallion is used frequently, there will not be enough sperm available per ejaculation and his rate for settling mares will be sub-standard.

SOURCE: http://www.scottcreek.com/young.htm , by Larry Ross.

[llbean]

Also, if there is any creedence to the super sperm theory, why hasn't anyone identified those sperm, seperated and impregnated resulting in a genetically superior conception? Let's here from math/genectic wizards..

Because nobody thought of doing that before you came along.

Also, you don't seem to understand the super-sperm concept as put forth by Seth Hancock. His main point was that the "Super-Sperm" would show their superiority by getting to the Egg First in the same way that Secretariat or Seattle Slew showed their superiority by getting to the wire first. Thus a Ejaculate with a greater quantity of viable sperm is to be preferred by the mare owner as you'd be more likely to a have a Top Performer Win in roughly the same way you're be more likely to have a top Performer Win if you have more horses in a race.

Therefore, there would be no way to know which were the super sperm and which weren't without letting Nature take its course.

-llbean

[mary syers]

A little aside. In trying to learn AI from Sara, at Iowa STate, she taught me that if you inseminated with alot of viable sperm, you would more likely produce a colt. Less sperm in an insemination produced more fillies. Anybody else hear this? Mary Syers

[bcassidy]

mary syers---What I did learn--- is that male sperm tend to be thinner and faster, while female sperm tend to be slower, fatter and capable of surviving longer after they are released into the female reproductive tract, therefore if insemination occurs close to ovulation the probability of a male being conceived is much greater than an insemination a few days earlier to ovulation. Therefore, if you were inseminating the mare right before ovulation, (which one trys to do with AI), your probability of producing a male goes up substantially. It's rare when someone would intentionally inseminate too early (on purpose) with AI, although I can think of many reasons why it would still actually occur. Thank god for human error or mankind could have substantially influenced the male/female ratio in breeds allowing AI.

[bcassidy]

llbean==Does a super sperm carry different genetic material than a normal sperm cell? If so, how is their genetic material different from normal sperm cells? Getting to the egg first doesn't make their genetic material any better than a later arriving sperm cell--- does it? I believe most of the credit for an early vs a late arriving sperm cell falls squarely on the side of Luck. Sperm cells are moving randomly in the reproductive tract, hoping to bump into an egg (by accident) in their path, there is no intelligence on the part of the sperm cell in locating the egg--it is strictly coincidental when they collide.
Obviously, I am still having a problem accepting the premise of super sperm cells or nervous energy in contributing to a super zygote. As I said in an earlier post, I think these were the ideas of people who didn't have better information available to them when they were alive, kind of like the people who felt the world was flat because they couldn't get far enough off of its' surface to see the curvature of the planet. Similarily, I think we have better information on genetics now.
In closing---Why wouldn't this theory hold true for other species? Humans, animals, fish etc. I have never heard of this theory for any other creature, don't you find this a little bit odd?

[zinn21]

OK llbean so "there will not be enough sperm available per ejaculation and his rate for settling mares will be sub standard", but where is the science to support that those mares stopped will produce inferior performing foals? Are the remaining viable sperm inferior to sperm produced by the same stallion bred to fewer mares? Is the ratio of superior sperm produced by the same stallion dramatically less from that same stallion bred less vigorously?

I don't see any definitive evidence supporting the theory that more stallion covers results in fewer superior performing foals result.

[llbean]

Hi Brendan,

I think you greatly underestimate Sperm. In fact, Sperm have even been observed Tracking Down and Killing the Sperm of other males. Also, I think it is now known that the Egg emits a chemical or chemicals that help the sperm find it.

llbean==Does a super sperm carry different genetic material than a normal sperm cell? If so, how is their genetic material different from normal sperm cells?

If Seth Hancock and I are correct the difference is that the Genes in the Super-Sperm work better and more efficiently together (also, there may be less negative mutations as negative mutations could very well undermine the ability of the Sperm to be Super).

Consider this: Men who work next to Radiation are noted for having less Motile and less Effective Sperm (aka, they are infertile or at least less fertile).

Why do you think this is? I think the most likely explanation is that the Sperms got negative Mutations from the radiation and I also think that if those inferior Sperm somehow got to the Egg they would likely result in defective and/or inviable offspring.

Perhaps this all may seem somewhat implausible to you on account of a Horse Sperm and a Horse Sperm Post-Fertilization (also known as a Horse) being very different. However, the genes that determine the development and life processes of the Sperm are the same genes that collaborate with the genes from the egg to determine the development and life processes of the Horse. Therefore, there is a fundamental similarity here between the two Life Stages of the Equine we are considering.

Of course, the mitdna from the Sperm evidently dies too early to matter to the Zygote; but the rest of his Genotype most assuredly does not die if the Sperm got there first and impregnated the egg.

Obviously, I am still having a problem accepting the premise of super sperm cells or nervous energy in contributing to a super zygote. As I said in an earlier post, I think these were the ideas of people who didn't have better information available to them when they were alive, kind of like the people who felt the world was flat because they couldn't get far enough off of its' surface to see the curvature of the planet. Similarily, I think we have better information on genetics now.

I essentially agree with you on Tesio and "Nervous Energy", but with Seth Hancock's Theory I think you're overestimating how much the Scientists actually know about this subject at this point and I don't view a lack of proof as a good reason to discount the possibility of the theory being valid (especially considering that Scientists have seemingly ignored this Theory for reasons possibly related to the simple fact that a Scientist didn't think of it first).

In closing---Why wouldn't this theory hold true for other species?

I never said it doesn't...

I have never heard of this theory for any other creature, don't you find this a little bit odd?

Yes; but what you have to understand is that Livestock/Horse Breeders like Seth Hancock have been far ahead of the "Natural Philosophers" and Scientists on Genetic Matters many times before.

Is this another example? I honestly don't know but wouldn't be surprised...

-llbean