Stallion traits

[oleos93]

I read in another post and I can not remember where, so am posting here.

There was talk on some certain stallion lines that perhaps have a tendency to produce slow growing foals.

My stud himself was very slow to mature, fully matured by 6 and stopped at 16 hands. He has 3 foals all of which are very slow to mature thus far, I see him in all 3.

His first filly was a Feb, 2009 baby and she is still very small. Nice bone just height wise very small. Same with his 2009 July colt, nice bone, short in height.

I am confident they will get there height, but what I am not liking is I feel it is a disadvantage when trying to get them to the track. It seems even having a long foal has not helped, meaning the early birth is not giving at least the filly, the extra time to mature.

If they do have a slow to grow hormone it really limits on when they can race. My stud was 4 before he got to the track full time.

How do these slow growers fair against their piers of the same age group in a race?

[Crystal]

there is most always going to be some difference in physical or mental maturity with slow/fast developing horses. This will always effect training/racing in one way or another. I would suggest just really paying attention to placement with proper trainers who know what conditions the horses with thrive at. (i.e. not running them over their heads, etc)

[Jorge]

Apparently the aforementioned
topic was covered in one of the
following two topics.

01. The Mares in Great Sires (17 pages)
02. INBREEDING AND BREAKDOWNS (699 pages)

Yikes too many pages to examine in the second one!

[Shammy Davis]

A very small percentage of stallions throw truly precosious foals. The trick of course is determing which stallions do.

Mike Helm's "Exploring Pedigrees" does a fairly good job of delving into this issue of which sires throw percosity, among other characteristics. This is a handicapper's book, but the information is valuable to a breeder. Published in 1994, Helm has followed up with updates that can be found through the on-line used book websites. The last update that I'm aware of was 2007. On the used-book sites these updates are very expensive.

[oleos93]

I am starting to feel that stud owners should divulge a trait like this that their stallion may throw. Of course if they are aware. For me I am the breeder of my stud, raised him, his sister and now 3 of his off spring and have found this to be the case with all of then. The slow maturity that is.

Maybe I was not watching for it, but I have never seen any stud owners advertise this type of trait. It would be a handy tool if someone was breeding for specifics, to know something like this would make a difference in perhaps times of the year or type of discipline they are breeding for.

[Tappiano]

If a horse needs time to grow because the bones are still rather soft then I don't know that anyone would want to hasten it? Maybe I'm wrong altogether but it seems logical that the more bone there is the longer it takes to solidify?

[Bast]

If a horse needs time to grow because the bones are still rather soft then I don't know that anyone would want to hasten it? Maybe I'm wrong altogether but it seems logical that the more bone there is the longer it takes to solidify?

The nature of bones is determined by nutrition and exercise. This is well-documented.

[Shammy Davis]

With juveniles, skeletal maturity and size matter, but there are many exceptions. Zenyatta was late maturing and didn't make it to the track until she was four. In the races to the Kentucky Derby, there are more 2 year olds that don't make it to their derby season, than do. Those that do make the derby, normally are retired because of injury that year. There is something to be said for "late maturing" racehorses when you remember that only 3% of an annual foal crop are stakes winners.