Speed and stamina

[Elles]

How come there are speed horses in the pedigrees of stayers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartier_Champion_Stayer
Westerner http://www.pedigreequery.com/westerner has Danehill / Danzig.
Vinnie Roe http://www.pedigreequery.com/vinnie+roe has Indian Ridge.

[Pan Zareta]

How come there are speed horses in the pedigrees of stayers?

Probably for the same reason that one or more relatively stamina-laden TBs are usually found in the pedigrees of most highly successful racing Quarter Horses. Elite stamina requires a touch of elite speed, and vice versa. It's the fastest stayers and the most enduring speedballs that win the races. Looks to me like there's at least one source for quality speed at a mile or less in the 5 gen pedigrees of most of the Cartier champions.

[Elles]

Thank you Pan Zareta, thoroughbred bloodlines and breeding are fascinating subjects!

[Elles]

Thoroughbreds I know of that can be found in Quarter horses are Find a Buyer, Hempen, Azure Te, Beduino, L'Naturel, Little Request and Mayshego. I do not know if these were very fast horses.

[Pan Zareta]

Thoroughbreds I know of that can be found in Quarter horses are Find a Buyer, Hempen, Azure Te, Beduino, L'Naturel, Little Request and Mayshego. I do not know if these were very fast horses.

There are literally thousands of TBs that have raced and/or bred with the QH just in the 74 years since the QH registry was established. Seven TBs recognized as such are in the AQHA Hall of Fame (and I can think of at least that many more that ought to be).

Of the names you mention, the females were non-blacktype winners, but I'm not sure at what distance. The males were all blacktype at 5-7f. So was Three Bars who is the single most influential TB to the modern QH population overall and especially so to the racing Quarters. In conventional (TB) racing terms none of the males would ever be considered a 'stayer' but they and the females have obvious stamina influences in their pedigrees and some degree of improved stamina was undoubtedly one of the effects of introducing these horses and mares into a population bred for brilliant speed at less than half the minimum distance they traveled at maturity.

[Elles]

And before 1940 there were (among others) the army remount stallions. Mostly TB stallions.

[Pan Zareta]

And before 1940 there were (among others) the army remount stallions. Mostly TB stallions.

The Remount wasn't disbanded until after WWII and indeed most of the stallions they provided were TB. Unfortunately, the influence of the TB Remount sires on the QH is difficult to even roughly estimate because for the first two decades of the AQHA's existence TBs and 50% or more TB crosses, even those with outstanding QH performance credentials, were effectively barred from the permanent registry. TB blood tended to be "forgotten", obscured, denied, etc. prior to rule changes that took effect 1962. The uproar that occurred before the BoD finally in 1958 overruled the executive committee and advanced Go Man Go from the old appendix to the tentative registry had a lot to do with those changes. GMG's damsire, Very Wise, was one of the TB Remount stallions.

[Patuxet]

Here is more useful information:
http://www.drf.com/news/thoroughbred-si ... ter-horses

[Pan Zareta]

Here is more useful information:
http://www.drf.com/news/thoroughbred-si ... ter-horses

Interesting article. Thanks!

Wish they'd left out the 3d para, tho'. I know they're just repeating the speculation of the traditional QH 'authorities' (ultimately, Denhardt & Michaelis) but far more knowledgable sources on colonial American Quarter racing (Mackay-Smith) and the origins of the Chickasaw horses (Thornton Chard) credibly and definitively dispute the claims there.

If the Chickasaw horses were of Spanish origin, it was more recent than the Conquistador era. That *Janus was a strong influence for short speed there is no doubt. In fact, he turns up frequently in Edgar's CAQRH/M pedigrees but there is a conspicuous lack of evidence that he was frequently crossed with Spanish mares, Chickasaw or otherwise - unless one presumes all of his progeny with unknown dams were actually out of Spanish mares.

One reason fewer breeders are 'stick[ing] their neck' out to breed to TBs is that there's really no need. The heavy inbreeding in the racing QH is all to TBs and ~3.75/4 TBs. One recent cross that did put the neck on the line produced 2010 World racing QH Champion Apollitical Jess (2007 sor h by Mr. Jess Perry QH - Apollitical Time QH by Apollo TB).

Rumor has it that her owner paid about $2M to breed Justanold Love (1979 Dash For Cash) to Alydar. That was during the Lundy era, of course.

[Elles]

And some speed was brought into the TB by American breeders who used non TB horses. I think Toubillon was one of those horses with this non TB blood. Was it really non TB I am wondering? As like you are saying most speedy Quarter horses also had a lot of TB blood.

[Pan Zareta]

And some speed was brought into the TB by American breeders who used non TB horses. I think Toubillon was one of those horses with this non TB blood. Was it really non TB I am wondering? As like you are saying most speedy Quarter horses also had a lot of TB blood.

Tourbillon, like a small but significant percentage of the total number of TBs foaled worldwide in 1928, could not trace in every line to individuals previously recorded in the GSB, so could not be included in the GSB while the Jersey Act was enforced (1913-1949). He and his progeny remained welcome in most other TB registries during that time.

I'm not 100% certain that all of Tourbillon's non-GSB lines are American. Certainly that was the source of the most obvious 'problem', the several lines in his dam's pedigree that terminate at a horse or mare of unknown pedigree foaled in North America or imported there from countries outside the British Isles.

Most of those terminals were foaled prior to the establishment of the GSB. Trying to characterize them in terms of TB/non-TB is a purely rhetorical exercise. Obviously, their blood didn't prevent their descendants from competing successfully with top performing TBs that traced in every line to previous entries in the GSB. That's why many of those descendants, including the 2d dam of Nearco and the 3d dam of Nasrullah, had already been received into the GSB prior to 1913 and stayed in under a 'grandfather' clause.

Some of the speediest "QHs" were nothing but TB. Piggin String, for one example.