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It definitely could be a case of him being too costly – his fee is private but is likely £300k a pop, whereas Walk in the Park is likely under £10k.
The over use of this blood line is a disaster waiting to happen. A NH horse with six crosses of Northern Dancer cannot be good, or the light bone, structure of horses going jumping. No wonder there are fatalities every day of the week.
Slower races with bigger “proper jumping horses” would really be no bad thing.
As for putting Annie Power to Galileo, what we get is a foal inbred 2X4 to Sadlers Wells with an additional cross to Northern Dancer. It wouldn’t necessarily be any faster, but it might be unsound and if a filly foal it would be hard to breed her with out more additional crosses.
We want proper big outcrossed jumpers and mares with a bit of rough blood.Do you think we breed too much with speed in mind these days? Does a high class hurdler need to be a big, slow, jumping type horse? Looking at past examples you wouldn’t think so, but, bloodstock is not an area I am expert in so I would love to educate myself more.
I wasn’t actually familiar with Annie’s pedigree to see the cross-duplication of Northern Dancer. But in Quevega’s case what would discourage a match up? Would it solely be the price, as TheGun said?
I thought it was harder to keep big horses sound in both wind and limb. Thistlecrack looks like a proper big staying chaser and is standing in a box. Party Politics won the Grand National breathing through a tracheostomy.
Although swings and roundabouts- perhaps poor Vautour’s leg would not have broken in the field if it had been a bigger thicker boned leg, or perhaps it was just bad luck.
I take your point about the inbreeding. Rough blooded mares to retain genetic diversity is no bad thing. Where will their daddies come from though, if standing unfashionable national hunt sires with small books becomes financially non viable?At one time many of our best jumpers were sired by stallions from the old scheme of the Hunter Improvement Society. These were then largely stallions who were unfashionably bred, were low grade performers on the flat and hurdles. they were however selected for hardiness, soundness and conformation. there was a society show of stallions, originally at Derby and latterly at Newmarket. Soundness and conformation were the key points here, no horse with a curb, spavin, wind problems etc were allowed premiums.
Looking at some of the stallions marketed for jumping now, well I spotted curby hocks, sickle hocks and I am pretty sure some retired unsound. Native Dancer, who appears via Northern Dancer crosses and crosses of his own line can pass on unsoundness.There also isn’t any requirement to publish any conformation altering surgery or any other problems in the public domain is there? Unless it is talked about to the racing press, you can be trimming back soft palates and having the horse racing a few weeks later with nobody any the wiser….so the get of a stallion prone to throwing offspring with DDSP etc can be winning all round them and the stallion gets to spread his conformationally unsound genes a bit further. Ditto bleeders…some connections volunteer the info and it is sometimes in the form as an explanation for a fade/PU but a lot must go unremarked or just rumoured. So if you are looking to buy a related horse, you don’t know whether “disputed lead to second last, faded, heavily eased” on the form of its half brother meant just an unfit horse or a bleeder.
Agree with so much of what people are saying here. I’d like to see more horses who jumped themselves used as stallions in GB/Ireland as well. Not enough was made of that when Sizing John won the Gold Cup. With a stallion who was a jumper himself, you get not only physical toughness, but crucially mental toughness too. To Crepello’s point about HIS, there is a very rigorous sport horse vetting system in Ireland, and I would rather use one of those lesser lights than a potential softy that raced a few times on the Flat and broke down. Some of those sport horse stallions have a very good record with few runners. They may not have a star, but then they cover so few mares (plus, if we all ignored them on those grounds, there would have been no Desert Orchid, for example). People are too obsessed with what is fashionable at the sales.
Desert Orchid’s dam was by Brother, a winner of King George V Cup for the best HIS stallion. HIS stallions sired Merryman II, Highland Wedding and Aldaniti, winners of the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup winners Pas Seul and Master Smudge.
Agree with so much of what people are saying here. I’d like to see more horses who jumped themselves used as stallions in GB/Ireland as well. Not enough was made of that when Sizing John won the Gold Cup. With a stallion who was a jumper himself, you get not only physical toughness, but crucially mental toughness too. To Crepello’s point about HIS, there is a very rigorous sport horse vetting system in Ireland, and I would rather use one of those lesser lights than a potential softy that raced a few times on the Flat and broke down. Some of those sport horse stallions have a very good record with few runners. They may not have a star, but then they cover so few mares (plus, if we all ignored them on those grounds, there would have been no Desert Orchid, for example). People are too obsessed with what is fashionable at the sales.
Is there any HIS equivalent these days, or any stallion inspections of any sort for sport horses in the UK?
@Louse12 –
I was wondering the same thing: seemingly the old HIS got incorporated into the National Light Horse Breeding Society. The website has a list of approved stallions:
http://www.sporthorsegb.co.uk/sports-horse-stallions.asp
138 of them on the list, but only 20 of those are TBs, and – looking at their year of foaling – most of these would either no longer be with us or would have been pensioned. Nonetheless, it’s interesting and important to see the ones that were approved – and to think about why there are so few TBs on the list now. For sure, some of this will be about the rise in importance of the continental sports horse, especially for dressage and show jumping e.g. KWPN, Oldenburgs. But perhaps this is also about current TBs not reaching the required conformation/soundness/performance standards for approval (as per Crepello’s post)?
I would think it’s more the former, the popularity of European Warmbloods, than the lack of soundness. Then again thoroughbred breeding has really altered in the last thirty years.
Fashion is a sad thing isn’t it, especially when animals are involved.Yes, it would be a great if there were some kind of regulations in place regarding soundness in potential stallions, rather like what they have in Germany, a country whose contribution to the modern thoroughbred is out of all proportion to the size of their tiny bloodstock industry.
Not much hope of that, though!
It might help if racing journalists were a little less supine in their attitude towards the big studs and stallion masters. We’re constantly seeing horses retiring to stud after a handful of races, with insanely large books of mares in place, yet no questions asked, or criticisms made, by our fearless reporters.
Can hardly think of any stallions these days who won over jumps. Yet it’s not that long ago we had the likes of Monksfield, Royal Vulcan, Alderbrook, Ra Nova, Cruise Missile, Nickname, Nomadic Way and Midnight Legend doing well over jumps before stud careers.
Now good NH sires like Presenting, Shantou or Definite Article/Vinnie Roe get no opportunity to sustain their line.
The French have so much more clue than us about this. Not completely blinded by the latest Coolmore inbred. Happy to race entires over hurdles and breed from the best.
That is why so many French bred horses are successful , and always have been. They race entires, send them to stud, have rough blood in the pedigrees, Sprinter Sacre was non-thoroughbred. British breeders should learn something from French breeders.
Coolmore will destroy the thoroughbred if they are allowed to carry on inbreeding at this rate. Someone should get them to look at what happened to Marcel Boussac’s breeding empire.I thought now would be a good time to bump this thread, as it has been confirmed that Annie Power is in foal to none other than Camelot.
It should be one speedy hurdler, but as those of you pointed out earlier, is the 2×3 inbreeding of Sadler’s Wells too close for comfort?
I’m really looking forward to seeing this horse on the racetrack, and also to Camelot’s first crop of 2 year olds on the flat this season.
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