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You folks need some Dynaformer horses, he was built like a tank (had the biggest hooves I’ve seen on a TB) and his sons and daughters are the same. Americain would make a great NH sire IMO, he was a real stayer and has good bone http://i63.tinypic.com/21zjpk.jpg The Roberto line is underrepresented in GB and Ireland.
Lucarno was marketed as a NH sire, not sure if he is still at stud. He was a strong and big horse who won a St Leger, only one remote line of ND, would have proved a good outcross for flat mares too.
Breeders seriously need to get their heads around the fact that a horse who can stay and win the St Leger isn’t necessarily slow. That Northern Dancer influence at the level we have now is a very bad thing for the future of the breed and welfare of horses. Yes we have some refined nice looking horses out there, but they are not in the show ring, they have a job to do.
What will Coolmore do with all these multiple crossed mares and stallions? It’s time some kind of strategy was put in place to limit the number of inbred ND line horses at stud, they should at the very least be examined for unsoundness, conformation defects and hardiness, those who fail should be gelded and used as riding horses.I noticed just how light and narrow some of the novices were at Kempton on Boxing Day and the day after, I checked the pedigrees and they were NH bred not flat. It seems that the stallions available are beginning to lack substance.
Louise12 makes a good point about the inbreeding adding to unsoundness and fatalities. It was rare for a horse’s leg to just snap in between jumps, NH fatalities were usually falls, now legs snap nearly every day.
There should be a premium offered for breeders to avoid multiple Northern Dancer lines.As much as I understand what you are saying Crepello, and I agree in most part, but the real problem is you try and find a good national hunt mare that you have chosen to buy, without any Northern Dancer in her pedigree, and you still have to be able to afford to buy her. Winning mares are very sought after if they have won over hurdles or fences so confirmation sometimes wins over pedigree, if they have proved their good, then breeders want them !!
Good to see this thread reactivated, especially given the fatalities of recent weeks. I have been a NH fan since I was a small child in the late 1960s. Fall-related fatalities (of which Nichols Canyon is sadly just the latest high profile instance) have always been the downside of the sport – and all of us on here struggle with this, I know. But, I cannot remember seeing horses fracturing legs on the flat whilst running over obstacles ever, at least until recently. Tendon injuries, yes, but fractures on the flat between jumps and hurdles, or even just in a bumper race, no. Now we are seeing this more and more frequently – and I for one don’t like this trend. I cannot help but think that this is indicative of wider trends in the breeding of racehorses generally, and of NH horses in particular. Look at the pedigrees of these flat fatalities, and you see that most of them are indeed over-loaded with ND/RaN/Mr P i.e. they are horses with a flat/speed ‘chassis’ .
For sure, some bred on these lines have made outstanding jumpers, particularly hurdlers. When they can jump, they have speed, or an ‘engine’ and gears that is not what was your typical NH horse. And it can be electric to watch – be that Istabraq or Altior. Yet NH racing as a sport requires not just horses that are brilliant but horses that are durable, that are so sound that they can race multiple times over multiple seasons, and that have guts in abundance. Those qualities rely on diversity in breeding. When diversity disappears it will be but a short step before the majority of the stock being produced is not up to doing what it is being asked to do.
As Crepello, Louise and others on this thread have said, there is a real need for this issue to be grasped. In terms of sires, diversity is in very short supply. If one looks at current, and not that old, NH stallions, there isn’t much out there that is light on ND/Mr P: Lucarno is one (last heard of at Longford House, Co. Tipperary), and I’d add Dunaden, Blue Bresil and Sir Percy. If one looks at the flat, and the pedigrees of those who have run recently in the Derby/Leger (the age old source of NH stallions), well there is not much sign of diversity in what’s coming through down the line. It’s all ND/Mr P. That’s why we really do need some serious thinking re the remaining sons of the late Presenting, for example. As I’ve said previously, there is surely a role here for the two National Studs?
And yes, Crepello – size & substance (which relates to diversity). On which, Hell’s Kitchen (by Robin des Champs) was a stand-out exception at Kempton. Richi exclaimed at him – but that only goes to show just how small the majority now are.
Well This is an interesting dabate, pub and a pint night would be good
Maybe just maybe this sire is more to blame than just Northern Dancer you try and find a pedigree that has not got one of his sons inhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearco
In My opinion it still comes back to the market place, if you are breeding National Hunt horses commercially the usual go to stallions will always be popular and all have ND in the pedigree Scorpion, Kayf Tara, Oscar (nd Both Sides of pedigree) Getaway, Yeats, Milan (nd both sides), Walk in the Park, Martaline (nd Both Sides) Linamix, Stowaway, Midnight Legend (alas sadly gone), to name but a few.
If you are breeding to race yourself then of course you can diversify and take the chance if said foal wins a few point to point you maybe can sell for a few bob profit, but of course if that fails the your stuck after 5 year of keep, training fees etc etc….a huge loss financially
As for breeding what I call a heavy topped horse, I can tell you from experience, they really struggle with wind problems, and as for keeping sound, well, you keep your fingers crossed everytime they run, and normally you have to run them in bottomless ground as they are as slow as barges. Racecourses have changed over the years as regards ground condition and many trainers now realize how important speed is to win races, it really is the trainers, bloodstock agents who need to change their needs, and that really just isnt going to happen in my opinion. Nobody breeds horses to make a loss intentionally in my opinionAbsolutely – it’s not clear why Roberto has been abandoned. The over-dominance of Coolmore has happened very quickly, and their obsession with one bloodline probably has a lot to do with it. You can add many other valuable stallion lines to that one. To RustyRails’ point, toughness does not equal being slow, and the rate of change in breeding has overtaken any good sense. Fashion is everything, but these are living creatures, not handbags.
The Bloodhorse stallion book released every year has an overview of the najor extant sirelines and the current stallions standing in the US from each sireline. Does not include some regional stallions that are not advertised in Bloodhorse but it shows the genetic bottlenecking of the breed. A lot of lines are surviving by just one or two stallions.
Herod’s line is all-but-extinct in North America (Legal Jousting and T F Classic Twist are the only ones, both used for sporthorse breeding) so is not included in the book.
edit: not sure why the images aren’t loading
Maybe the reason Roberto was not popular the horse was so closely bred on both sides of the pedigree it was hardly suprising please see below
Inbreeding:
=Nearco (ITY): 4S X 4D
Blue Larkspur: 4S X 4D
=Pharos (GB): 5S X 5S X 5D
=Nogara (ITY): 5S X 5D
=Mumtaz Begum (FR): 5S X 4D
=Plucky Liege (GB): 5S X 5S X 5D
Black Servant: 5S X 5D
Blossom Time: 5S X 5D
*Teddy: 5S X 5D
=Sardanapale (FR): 5D X 5DIt doesn’t seems to be effecting Frankel’s popularity…..
I think there were some issues with Roberto passing on some temperament issues.Classic Twist is interesting. We had Last News in Ireland for a while from the same line (don’t think he is around any more), and also from the US we have Lakeshore Road (one of the last Alleged horses) standing as a sport horse stallion. These sport horse sires have been a useful source of different lines, but are also disappearing and being replaced by the fashionable stuff. People are afraid to be a bit different, because as RustyRails says, you may struggle to sell your progeny, so breeders feel forced to use the ‘right’ horse. Road to Riches, for example, was sold for much less than any of his relations by Old Vic at the sales. However, unfashionable/diverse stallions have given us many top horses, and should not be dismissed. Roberto line horses are not notoriously difficult as a rule, although that streak was there with him, and with Dynaformer – I think he just became unfashionable on the Flat, and that was that.
Louise you are so right I absolutely adore Alleged in a pedigree, and I wish I could afford to use Flemensfirth ,
Alleged puts so much strengh, fight, determination into the pedigree, fantastic national hunt pedigree and is also doing well as a broodmare sire at the moment, another 3 that are doing so well as broodmare sires are, Bob Back, Definite Article, and of course Presenting (bless his sole)One thing from your quote we have not touched on is back in my day (many years ago) my father loves to buy NTR horse….non thoroughbred registered horses , do you thinks that why many trainers are buying AQPS registered horses from France, for maybe stronger confirmation and limbs, oh and by the way is anyone has a Turgeon mare for sale for £100 please let me know……lol…I adore his stock
I would say that is why AQPS horses are popular, RustyRails. Most are almost totally TB at this stage, but they still have that bit of something different that we are losing. The French also keep the good jumping lines alive by racing entires – and they are not afraid to use a jumper with a good NH pedigree for their mares, even if he wasn’t a flying machine on the track. They don’t appear to be doing much wrong, and now a GC winner by a British jumper too – one would think this would make people think. As Titus asks above, how come we aren’t keeping Presenting colts etc. entire? It even took the French to give us King’s Theatre stallions, and now Robin des Champs* too. We will probably get the Frankel Flat rejects instead.
*Edited to clarify that this means a son of RDC as a stallion
Miss Woodford; Didn’t he and his progeny tend to eat people for breakfast, and were late developers [ok for NH horses, though]? I always used to look out for them when racing [albeit keeping well back!]. Good to hear from you Miss Woodford, by the way! I’m on a facebook page that has an American lady on it that puts up the most amazing pictures of horses both from America and this country…
Out of interest, I have just finished looking at the data from the Leopardstown Festival just passed: 28 races, 361 runners (359 unique individuals), 160 sires. On the face of it, that sounds quite healthy, but …
213 of those runners (59%) were from the Nearctic/Northern Dancer sire line (of which 128, or 37% of all runners, were from the Sadler’s Wells line) ; 39 (11%) were from Nearco/Nasrullah and 32 (11%) came from Native Dancer. 18 came from Nearco/Dante/High Top (mostly from Beneficial) and another 5 from Nearco/Turn-to. So, there is the genetic bottleneck of ‘fragile speed’, but in NH racing. Only 51 runners (~14%) did not descend from Phalaris lines: 14 of those came from Konigsstuhl/Monsun (from 7 stallions); 14 came from Ribot (from 3 stallions: Flemensfirth, Shantou and Anzillero) and 11 from Donatello/Crepello (all from Presenting). Djebel/Ahonoora had five runners (from two stallions – Definite Article and his son, Vinnie Roe). Then Birkhahn/Acatenango and War Relic/In Reality supplied one runner each.
In terms of winners: 16 sires had one or more winners, and two had > 1 winner. Northern Dancer’s sire line between them produced 12 winners (43%), but from ~60% of the runners. By contrast, the Nearco/Nasrullah line had 11% of the runners but supplied 9, or 32%, of the winners, through Mill Reef (Stowaway, Heron Island), Red God (Gamut – Road to Respect) and Grey Sovereign (Blue Bresil). Which line did better? Thinking ‘diversity proper’, four winners came from non-Phalaris line sires – as clear an indication as any that difference is no impediment to racecourse performance. Two of those were courtesy of Presenting (both chase wins); one came from a Monsun son (Getaway – a bumper) and the other from Definite Article (his sole runner at the meeting).
The headline act of the meeting though was Stowaway (d 2015), with 6 winners (5 hurdles and a bumper) from 13 runners – a staggering performance that seems to have gone unnoticed thus far in the bloodstock pages, in marked contrast say to Scat Daddy’s four at Royal Ascot.
Yes, Titus, that is telling information. This is an old article on Stowaway: http://www.montjeu.com/archives/346. The only drawback he has (apart from being dead!) is that his progeny possibly don’t transfer their bumper/hurdles talent entirely to fences. As you say, though, he merits some discussion. One can only conclude that most commercial sites receive funding to promote/market the big boys’ sires, and Stowaway stood for a modest fee at a smaller stud. The person behind the Montjeu blog is an independent bloodstock advisor, but sadly doesn’t seem to write any more. You don’t have to agree with these people (I’m not a Stowaway fan), but wouldn’t it be great to see a little independence among bloodstock writers, and then people could draw their own conclusions, instead of following like sheep down a path that is not actually the best one.
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