We tuned-in hipsters of horsemanship know that Secretariat sired a lot of babies and they ain't all chips off the old block. Well, guess what? Now it seems that distant relatives of Totilas are coming out of the woodwork. Full brother, half sister, maybe, but second cousin? What's next, "went to high school with?"
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Too much! Seriously?
ReplyDeleteWe breed Appaloosas and have 3 favorite lines that we cross. All our foals are "cousins" or related to some degree. I jokingly refer to them as uncles or nieces or whatever. Emphasis on the jokingly. As is "Your uncle-cousin-nephew-brother is being naughty kicking that wall, but you're a Good Boy!"
Personally one of my pet peeves is when someone refers to 2 foals by the same stallion as half-brothers, which strictly speaking is only proper for 2 foals out of the same dam. Cousin is just ridiculous!
Those are too funny!
ReplyDeleteI am finding out that I really like horses with my boy's sire in their bloodlines. He seems to have thrown a distinctive shoulder and hip which gets repeated (I've seen it in other offspring, an OTTB grandbaby, Oldenburg grandbaby and registered Half Arabian grandbaby, so he seems fairly prepotent) but that's just hilarious to me!
(And if anyone has suggestions of how to search for horses based on bloodlines, please share! Dreamhorse and equinenow both allow bloodlines searches, but I'd love to know of others.)
Ah, I think both Tucker and Toby are related to Secretariat, but so what? It's like generations removed and certainly, neither one of them won the Triple Crown!
ReplyDeleteIt remains to be seen if Totilas ia a breeding anomaly or actually can pass on his extraordinary ability. So, until that proved out...big deal that a horse is a distant relative. *sigh*
I always search through Arabian horse pedigrees to see if they are related to my mares.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I actually did own a granddaughter of Secretariat, an OTTB Thoroughbred built more like a Quarter Horse than a TB. She wasn't very fast so she had a short racing career and I acquired her in her teens as a starving rescue. She was a nice ride though, powerful as a freight train, but I just didn't need another horse so after reconditioning and retraining her, I re-homed her.
Ha. I believe that is what's known as "name dropping" in the people world (and are you kidding me??) Lines definitely matter - to a point. Several of our Arabs have what I would call "La-Di-Da" bloodlines, but honestly? Who cares what your sister's counsin's uncle's wife's brother did back in the day? What can YOU do??
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is a case of osmosis in the equine industry... what next? Shall we talk about stablemates and other important folks we rub noses with in the Neighborhood? *Giggle*
My baby girl "Faerie Tale" is a great granddaughter of Secretariat and looks a lot like him but is also a Walldorf baby so looks like him as well. Red for sure! You're right though, it is about "what can you do?" It is funny!
ReplyDeleteI always joke that my mare has her Thoroughbred days. I looked at her pedigree and she actually had decent race lines. Her broodmare sire is half-brother to John Henry. But whenever I tell people that I tell them that it really doesn't matter. Because she's an Appaloosa and it's not like any one really cares. To me it's just a fun tidbit, but if I were to breed her I wouldn't advertise that fact to sell the foals.
ReplyDeleteI think it is frustrating when people try to market their horses via bloodlines only. The thing about horses (like people is that each and everyone is unique. It's silly to assume that a horse with a distant tie to a superstar will also be a superstar (unless that horse has also had the same exact upbringing and training as the superstar.) I think performance, temperament and trainability are way more important than bloodlines.
ReplyDeleteCheck out my recent blog post:
http://thetrakehnerfiles.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/my-first-foal-is-a-yearling/