The Germans Are Coming

   Back on May 11 I posted a blog titled "Out Of The Box Breeding" in which I discussed the pedigree of Animal Kingdom. I especially wanted to point out something that I rarely hear about in horse breeding and that is Hy-bred Vigor. Hy-bred Vigor is something that is obtained by the introduction of new blood into an inbred family.
   All I read about is the merits of this or that sire and it seems that every year or so a new sire is in fashion. I am always reminding people that most of the time the sire doesn't carry much weight in a pedigree but his family lines do. If one looks at the pedigrees of the 2 yr olds of each season it will be found that a huge percentage of these horses are all closely related. Virtually all of the really good horses of the last 30 yrs or so are of the Northern Dancer and Raise A Native bloodlines. But what do we really have here?
    Native Dancer is the sire of Raise A Native who is the sire of Mr Prospector. Native Dancer is the son of Phalaris who is also the g. sire of Nearco who is the g sire of Northern Dancer. So you see, they are all related and most of our top horses today are really inbred to Northern Dancer and Mr Prospector.
   Any species, in order to develop the most desired traits, ends up being inbred because of selective breeding programs. This process eventually results in a deterioration of the breed, which in this case, means a weakening of the stamina and bone structure resulting in more break downs and diminishing stamina. This is about where we stand now.
   In order to reverse this trend there must be new blood introduced into the inbred family. I have seen some of this happening in the case of Animal Kingdom and now with Danedream. By the crossing of the Northern Dancer line with the German horses a much stronger horse is being produced. About 15-16 winners in a row of the Arc can be traced back to Nearco and now a filly wins the Arc in record time as a result of the introduction of the German line into the Phalaris family.
   I really believe that our next Triple Crown winner will be the result of an out cross with a horse such as Big Brown who I think is the best I've seen since Secretariat. BB is inbred to Nearco and is a horse that had high speed and could sustain it over any distance. In my opinion, an out cross with him may produce a durable horse with plenty of stamina and a high cruising speed. In fact, I predicted 2 yrs ago that Big Brown would sire the next TC winner and I stand by that.
Backstretch

PS- My next blog will be about this weeks 2 yr old preps for the Breeders Cup.