Miff,
Just a little more food for thought though I\'m sure your mind is made up - and that\'s fine. Just please keep in mind that it\'s understandable for the rest of us to look at this with a bit more of an open mind.
From a link previously posted here by bdhsheets:
\"Every thoroughbred horse traces its ancestry back 300 years to three Arabian stallions brought to England from the Middle East, according to the Jockey Club.
Since then, the philosophy of breeding these animals has remained remarkably unchanged: Breed the best to the best and hope for the best. That kind of selective breeding improves the speed of the thoroughbred. While few speed records are being shattered these days, thoroughbreds are consistently faster. Still, it is not easy to make a champion. \"No one\'s found the magic formula,\" said David Williamson, bloodstock adviser at Gainsborough Farm in Versailles, Ky., the home of Elusive Quality, Smarty Jones\' sire. So many disparate factors go into a winning horse. According to Williamson, the recipe breaks down like this: 25 percent genes, 25 percent quality of upbringing and care, 25 percent training, 10 percent jockey skill and 15 percent luck. Science does not yet know how to manipulate genes into building a better racehorse, said Cecilia Penedo, an equine research geneticist at the University of California at Davis. \"The goal is to understand the genetic basis of performance traits,\" she said. \"There\'s still a good amount of folklore involved in breeding.\" One tool that horse people have in abundance is pedigree information. They can trace a horse\'s ancestry and performance back generations. Understanding this improves the odds of producing a better horse, said Mark Ratzlaff, a professor of horse anatomy at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. \"But it can\'t measure other things, such as the horse\'s desire to win.\"
Much breeding today is little more than informed guesswork based on pedigree - \"so much baloney,\" said Jeff Seder, who runs EQB, the West Grove equine biomechanics company where Miller works. People buying young, unraced horses consult with Seder, who tries to pick future winners based on precise tests and measurements of the animals and how they move. EQB studies family histories of horses, particularly to see which consistently produce large lungs and hearts, with thick walls. Seder uses ultrasound to measure hearts. The great Secretariat had an unusually large heart. The theory, then, is that a great heart makes a great performer. Speculation about Smarty Jones\' heart - as yet unmeasured - is that it is colossal. \"I\'ll bet he has gorgeous cardio,\" Miller said. When Seaman measured Smarty after the Preakness Stakes, he was amazed to find that he outscores the three greatest horses of the last 30 years: Smarty scores a perfect 1 out of 10 for gravity, meaning that everything fits together in proportion. For leverage - the length of hips, shoulders and legs, which helps determine stride - Smarty scores a Plus-9, the highest. And for ratio or efficiency - a function of body mass and leverage - Smarty gets a score known as 10$, the highest. By comparison, Secretariat got an 8 for leverage and a 4 for ratio; Seattle Slew, a 9 and a 5; and Affirmed, a 10 and a 5. Though smaller than the champs, Smarty has more power, Seaman said. \"Technically,\" he added, \"Smarty Jones is the best horse.\"
And possibly, just possiblty, faster.
