M Jellish/Miff

[alm]

Stamina is not something bred into a horse on the stallion side.

The elements that influence it the most (circulatory system, respiratory system, nerve system, mitochondria) are all inherited on the dam side.  The X chromosome.

The stallion gives skeletal balance and structural integrity, which is why many top distance runners are sired by sprinters and milers (think Mr. Prospector and Fappiano).

The Phipps family at one time only kept mares who had won at 9 furlongs or more, regardless of how brilliant their shorter races were.  For this reason.

Read past posts on the topic.

[fkach]

Thanks for that breeding lesson. Very interesting. But at very long distances I\'m still going to discount the chances of horses by sprinter sires relative to horses by sires with more stamina even if the other side looks great. I have no expertise, but I have 30 years of observation that makes me think the sire matters too. ;-)

[rosewood]

Alm,

Sad there are no more Phipps families left in the game.

That was when horses didn\'t run on Lasix, Bute, Clenbuterol, EPO , milkshakes and other drugs that enhance the performance of the circulatory, respiratory and nerve system functions.

[Wrongly]

Alm

After your post I had to look this up to make sure.  According to Lauren Stich, \"The male parts of a pedigree (the sire and broodmare sire) determine the distance and surface where the runner will be most effective.  The female parts of a pedigree (Dam and her tail-female family) determine racing class.\"  

She appears to express a different opinion than yours.

[alm]

Not really Wrongly...it\'s an interesting quote, but very simplistic...both parents contribute 50% of the gene pool, but the equine genome was the first to be decoded (by Australian scientists.)  Their findings are pretty conclusive about which parent dominates which traits.

Having said that, the stallion does in fact influence distance ability because the stallion contributes dominent influences on the muscular-skeletal structure.  It\'s an important component leading to balance and stride.

However, her use of the word \'class\' is simplistic.  What constitutes class?  Hard to define.  The mare dominates the contribution of heart size and circulatory health, which feeds into and may dominate stamina influences.  Call it class it you want.  But it has a lot to do with getting a distance of ground.

Look at Elusive Quality and Distorted Humor.  Chances are you would not have guessed they would get Smarty Jones and Funnycide, based on their racing records.  In fact they get lots of good horses running all distances because in part they contribute a very balanced horse with a very efficient stride.

The dam of Casino Drive (Jazil and Rags to Riches) is the poster girl for contributing stamina to her foals because of the influences cited above.

Secretariat got his heart from his mom...it was triple the size of the average equine heart.  Secretariat could not pass his heart size to his sons, because it could only come down the female line.  He did however pass it to his daughters (extra X chromosome) who themselves passed it to some of their foals.

It\'s a complicated subject.  I only write about it to comment on whether BB can get 12 furlongs or not at his best speed.  Chances are that he can.

[Electrocutioner]

Alm-

With all due respect, as a scientist with knowledge of the subject, I find your statements regarding parental influences on progeny performance are simply a bunch of hogwash. How about the moon sign during the conception period? The evidence is just as good. If, as you say, there are legitimate scientific studies from Australia that support your statements, please post the references so we can all be informed of this truly important information on equine genetics.

That sound you hear is Gregor Mendel turning over in his grave.

[jbelfior]

I\'m not a scientist or breeding expert, but past evidence tends to support what ALM is saying.

Did Afleet Alex dominate the Belmont because Afleet was his father or because Hawkster sired his mother (Maggy Hawk)?


Or did Point Given dominate because Thunder Gulch was his dad or because Turkoman sired his mom? Speaking of Thunder Gulch, did he dominate because Gulch was his dad or because Storm Bird sired his mom?


Want more? Editor\'s Note\'s daddy was Forty Niner, hardly a stayer; but his mom was sired by Caveat, a Belmont winner. Colonial Affair was by Pleasant Colony, but his mom was sired by Nijinsky II.


I doubt you will find many Belmont winners who had moms sired by sprinters!!



Good Luck,
Joe B.

[alm]

Look Electrocutioner, this site is not appropriate to a full discussion of this stuff and I don\'t like to use ad hominum arguments in place of real discourse.  However, using Mendel as a reference on genetics indicates you must have been a hell of a scientist...a hundred years ago!  

You have no idea as to what you are talking about or you are woefully out of touch with the genome projects...whether they took place in Australia or anywhere else for that matter.

An entire sub-industry exists in the throroughbred breeding world today based upon the matching of phenotypes.  A bunch of great horses have been bred as a result...pulling down the things a stallion can deliver, which are a balanced body and efficient stride.  Go to Equixbiomechanics site and learn something new.

[BitPlayer]

Alm:  There is no need to attack Electrocutioner.  If there is indeed an Australian study to support your earlier post, just provide some information about it (perhaps the authors and where it was published) so that those of us who are interested can track it down.

Jbelfior:  I don\'t think that Electrocutioner was questioning that the dam side of a pedigree is important.  The issue is with Alm\'s suggestion that certain specific characteristics always come from the dam side, while others always come from the sire.  While that may be true of some genes, it is not true for most of them.  Further, many characteristics are not the result of a single gene, but of the combined effects of many genes, with some coming from each parent.

[Electrocutioner]

So you don\'t like to use ad hominem arguments in place of real discourse. Hmmm... maybe you should look up the definition of ad hominem. And don\'t forget to spell it correctly- \"em\" not \"um\".

Regarding your criticism of my mention of Gregor Mendel. Well, he is acknowledged to be the father of genetics. They ARE called the LAWS of Mendelian Inheritance. I don\'t recall anyone saying that they were now obsolete, or that they really should be called the \"Suggestions of Inheritance\".

Regarding having no idea of what I am talking about and being woefully out of touch with the genome projects (another \"non-ad hominem\" reference), I do know that one of us has been a contributor to several of the genome projects. I am reasonably confident that that person is not you.

All of this is obviously just to change the conversation. I am still waiting for the reference that you speak of.

As far as the Equix group, I have no issue with making mating decisions based on phenotype. That has been done since the breed began. But what you wrote was about certain traits being inherited in a sex-specific way.

And by the way, I did not engage in an ad hominem attack. I did not attack you; I wrote that your statement was hogwash. A properly worded ad hominem argument would have said something like \"Gee, you must be really stupid if you believe that nonsense!\". I didn\'t say that, but if that\'s how you took it, then so be it.

[albany]

Flawless retort!

[sekrah]

Just a thought that would support alm.

There isn\'t a single horse in the 2008 Belmont Stakes with a Dam\'s Sire that has offspring producing an Average Winning Distance (per BRIS) lower than 7.4 furlongs (Macho Again).  There are 6 horses with Sire AWD of 7.0 or lower including, Big Brown, Denis of Cork, Icabad Crane, Macho Again, Ready\'s Echo, Tale of Ekati.

There definently seems to be alot more influence from the stamina of the dam\'s sire than the sire.

[Electrocutioner]

First, to take one race as a sample is simply not valid. Do it over 1000 races and apply some real statistics to the results and see what you have.

But that is a moot point. Let\'s say that a one race sample is in fact valid. You state that Alm\'s position is supported by the fact that you have observed that the maternal grandsires have a higher AWD (using an arbitrary cutoff point-  this is why you need a much larger sample size- you don\'t really know if 7.4 is different from 7.0, or that both fall within the margin of error and therefore are not different). But Alm\'s main point is that stamina is inherited through the female, through a sex-linked mode of inheritance. There is absolutely no evidence for this. This implies that the genes responsible can only be located on the X chromosome, and no other. That is a preposterous assumption and that is why I asked for the reference-  show me the study so we can all look at it, and if it is valid science I will take my hat off to him. But until those studies are done and show convincing results,it is all just speculation, and not at all supported by what we know, based on the genome projects in various species, about which genes are located on which chromosomes.  

Another reason that the observation could be refuted is to ask whether you have really done a carefully controlled comparison of the maternal grandsires versus the sires that you checked out. After all, most of the grandsires will have had many more and older crops. Young sires would not be expected to have very high AWDs, since they likely don\'t have many foal crops that have raced through maturity, and so would not have had many opportunities to compete in longer races. So there are a lot of factors that have to be controlled for in order to make such a comparison.  You might also want to see if what you have observed in this small sample is any different than what you might find in a much larger randomly selected population.

Show me some real evidence. Or at least a good scientific paper to support the position. That is all I ask.

[Electrocutioner]

Just to follow up-  I don\'t have AWD stats handy, but I do see that in this Belmont, there are three sires for whom the current crop of three year olds is their oldest crop to race, and two other sires have four year olds racing. Given that younger horses usually run shorter races until they mature, would you agree that this might be responsible for the lower AWD for sires versus grandsires? Maybe a more valid comparison would be to compare the paternal grandsires with the maternal grandsires.

[miff]

\"As far as the Equix group, I have no issue with making mating decisions based on phenotype. That has been done since the breed began. But what you wrote was about certain traits being inherited in a sex-specific way\"

Elect,

A Question for you, someone close to this,


...fwiw,In 2002 I was approached by a group to invest in horses to be purchased strictly according to Equix Group recommendation.The group spent app $6m from 2002 until 2006 buying 20 yearlings. They recently filed for bankruptcy and dissolved the partnership. I realize that just 20 yearlings is a very small sample.Maybe just a bad run of luck for that group.

If there was any remote key to breeding, do you think that Sheik Mohammed (billions invested with the most competent breeding advisory people in the world) would be in all the big 2/3 yr old races year after year and have purchased many champions.It is a coincidence that the two fastest horses currently on the planet, Curlin and Big Brown were really dismissed at the sales by the \"informed\" breeding/comformation experts.Isn\'t breeding a champion more or less just good fortune/random like shooting dice in a casino.Thanks


Mike