EXAMINING PEDIGREE VIA THE FEMALE FAMILY INFLUENCE (As published in the Washington Thoroughbred Magazine)
Pedigree analysis and the examination of family history are important ingredients in any breeding program. Mare and sire selection should be well thought out and any mating should have specific goals as to what the breeder is hoping to accomplish. There are myriad considerations to apply, among them, phenotype and physical compatibility. Duplication of faults in the individuals should be avoided at all costs. Temperament would be another consideration, and an examination of family histories plays a very important part in adopting the most compatible breeding scenario.
The story of the thoroughbred is well documented. Even in the infancy of the breed, scholars and horsemen devoted innumerable hours probing pedigrees endeavoring to pinpoint trends, or inheritable traits, that may, with the application of their own theories or research, produce a Champion racehorse. In those early days, the focus was primarily on the stallion. The mare’s role was secondary to the point that many weren’t even named, being “Highflyer mare”, or “Herod mare”. The focus on the male has continued even today, with most of the statistical references biased toward the sires. But in the twighlight of the 19th century a small group of explorers were searching in a different direction.
Coincidentally, in the late 1800’s, several researchers in Europe were working on a different approach to evaluating pedigree by dividing the thoroughbred into female families. The tail female family was the object of their scholastic efforts. The tail female family is, mother to daughter, to daughter, and so on, in an unbroken line. Tail male is son to son, to son, in an unbroken line. The tail male line will be composed of different female families, while the tail female line will always be from the same family. Realizing that the tail female line would be the best way to classify the lineage, they embarked on their quest to produce a paradigm for pedigree research based on maternal history.
One of these investigators, Bruce Lowe, an Australian living in England, traced the mares listed in the current (at that time) volume of the General Stud Book to their taproot mares as listed in Volume 1 of that record. He compiled a list of the winners of three English Classic races, the St Leger Stakes, the Epsom Derby, and the Epsom Oaks, and traced those winners back to their foundation mare. He then assigned a number, based on the quantity of winners tracing to her, with 1 being the most, followed in numerical order by the number of winners descending to each mare, ending up with 43 families. His work titled “Breeding Racehorses By The Figure System” was published posthumously in 1895.
In 1953 two Polish researchers, Bobinski, and Zamoyski, expanded Lowe’s work to 74 families in their publication “Family Tables Of Racehorses”. Because of the sheer number of individuals involved, Bobinski and Zamoyski added letters to the numbers (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b etc), expanding each family even further, and included families from other parts of the world that could not be traced to the General Stud Book, the American families among them (A1, A2, etc). Other works (Published by Japanese Bloodstock) have expanded the families even more. The family numbers as set forth in “The Family Tables Of Racehorses” are what most researchers use today.
The female family of the modern thoroughbred has also held a fascination for me, and I have come to place a very high value on the importance of these matrons when analyzing family history.
Evaluating a pedigree based on sire-lines has been the easiest, and most popular method used to appraise descent. Statistical information that one might use to interpret performance tilts heavily in favor of the masculine gender, and I have always found this disconcerting, since half of the pedigree is ignored.
The computer age and modern science has now led us to re-evaluate much of what was Lowe’s life’s work. The Equine Genome Project is working to establish a genetic map of the horse, with the work still in progress. There has also been a study in Ireland that is attempting to validate the origins of the breed, which has led to more questions than answers. Studies, which are in relative infancy, examining mitochondria DNA, transferred only through the female, are throwing more questions into the mix, but also creating exciting possibilities. Mitochondria DNA, which is found outside the nucleus of the cell, is self replicating and has it’s own DNA which is composed of very short strands that resist change and remain constant over many generations. Science has proved that what the ancients called “The Fire of Life” is contained within this tiny genetic material. What influences that might be carried forward is still under investigation, but the possibility of transference of traits is there. Personally, I am in gratitude to modern science, Bruce Lowe and those who came both before and after him, for the perseverance in their endeavors as it gave me a basis for my own studies.
My research, which spans many years, has also attempted to find links between the female families and racetrack and/or breeding performance. The most difficult question was how to quantify the evaluation process? Since the early family origins have become more and more clouded due to modern research techniques, I decided to focus on the more recent representatives of the female families. Thus was born the concept of the Modern Conduit Mare. The term is used because these mares acted as the conduits of their particular families into the modern era of racing … the 20th century. Every thoroughbred alive today has a conduit mare. These mares, foaled circa 1900, and not before that date, can be traced within the family history of every modern thoroughbred. There are no criteria established for these mares as regards racing or breeding success, the only qualification is their year of birth. They are simply focal points, or targets used to disseminate information.
Some of these mares were outstanding performers on the racetrack and some were abject failures. The same can be said of their accomplishments in the breeding shed. However, none of these factors are important for our purposes, since these mares are only used as points of reference. By drawing a line firmly down history’s calendar, we have simplified the evaluation process, and moved history closer to us.
The next step was to establish racing aptitudes or proclivities that might be traceable through these mares. For this, I borrowed from Bruce Lowe, expanding greatly on his narrower research.
I traced the winners of over 400 Graded Stakes races run in North America since 1960, and added an additional 100 plus Group races from, Ireland, England, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. The total came to now over 20,000 individual races. I then divided the races as to the distances run, and classified those distances similarly to what earlier dosage proponents such as Vullier, and Varola initiated, and which Dr. Steve Roman continues today with the male oriented dosage profiles. More information regarding dosage can be found on Dr. Roman’s website at: www.chef-de-race.com.
My revised classifications are: BRILLIANT: 6.5 furlongs or less, INTERMEDIATE: 7 furlongs through 1 mile, CLASSIC: over 1 mile through 1 and 1/8th miles, STOUT: over 1 and 1/8th miles through 1 and 1/4 miles, and PROFESSIONAL: over 1 and 1/4 miles. I traced each of these winners to their conduit mare, and established a derivation of aptitudes based on the number of winners tracing to the conduit mares within each category. I then utilized a formula, which assigns a number to each mare based on the running aptitudes of their descendants, which then established that mare’s aptitudinal contribution. Some of the mares had descendants that excelled in all of the categories. I dubbed these mares as Transcendent Mares, since they transcend categorization. These mares are designated B/P (Brilliant/Professional) placing them at both ends of the equational spectrum. Other mares showed enough diversity to be dual classified, and were designated as such.
I then devised a formula similar to which Dr. Roman uses in establishing his dosage index. The results have been encouraging, and seem to answer some of the questions posed by stallion dosage indexes, a case in point being the very fast Bertrando, with a dosage that indicates a pure sprinter (4-7-3-0-0), but who was able to carry that speed 1 and 1/4 miles. Where did this endurance come from? His conduit mare profile (5-5-5-5-3) offers a hint, with enough female influenced stamina contributions to carry that brilliance over a distance of ground.
It is my hope that the Conduit Mare Index will be a new tool to aid breeders and the owners of racing stock in evaluating the potential in their charges, and a fresh way to view pedigree, and perhaps, assist in creating the Champion that is the dream of all of us who are involved in this industry.
A “hands on, how to” workbook on the application of The Conduit Mare Index is now available.
Bill Lathrop © 2004
