English blood

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English blood
Applebite-Gentlemen.jpg
Important data
Origin: Great Britain
Main breeding area: worldwide, especially England, Ireland, France, Germany and USA
Distribution: worldwide
Stick measure : 152-173 cm
Colors : mostly brown and foxes, black horses and, more rarely, white horses
Main application area: Racing, horse racing, equestrian sports

The Thoroughbred refers to a specially designed for flat racing bred horse breed from the group of thoroughbreds . In pedigree papers , English thoroughbreds are indicated by an xx after the name to easily distinguish them from other horse breeds .

The English call the horse “thoroughbred”, which translates as “thoroughbred”, the French speak of “pur sang” (pure blood) when they mean the thoroughbred. Indeed, the current thoroughbred has been bred for around 30 generations. One can trace his pedigree back to the founding stallions from the early 18th century and some of the mare lines as far back as the 17th century. During the warm-blooded animals - except the Trakehner Horse Owning - until the end of the 19th and early 20th century with the installation of stud books have begun, they will be out at the thoroughbreds for centuries.

English thoroughbreds are considered to be the fastest racehorses in the world. At auctions, they can achieve top prices of several million dollars.

breed

Breeding history

Byerley Turk
Darley Arabian
Godolphin Barb
Eclipse

They were made in England in the late 17th / early 18th century from mares of local breeds (Galloways, "Running Horses"), the z. Some of the so-called Royal Mares of oriental origin were bred from the stud farm of the English kings and imported oriental stallions. Of these stallions, Byerley Turk (no precise information about the breed, Akhal-Teke or Turkmen suspected), Darley Arabian ( Arabian thoroughbred ) and Godolphin Barb (sometimes also Godolphin Arabian, but probably a Berber horse ) are considered to be the progenitors of the English thoroughbred horse. According to a study from 2001, which is based on a DNA analysis , Darley Arabian is in the direct male line via his descendants Eclipse the progenitor of 95% of all English thoroughbreds living today. At the beginning of thoroughbred breeding up to around 1750, around 100 oriental stallions of various origins were used. With the exception of the three progenitors mentioned, all of the stallion lines disappeared after 100 years at the latest (around 1800). However, other oriental stallions also had a significant influence in the early phase of breed formation, mostly through their daughters (e.g. the Curwen Bay Barb and the Alcock Arabian, from which all English thoroughbred horses are descended today). In the direct maternal line, all English thoroughbreds living today can be traced back to around 30 so-called founder mares (pedigree mothers), the most important of which today is a mare called Old Bald Peg (* around 1645).

Godolphin Arabian is particularly well represented in America by the very successful stallion Man O'War (signed 1917 by Fair Play / Mahubah). Byerley Turk's line in France is relatively strong above dollars (signed 1860 by The Flying Dutchman / Payment). Compared to the dominance of the Darley Arabian line, however, they are only found in a few horses in the main stallion line today. The Godolphin line is even in danger of becoming completely extinct.

Despite the early and detailed documentation of ancestry in the English thoroughbred, the exact number of parent animals can no longer be clearly determined because the documents e.g. Sometimes they were incorrect or individual animals were listed with different names depending on their respective owners.

This horse breed has been defined by its entry in the General Stud Book (GSB) since 1793 . For a registration today horses have to prove that all ancestors were pure thoroughbreds and have already been registered in the stud book for at least eight generations. Between 1913 and 1949 the so-called Jersey Act was a stricter rule. It said that a horse was only considered to be English thoroughbred if its ancestors had no gaps except for those in Volume I of the Engl. GSB could prove registered animals. This strict rule was defined in Great Britain in 1913 to protect domestic breeders from the import of American horses, which at that time were increasingly coming onto the market in Great Britain. The Jersey Act was published in Volume 31 of the Engl. GSB from 1949 canceled after horses that were not eligible for registration had won classic races in England in 1948.

Horses that do not meet this entry requirement are either considered half-bloods (full blood content often 99%) or are treated in Germany as so-called §4 horses (former §4 of the German racing regulations). This case occurred frequently after the Second World War because the identity of some thoroughbreds could not be clearly established after the chaos of war and refugees, but from the outward impression they were very likely thoroughbred. Registration can also be refused for political reasons. This happened z. B. with the offspring of the mare Asterblüte from the Schlenderhan stud . Asterblutes father Pharis was robbed by German troops at gunpoint in France in 1940. Marcel Boussac , the breeder and owner of Pharis, enforced after the war that the offspring of Pharis in Germany should not be considered thoroughbreds, but should be treated as §4 horses. It was not until the 1980s that an amicable settlement was reached on this matter.

In the 19th century there were fears that due to too few individuals descending from even fewer ancestors, the breed would soon suffer from inbreeding . Therefore Arab thoroughbreds were crossed again. The products from these crosses were much slower than the pure-bred English thoroughbreds and so the experiment was ended after a short time.

There are currently around 200,000 mother mares being bred worldwide, around 65,000 of them in the USA and around 2,000 in Germany. Each national breeding association has its own stud book. Since the leading breeding associations have recognized their stud books almost without exception, international trade in thoroughbred horses is now possible without any problems.

Horse races as horse performance tests / breeding tests

The thoroughbred is an international horse breed whose racing performances in horse races are relevant for breeding.

The breeding performance test in the form of horse races (see Derby ) originated in England and spread to all countries with significant thoroughbred breeding in the 19th century.

The two most important races for Thoroughbreds in Germany are the German Derby (for three year olds) and the Grand Prix of Baden (for three year olds and older).

Breeding process

The owner of a mother mare is usually referred to as a (thoroughbred) breeder. He chooses for his mare every spring (so-called "covering season", in the northern hemisphere from February 15 to around mid-June) the breeding stallion that is best suited to his knowledge, experience and opinion (father horse, so-called " breeding stallion").

What is suitable in each case depends on his breeding goals, whether he wants to breed an early or late-maturing horse, a fast-paced horse for sprint races or a persistent horse for races from a distance of 2,200 m. In addition to the shown racing performances of the two parent animals, their pedigrees (the line of ancestors or the family tree) are taken into account in the breeding arrangements.

On the basis of the pedigrees, the breeder assesses whether he is able to increase the known hereditary traits by inbreeding to certain prepotent ancestors or whether he can reduce the genetic variability of the offspring by outcrossing by mating parent animals that have few common ancestors in the first ancestral lines . "Outcross") wants to increase.

For the use of a breeding stallion, the breeder has to pay the owner of the stallion a fee, the so-called " stud fee". The stud fee for sought-after, leading father horses (see Championat of Father Horses ) can easily amount to five and six-figure sums. Since leading stallions cover between 60 and 150 mares per season, they are also financially very valuable "production machines".

The covering of the mother mare by the stallion takes place exclusively in natural jumping . Thoroughbreds conceived by artificial insemination (AI) are not eligible for entry in the General Stud Book and are therefore not eligible to start in races.

In contrast to breeding in other breeds, the exterior of the horse plays only a subordinate role in the English thoroughbred. Especially with stallions, the racing performance achieved at a young age is the decisive breeding criterion. With this strict focus on performance, thoroughbred breeding has achieved a special position within horse breeding as a whole:

“On the whole, thoroughbred breeding has succeeded in achieving such a high level of health and performance in terms of health and performance through the systematic selection of genetically healthy and high-performance breeding animals than any other breed in animal breeding. As a result, thoroughbred breeding was not only put in a position to render warmblood breeding invaluable by providing genetically healthy and high-performing breeding animals, but it also showed all modern animal breeding the way that alone leads to a real improvement in constitution and productivity. As a result, she has become an inexhaustible source of health and performance for warmblood breeding, a great teacher for all domestic animal breeding and a disinterested servant of science . "

- Siegfried von Lehndorff : A life with horses , 1956

Protected names of winners of important breeding races

In order to have clarity in the racing and breeding operations, internationally agreed rules for naming English thoroughbreds apply. Then u. a. the names of all winners of subsequent races until 1995 are internationally protected and cannot be re-assigned:

The names of the winners of the following nine races have been automatically protected since 1996

since 2005 also the winners in

At the request of the International Stud Book Committee, the names of important breeding stallions and broodmares, i.e. dam mares that have produced at least two Group I winners and one Black Type winner, as well as stallions that have produced at least 15 Group I winners, are protected . This also applies, for example, to well-known stallions such as Hannibal, Fels, Herold , Surumu , Birkhahn , Dark Ronald and mares such as Bramouse, Hornet, Answer, Festa , Lis and Liebeslied. On February 1, 2007, this list contained 4438 names that may no longer be assigned to thoroughbred animals.

2007 were added automatically

  • Deep Impact (Japan Cup)
  • Delta Blues (Melbourne Cup)
  • Dono da Raia (Grande Premio Brazil)
  • Dylan Thomas (Irish Champion)
  • Electrocutionist (Dubai World Cup)
  • Invasor (Breeders' Cup Classic)
  • Pride (Hong Kong Cup)
  • Rail Link (Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe)
  • Red Rocks (Breeders' Cup Turf)

Already immortalized in the previous year

German representatives in this list are among others

to name just a few.

Other areas of application

The modern riding horse is not possible in national horse breeding without the influence of the English thoroughbred. In all state horse breeding, thoroughbreds were used as refiners of the often severe warmblood strokes. The Holsteiner breeding has created a modern riding horse with the help of thoroughbreds from the original elegant but heavy carriage horses, which often stands in the international world leaders especially in jumping. Major thoroughbred sires in Holstein were Marlon (IRE) (Fam. 3-c, breeder H. Kerr, Esq., 1958 by Tamerlane (GB) - Maralinni (GB) by Fairford) and Ladykiller (GB) ( Fam. 16, breeder AL Adda, 1961 by Sailing Light (GB) - Lone Bleech (GB) by Loaningdale). Der Löwe (Fam. 3-h Gestüt Röttgen 1944 by Wahnfried - Lehnsherrin by Herold) was an important thoroughbred sire in Hanover .

In addition to their speed, English thoroughbreds are also good riding and jumping horses. The world record in the high jump with 2.47 m has been held since February 1947 by the English thoroughbred Huaso (variously referred to as El Huaso) (1933 by Faithful out of Henry Lee (ARG) - Tremula) and the stallion Brillant (Fam. 28 , Breeder Ferdinand Leisten, 1949 by Organdy - Ready by Athanasius) came third in the German Gallop Derby in 1952 and won the German Women's Dressage Championship under Rosemarie Springer in both 1960 and 1961 and was winner of the German Dressage Derby in Hamburg with Willi Schultheis in the saddle .

The legendary show jumper Fritz Thiedemann won his first Olympic medal in the team dressage competition in 1952 with the Thoroughbred Chronicler (signed 1942 by Marcellus and the Chronicle by Ferro).

Kurfürst xx won the Olympic military team competition under Lt Freiherr von Wangenheim in 1936 and was active in obstacle sports both before and after this success.

See also

Web links

Commons : Thoroughbred  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Databases

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ World record in high jump ( Memento from December 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )