Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Good Breeding

The program added a couple of new horses this week, and one is a super-cute chestnut Thoroughbred gelding. I took the liberty of searching for him on Pedigree Query, as I am wont to do with all TBs I encounter. His parentage is nothing spectacular; it's better than sweet, inbred Moe, but not as impressive as Gina's. Take a look:

Click to enlarge!
That's Mr. Prospector on top and Affirmed on bottom. In my limited research, it appears that neither of these lines are known for producing anything but astonishingly competent racehorses. Which brings me back to my original mystery: why was G sold to a sporthorse breeder in Oklahoma as a two year old? 

Both G's sire and dam were decent racers. Her sire, Look See won over $100,000 on the track and sired numerous stakes winners. Her dam, True Brilliance, earned a respectable $23,000. Gina has two full siblings, both mares, with no race record. Some of her half-siblings on her dam's side have been fairly successful racehorses. The half-siblings on her sire's side are too numerous to list (but you can see them here, if you want), but believe me when I say many of them are very good. 

Gina isn't much of a lean, leggy Thoroughbred; she's of the stout variety. Did her breeders see this in her as a two year old? Did they ever get her out on the track? Was she a giant, horrible brat they wanted to unload ASAP? How did I end up with such a mysterious horse?

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