It’s always a great feeling when a horse which you have had a significant input into wins a major race, but Tinseltown’s dominant victory in this year’s renewal of the Avondale Gold Cup raises some interesting pedigree issues which go well beyond the conventional considerations of why he is as good as he is.
As a breeder, it is hard to avoid becoming increasingly concerned with soundness issues. The horses we are producing today seem to be a lot less resilient than their forebears of even 40 years ago and one has to wonder why. Veterinary science has advanced considerably, the development of equine nutrition is impressive and training and racing surfaces are undoubtedly much improved. Is it simply a question of owners needing a quick return and consequently putting too much pressure on immature animals? Or has our fascination with inbreeding also played its part?
When I first looked at Tinsel’s pedigree, the first question I asked was – is there anything here that we need to inbreed to? Apart from Tudor Minstrel, the answer was quickly obvious – nothing. I then looked at a range of stallions I liked and tried to figure out which potential mating might involve some successful crosses. Pentire had already produced good results with Marscay and Vain; given that Jetball had not been a raging success as a stallion and that it was thus imperative to find some influences which complemented him, Pentire was not a difficult recommendation to make. Interestingly, Tinsel’s owner, veterinarian Bill Stewart, has since repeated this mating; the resulting yearling was sold at this year’s Karaka sales. Apparently he resembles Pentire much less than Tinseltown does, being a chestnut and significantly bigger at the same age.
In recent seasons I have become a lot more focussed on recommending matings and selecting yearlings which feature a range of crosses; it is also important that those crosses complement each other. Inbreeding has a role in what I do, especially if the priority with a mare is to duplicate a particular strength of her pedigree, but I’ve maintained my suspicion of overdoing things in this regard.
One of the statistics I keep is a wins:winners ratio as this seems to be a valid method of measuring the resilience of horses produced. At the moment it is hovering around 3.1.; one of my goals is to increase this to 3.5 over the next ten years.
