The Goff’s Land Rover sale has proved a fruitful source of horses for Imperial Racing in recent years. Imperial Commander himself was once a graduate of the sale when snapped up by Colin McKeever for 19,000 Euros. This year’s sale proved equally enticing as we acquired a gorgeous Kalanisi gelding.
As handsome an individual as he is, I must confess to hesitating once or twice as the bids rolled in. My concern lay not in the conformity or attitude of the horse, but the absence of a true staying national hunt dam line. I know little of the dam sire Anita’s Prince other than he was a son of Stradavinsky. Stradavinsky himself stayed 1m 4f and was himself a son of the great Nijinsky, who in turn was a son of Northern Dancer. Jigabit the grand dam was an unraced daughter of Waajib a 120 rated miler. His father was Try My Best who was also a son of Northern Dancer. So why the concern?
As someone who has been trying to buy top class 3 mile chasers for 20 years it is clear that the horses presented for sale have become lighter and more athletic in appearance. It is also true that over the same period horses have continued to get quicker. What is less clear is whether this is due to changes in breeding strategies, or training and riding techniques (or a combination of these factors). Have the commercial demands of flat racing led to horses being bred for speed rather than endurance?
Some recent studies suggest that the thoroughbred horse owes its sprinting capability to a single gene MSTN. This gene associated with muscle growth comes in two types C and T. Scientists suggest that horses with two copies of the C allele will be fast sprinters best deployed over short distances. (allele are alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome).
Whilst horses with one C and one T allele will be best over middle distances, and horses with two T allele will have less speed but greater stamina.
Research designed to track the history of the C and T alleles suggests that the C variant was not present in distant horse cousins such as zebras. This is logical given in the wild horses would need the ability to travel over long distances, and would be reliant on the T allele. The research also showed the C allele was present in most breeds of domesticated horses across Europe, Asia and America.
As the registration of thoroughbreds began in 1791 the C allele must have been present in the bloodline by this time. The basis of the thoroughbred stud records is that all horses can be traced to one of three stallions the Byerly Turk, Darley Arabian, or Goldolphin Arabian. By testing historical samples related to Darley Arabian, the scientists were able to establish that he lacked the C allele. Whilst no samples were available to test the other two stallions their contribution to gene pool is minimal when compared to the Darley. This means the most likely explanation is that the C allele entered the gene pool via a single mare over 300 years ago before the gene pool was closed off to outbreeding. The gene variant then became widespread in the modern thoroughbred population due to a stallion named Nearctic. Nearactic was a son of Nearco himself one of the best racehorses of his era. More significantly he was the sire of the great Northern Dancer. Whilst Northern Dancer was a top class racehorse (winning 14 of his 18 races), his most significant contribution was to come as a stallion.
Northern Dancers career at stud saw him become the most influential stallion of recent times. His sons included Fairy King, Nijinsky, Lomond, Danzig, Night Shift, Nureyev, Sovereign Dancer, Storm Bird, Unfuwain, Lyphard and of course the great Sadlers Wells. As his dominance of the gene pool grew, so did the distribution of the C allele. The ever increasing patronage of the Northern Dancer bloodline by breeders clearly has a profound influence on the genetic make-up of the breed. It is less clear whether this was a conscious choice on behalf of the breeders to breed a more precocious or faster racehorse, or merely the obvious commercial attraction of the most prolific bloodline.
For those who prefer their racing over longer distances with a few obstacles thrown in it makes purchasing the right horse increasingly difficult. Breeding of national hunt horses has always been a more difficult proposition. The flat breeders can simply focus on breeding the best racehorses (who are sent to stud), with the best female bloodlines. Even if the cross does not prove to be ideal, the resulting pedigree is likely to be commercially successful.
For national hunt breeders finding the right stallion is generally guesswork, and the availability of the stallion tends to be limited. Even stallion’s who retire to stud at the age of 6 or 7, will be 14 or 15 when he has any significant number of his progeny competing over fences. The nature of the sport demands that the stallion’s soundness as a racehorse is a key consideration (I also spend a lot of time tracking the number of wind issues associated with the progeny of each sire, as nothing inhibits the performance of a horse more than an inability to breathe). So the national hunt breeder has to select from stallions which have raced exclusively on the flat, and are produced by a flat breeding programme which is tailored towards speed over stamina.
A cursory glance at the flat graded race programme makes it easy to understand the logic of this approach. Flat trainers want precocious horses to compete at 2-y-o and those which are bred to stay struggle to be competitive. It could be argued that the UK has done more than most with 27 graded races of 1m 4f or over. But the rot is setting in, with the Queens Vase at Ascot being downgraded from a Group 3 to a listed event and the Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket earmarked as next on the list. There has been a reduction of over a third in the number of staying horses rated 120 and above.
On the other side of the equation the horses they breed face an ever increasing workload, as the success of Martin Pipe saw interval training methods been adopted across the sport. The best a national hunt breeder can do is select a stallion which was sound, has size and bone, and a high class flat career over 1m 2f to 1m 4f (although there is a school of thought that a top class miler is preferable to breed with stamina laden bloodlines).
The other noticeable trend has been the increase in inbreeding over the past 20 years. The establishment of the Thoroughbred Stud Book created a limited gene pool. Just 21 horses from the 18th century account for over 80% of the genetic makeup of the current racehorse population. Fifty years ago a stallion was likely to cover 40 – 50 mares a year. Today that figure is likely to be close to 200 and as a result fewer stallions are siring a greater proportion of the offspring. The main driver of this has been the success of Northern Dancer and in particular the Sadlers Wells blood lines. It is no longer a problem limited to the UK as top class stallions are regularly moved around the world to cover mares. It is impossible to calculate the exact impact of this further limitation of the gene pool. On average two full brothers share 50% of their DNA, but in theory this could range from 0% to 100% depending on the chromosomes inherited from each parent. We could be in the process of breeding the thoroughbred to destruction as we continue to eliminate genetic variation from generation to generation. We can be sure this trend will continue as long as the breeding programme is allowed to be driven exclusively by the dynamics of commercial demand.
As well as the lottery of pedigree the next question is whether the prospective candidate can jump. The ability to jump does not appear to be hereditary, and is difficult to spot when watching your intended purchase jog 50 yards on a rubber mat.
Which brings me back to Imperial Eloquence (the chosen name for our new recruit). His father Kalanisi appears to be a sire on the rise. Producing top class horses such as Barizan Katchit, Alaivan, Barters Hill, Russian Bill, Storm Away and Kartanian. His mother was trained by Seamus Fahey, and rated 85 on the flat in Ireland (equivalent to 90ish in the UK). Recorded wins over 1m at Galway, and 1m 2f at the Curragh, also was also placed over 1m 4f. She was also placed 2nd twice and a winner over hurdles at 2 miles. His half brother (by Mustameet) was trained by John J Walsh and achieved a rating of 82 on the flat in Ireland (equivalent to 87ish in the UK), recording two wins over 1m 4f (Tipperary and Rosscommon). He also has two wins and was placed once in five starts over hurdles (wins at Gowran Park and Limerick over 2 miles), and is rated 133 over hurdles in Ireland (equivalent to 140ish in the UK) with further progress anticipated.
But all this aside occasionally you see individuals at the sales which simply have to be bought, and Imperial Eloquence fits neatly into that category. He is a real good looking horse, a sharper type than many of the horses we buy and should not take long to come to hand. As there is plenty of speed in his pedigree we are expecting him to make his mark in bumpers. Failing that Kalanisi also bred some nice flat horse (Alaivan, Rajik, and Enforce amongst others) so he could be the first runner in a 1 mile maiden at Windsor ever saddled by Fergal O’Brien.
Regardless of where he ends up we love him, he is one of the nicest horses we have ever syndicated and the dream is still alive.