Thoroughbred Horses
20 Mar 2010
Ancestry of the Thoroughbred horse:
This breed of horse was formerly bred in The United Kingdom as a result of the English horsemens want to have a rapid race horse. There are three that founded this strain which are: Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian, all named after their respective owners, Thomas Darley, Lord Godolphin and Captain Robert Byerley. All of these stallions were shipped to the UK from the Mediterranean Middle East between 1670 and 1710. The result was a horse that could bear weight with sustained pace over comprehensive distances. Somewhere in the region of ninety percent of modern thoroughbreds have descended from Eclipse the grandsire of whom was Darley Arabian, who was never beaten in eighteen races. This started a very selective breeding procedure which has been going on for nearly 250 years, breeding the greatest race horses, giving them authorityand distinction on the race track.
Throughout the turn of the 1700's, breeding reports for Thoroughbred horses were sparse and commonly imperfect, and typically, they would not refer to a horse until the young horse had proven themself commendable. A man named James Weatherby, through his own investigation and relentless work, and by the consolidation of his own privately held pedigree reports published the foremost volume of the General Stud Book. This was done in 1791. The principal book listed 387 mares, each of which could trace back to Eclipse. The General Studbook is still published in the UK by Weatherby and Sons. Several years later, as thoroughbred racing proliferated in North America the requirement for a pedigree registry for American Bred Thoroughbreds, akin to the General Stud Book became obvious.
In 1873, the earliest American Stud Book was released by Colonel Sanders D. Bruce. This gentleman spent almost a lifetime researching the pedigrees of American Throughbred horses. He followed the example of the General Stud Book creating six volumes of the register up until 1896 when the project was carried on by The Jockey Club. The reliability of the American Stud Book is the base on which all Thoroughbred horse racing in North America depends. The initial publication of the American Stud Book produced by The Jockey Club had a foal number of around 3,000. In 1986 in had risen to an amazing 51,000. Nowadays The Jockey Club operates a complicated new digital system to meet the registration issues presented by the massive number of annual registrations. The Jockey Club is responsible for and operates one of the most sophisticated computer systems in the world at the moment, with its catalog holding in excess of 1.8 million thouroughbreds on a master pedigree store, with names that can be tracked back to the 1800's. Including bloodlines, this database also handles daily racing outcomes of all Thoroughbred race in North America, as well as the ability to handle digitally submitted pedigree and racing figures from the UK, Ireland, France and other primary Thoroughbred districts. An extra progeny of Darley Arabian is Diomed; he won the first running of the Kentucky Derby in 1780. When he was twenty one years old he was brought to the US where he produced the male line through his son, Sir Archie.
Thoroughbred horses are the preferred option for track racing. Most thoroughbred horsesare born somewhere between January and April, but their certified date of birth is January 1 of the present year. In their initial year of growth, they are increasing size and strength with the youngster beginning his training as a yearling. The horse learns to accept a bridle and a saddle and shortly after a rider on his back to break in the horse in preparation for the starting gate and the competition around the track.
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