Turning to Turf

re: Turning to Turf

John T — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:21:09 GMT

Sceptre

It,s so true your financially strapped owner Mr.Robert Sievier did indeed overrace you.One can only think what a great filly you could have been if it were not so.

Nevertheless you will always have pride of place in British

racing as I doubt any other filly will ever win four of the

five classics never mind all five.

re: Turning to Turf

sceptre — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 01:38:03 GMT

No, I had a bruised foot, and financially strapped connections who overraced me.

re: Turning to Turf

John T — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:25:59 GMT

Now we find out the truth why Sceptre did not win all five

of the English Classics.She thought she was running against

''Second Stringer'' 3 year old European colts in the 1902

Epsom Derby and lost all chance at the start.

re: Turning to Turf

Hal Dane. — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:25:34 GMT

Pedigree Ann: Both Northern Dancer and Mr Prospector have three of the above New Zealand sires in their pedigree make-up.

Trenton sired TORPOINT a top broodmare stallion, viz:- Torpinhow, Pinprick, Hamoaze, etc.. he also sired the grandam of GAINSBOROUGH.

The male line of the imported Cheviot leads down to the extra-ordinary successful Quarter Horse stallion HOLLYWOOD GOLD (1940) who also passed on his golden color (Palominos) there are a dozen male line branches of this horse scattered through-out America, with quite expensive stallions.

re: Turning to Turf

sceptre — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:38:17 GMT

In his excellent historical recap, Alan touched upon some of what I was attempting to communicate.

Aside from the EIPH/furosemide issue, I tend not to be too dogmatic in my opinions. I'm fairly certain, however, that breeders would do well to heed my warnings about use of these "second stringer" turf import stallions for use in producing US dirt runners. They are genetically unproven for that purpose so, all else equal, should have a greater liklihood to sire unsound dirt performers.

re: Turning to Turf

Pedigree Ann — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:18:42 GMT

"Trenton (1881) Cheviot (1879) Darebin (1878) Carbine (1885)"

Indeed. *Darebin sired Emma C., the dam of Domino's son Commando, who is ubiquitous in North-American bloodlines. The important US broodmare, and second dam of the great sire Bull Lea, was Trenton's daughter *Colonial. Carbine sire "chef-de-race" Spearmint, who is in the background of Nearco, Discovery (also a descendent of *Darebin), etc. I am less familiar with Cheviot - I know he stood in California and sired 'Lucky' Baldwin's American Derby winner Rey el Santa Anita (who defeated Domino in that top race) but don't know where else he had an influence.

re: Turning to Turf

Hal Dane. — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:31:43 GMT

Pedigree Buffs: should never forget the massive contribution

to the PEDIGREE OF THE THOROUGHBRED HORSE, made by the tiny studs in the 19th century, of that far-off land NEW ZEALAND.

Trenton (1881) Cheviot (1879) Darebin (1878) Carbine (1885)

re: Turning to Turf

Karen in Indiana — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 03:51:51 GMT

And the U.S. may be a valuable outlet for the Europeans who are in danger of limiting the mares their stallions can breed to due to the concentration of Sadler's Wells bloodline at stud. There was an article not too long ago about the difficulties Frankel may face finding mares not too closely related. An influx of the stamina and brilliance shown by that family should be welcome here. Japan seems to be doing a pretty good job of importing mares to prevent that happening with the Sunday Silence bloodlines.

re: Turning to Turf

kenek — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:10:32 GMT

Am excited about these new stallions and looking forward to see them mix their genes with our American bloodlines. Outcrossing may be very successful especially since we've seen several generations of inbreeding especially to Mr. Prospector, Raise a Native etc. Could be beneficial to infuse more stamina and soundness into the breed.

re: Turning to Turf

Alan Porter — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:52:13 GMT

Sceptre, John T,

Thanks for the comments. My perception would be of a cycle or cycles from, say around the 1930's. In, say an era, roughly from the 30's to the 50's, the European horse in general was superior to the U.S. horse. With U.S. racing conducted over a wide-range of distances, it's likely that U.S. runner was a less physiologically specialized horse that the current dirt stretched out sprinter/miler type (think human 800m/half mile runners). So we see a European horse like Noor handling Citation (not the force he was a three, but still pretty formidable).

Then we come to stallions that were top-class U.S. horses by the imports, so Northern Dancer (by Nearctic, a son of Nearco conceived in Europe and imported to the U.S. in utero), Never Bend (by Nasrullah), Sir Gaylord and Hail to Reason (by Turn-to). In the late 60's and through the 70's their offspring, and the offspring of their sons tended to have too much speed for the typical European classic horse, examples being Sir Ivor, Nijinsky II, Mill Reef, Riverman, Lyphard, The Minstrel, Nureyev and so on (as a footnote, it also led to a fad for U.S. bloodlines and the importation of proven failures and worse, with names such as Kauai King, Umbrella Fella, Veiled Wonder and Jolly Jet).

A lot of the U.S. sired horses that had performed particularly well in Europe, or started well there, were returned to North America (along with prominent Europeans like Blushing Groom and Caro), and if not dominant over the locals, their international impact did make Kentucky the center of the thoroughbred universe as far as stallion power was concerned.

The next shift was via the U.S. horses that proved themselves in Europe and remained there, such as Sadler's Wells, Green Desert and Danehill. As the prototypical top-class U.S. horse became our "stretched out dirt sprinter-miler" European descendants of U.S. stallions became the best source of European classic runners. Much the same happened in Australia, where the top stallions are now frequently tending to be Australia-raced sons of shuttle sires.

Combine specialization and a divergence of bloodlines (not to mention concerns over medication, valid or not), and we see why a lot fewer European agents and trainers are making the trip to the U.S. sales.

re: Turning to Turf

Pedigree Ann — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:00:11 GMT

Every Thoroughbred stallion imported to the US for the first 200 years raced on turf. *Diomed, the foundation of 19th Century racing, won the first Derby at Epsom. *Australian, *Glencoe, *Leamington, *Bonnie Scotland, etc. all raced on turf. *Meddler, *Rock Sand, and *Star Shoot raced on turf, as did *Sir Gallahad III, *Bull Dog, *St. Germans, *Blenheim II, *Mahmoud, etc. Not to mention *Nasrullah, *Royal Charger, *Ribot, *Ambiorix, *Caro, and so on. The only area in the world from which we import stallions that does NOT race exclusively on turf is South America.

Sure, there have been grass-raced imports who failed at stud here, just like there have been dirt-raced racers who failed. And, after all, many of the new imports are descendents of North American/dirt-raced horses.

re: Turning to Turf

John T — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:12:20 GMT

In 1964 trainer Etinne Pollet thought he had the best 2 year old in Europe with a horse called Grey Dawn and it certainly looked that way when he beat Sea Bird in his final

race as a 2 year old.But lucky for Pollet he was also the

trainer of Sea Bird and that horse went on to be a great champion in 1965.Grey Dawn was by the 1959 French Derby winner Herbager out of a Mahmoud mare,Polamia and he went on

to sire some decent fillies in North Amercia on dirt.Both

Ring,O Bells and Shy Dawn come to mind who won stakes races

on the New York circuit and a very hard knocking filly up here in Canada called Bye Bye Paris.His sire Herbager sired

Our Mims who won the important Coaching Club Of American Oaks when it was run at 12 furlongs and the 10 furlong Alabama Stakes both on dirt.So although the sires talked about should indeed sire some good turf runners just like other great European sires mentioned in this story it would

be no surprise at all to see some top class dirt runners.

re: Turning to Turf

sceptre — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:09:12 GMT

Yet another interesting, well thought out piece.

There seems, today, a bit more opportunity in the U.S. for turf runners-more turf races, and the synthetics. I'm concerned, though, that these turf raced sires, particularly those who were bred abroad, may tend to sire offspring less sound (than those sired by confirmed dirt horses) for U.S. dirt racing. Many see this influx of european sire prospects as potential sources of soundness, when it may prove quite the opposite. All else equal, the turf tends to be somewhat "forgiving", allowing some to hold up whereas otherwise might not have been the case. Type, conformation-and conformational issues may very well differ between the turf and dirt runner-the "mechanics" of propulsion, etc. are not the same, dirt vs turf. Despite Racing's long history, I'm not sure there's still much consensus re-the physical attributes of a turf vs dirt runner. But, as Alan noted, there have been numerous notable european-bred stallions that excelled in siring U.S. dirt performers. The historical timing of their importation should, however, be taken into account. Many were imported at a time when the quality of european racing was far superior to our own; i.e. the "good" characteristics may have far outweighed the "bad". Also, as we can see in retrospect, some of those imports possessed dirt-siring abilities far greater than others. Such history is worthy of careful study-pedigree, conformation, soundess stats, etc. (albeit rather difficult now). We should be mindful of the aforesaid potential issues as they relate to breeding horses at greater risk for soundness misadventures.