Question by Horsey Gurl: Just got a new TB... and have a question?
She is 5 years old and has never raced. She has never had anything done with her besides a little ground work and she has been saddled and had a bridle on. She is registered with the jockey club. While I have NO interest in racing or breeding her, I looked at her pedigree just to be curious and I found a lot of high profile racers in there. There is Storm Cat, Mr.Prospector, Native Dancer, Round Table, Secretariat... that's just the beginning. I only looked for a few minutes, I am sure there are more in there somewhere. Now I know next to nothing about TB racing, but is it common to have so many big names in a pedigree? I know that when a stud is popular he can be over bred, and have LOTS of progeny, but she seems like she has good confirmation for racing and she loves to run and is VERY fast. She is built very well and I was just wondering why her breeders didn't race her. Any ideas? I would ask but in her short life she has had some drama. She was sold by the breeders to someone who was less than reputable, rescued, then given to me. She is a wonderful horse, and my vet has looked at her... nothing is wrong with her. It just seems like no one wants her! I don't know what answers i expect, just your thoughts I guess.
PS She looks SO much like Secretariat its unbelievable. She is so beautiful and built so well.

Best answer:

Answer by Julie
It's very common for horses to have a lot of famous names in their pedigree. It doesn't matter unless they're the grandparents or closer... anything farther back than that in the pedigree doesn't mean much at all. My thoroughbred also has a lot of famous horses in her bloodlines, no big deal. If these famous horses are the great-grandparents (or farther back), it doesn't matter. It's cool to know, but it's not a big deal.

People tend to only breed the successful stallions, and they have hundreds of foals each... so you see a lot of foals with a lot of big names in the pedigree!

As for why she never raced, some horses just don't care for it. Even if a horse likes running in the field and has the conformation for it, some just don't like to race. Maybe the breeder was downsizing (a lot of breeders downsized when the economy went down), or maybe she suffered a brief and temporary injury (which was fully healed when you got her) and the owner didn't want to wait for it to heal so they just got rid of her.

Who knows! I own an OTTB too, she's awesome. I'm a big fan of tbs.

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Originally posted 2010-06-09 04:27:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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3 Responses to “Just Got a New TB… and Have a Question?”
  1. Gina says:

    You should try and find a racehorse trainer and see what they think after working with her.. if she is good they MIGHT help you out. Maybe she was frisky with the previous owners and they did not think she had any potential.. but you never know she could be the next Seabiscuit :)

  2. ∂αγαηηα says:

    …I would have if I were them, but maybe they had a lot that they liked better. I don’t know why or how she would have ended up somewhere she needed to be RESCUED from. It all sounds really weird. But I guess it worked out well for you because if they had you probably wouldn’t have her. BTW Secretariat is so pretty so I bet yours is too :)

  3. amz m says:

    Most TBs have quite a few famous relatives, they’re only worth money in breeding if they’re sires are famous. My horse was bought for $50,000 as a foal because of his bloodlines, he was trained but he ended up being too big to ever make it to racing. They probably just didn’t bother with her, maybe thought they had better foals to train. My horse has great confo and he likes to run (best games boy, and he’s a bendy giant) but he had issues with racing, bowed tendons, they let them heal then brought him back into work (vet thinks he must have really been something for them to bother bringing him back) and then bowed them again. He has Secretariat too and he looks like him too (if I was in USA I would have entered him for ‘Secretariat’ auditions), it’s funny, all his bloodlines are bays and small and then he’s chestnut and huge (like Secretariat).

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