Följande avsnitt kommer att översättas till svenska inom en snar framtid och redigeras, så att passgångare inte finns med i texten. Detta är teorierna över avel- och blodlinjernas betydelse för att få fram "Champions", denna text är hämtad från Pedigreematching Globtrotters.
Did you ever wonder why even the best of sires have so many "ordinary" performers or why a mare of modest breeding can suddenly produce a champion? The answer may well be in the "match" of the bloodlines of the sire to those of the dam.
The concept of matching bloodlines as a way to develop champions has proven it's worth over the years and serious breeders would do well to study the theory and results to see if they can improve their chances of coming up with the right match for their mares. The success of a particular mating does not have to be a random thing subject more to luck than good management.
With the growing acceptance of semen transport small breeders can aspire to breed to any active sire listed in the United States Trotting Association publication The USTA Sires and Dams. Gone are the days when breeding to the stallion up the road, because he had a couple of good ones to the races last year, was a convenient way to handle your breeding requirements. Breeders cannot afford to take a chance that such an impromptu mating will succeed. They must make informed decisions based on pedigree and like any decision the chances of being right can be greatly improved with good research and a study of past statistics.
Successful breeders will spend time to research the best matches for their mares and can get most of the information they want through computer reports from the USTA or CTA (Canadian Trotting Association). The information they receive, though, is based on established sires and may be of little help if the boundaries of time, distance and cost make the "perfect" match unavailable or if the sire of interest is a new and unproven sire. Not every owner of an Albatross mare is logistically able or can afford to breed to No Nukes or Big Towner. And the answer is not necessarily to breed to the closest, most affordable son of No Nukes either because as any student of Pedigree Matching will attest, the key is not in the top line of the sire but rather in the sire lines which show up in the sire's maternal family, lines which can vary significantly between father and son.
Among small breeders who stand their own stallion there is the tendency to breed all the farm mares to that one stud regardless of the pedigree match. Such matching will, in the long run, result in low success rates and lower prices for yearlings that far offset the short term savings involved. Smart stud owners will trade breeding with other farms to get the match that gives their mares the best chance of success.
Articles on breeding tend to focus on individual sires that have played a dominant role in recent breeding history. Matchings are commonly described in terms of being Meadow Skipper 3 x 4 x 3, or Adios 5 x 4 x 4 x 5, a nomenclature which serves as much to confuse as it does to edify. The numbers relate to generations in the pedigree in which the sire of note appears. We must also contend with classifications such as line bred, inbred and incestuously bred as well as the much sought after outcross.
Pedigree experts talk about the perils of having horses inbred or incestuously bred where the same ancestral sire shows up in the second or third generation of both the stallion and the mare. Incestuous relationships could not get much closer than the breeding of world record setting trotter CR Kay Suzie whose sire, Royal Troubadour, is out of a full sister to Speedy Somolli while her dam is by Speedy Somolli. On the pacing side the dominance of the Meadow Skipper sire line has seen many such matchings in recent times with excellent results. The end result is that breeders have increasing difficulty in dealing with the traditional concepts involved in breeding theory. Perhaps it is time to put some simplification and order into the process with an approach that is based on hard evidence that anyone can use to point them in the direction of potentially successful matchings for their mares.
In researching this topic I was struck by the incidence of "unfashionable" sires in the maternal lines of many of our most successful sires. For instance the second dam of Niatross is by Scamp; of Falcon Seelster is by Adios Butler; of Big Towner is by Guinea Gold; of Walton Hanover is by Bullet Hanover; of Laag is by Task Force etc. James C Harrison in his authoritative chapter on bloodlines and breeding in the USTA's book Care and Training of the Trotter and Pacer, notes that " All the foundation sires of the breed were relatively short bred maternally in the sense that none of the female families that produced them ever established lasting maternal lines of their own". This would seem to infer that if you want to improve on something you must focus on the weaknesses, real or perceived, and that is where "Pedigree Matching" comes into play.
Pedigree matching presents an opportunity to improve on the bloodlines of a sire where he may be perceived to be deficient that is in his maternal line, by returning to him bloodlines from a mare of similar lineage that have shown them selves to be genetically stronger through performance. For instance in the case of Hazleton Kay (Jate Lobell - Season Premiere - Niatross) few would disagree that as a racehorse Niatross, the sire of the dam, was a superior performer to JR Amy, the dam of the sire Jate Lobell, yet Niatross and JR Amy trace to the same lineage. Putting it simply if Jate Lobell could be as good as he was with the bloodlines of JR Amy, his offspring should be even better if those same JR Amy bloodlines can be supplemented with an improved version of the same lineage, in the form of Niatross as was the case in the breeding of Hazleton Kay.
The goal of Pedigree Matching then is to find a way to spruce up the bloodlines in the maternal lines of the sire with the lineage in the bloodlines of the dam. In the words of the experts this is called "Returning to the sire the best blood of his dam". Pedigree matching is not to be confused with "line breeding" which occurs when the top line of the sire matches the top line of the broodmare sire. This is a simple concept that ignores, however, the impact of the maternal line of both the sire and the dam on the mating.
Pedigree matching is new in name only as the original basis for the theory is to be found in Wallace’s American Trotting Register published in 1871, a publication that was the first attempt of its kind to document the history of the trotter in North America. While many theories on how to breed the trotting horse centred on the perceived need to "breed up" horses with a disposition to trot to Thoroughbred sires in order to improve speed and stamina, Wallace was of the opinion that "like begets like" and that breeders would be wise to seek "to unite again two streams that originate in the same fountain, but that had been separated for a few generations." His theories have stood the test of time and are as valid today as they were over 125 years ago.
Successful breeders in the thoroughbred industry such as the Aga Khan, Lord Derby, Marcel Broussac and the legendary Federico Tesio derived their success from practising "balanced breeding", a concept that evolved from the statistical evidence that inbreeding and line breeding to selected ancestors through sons and daughters was far more successful than through sons alone or daughters alone.
In his book "Patterns of Greatness" the noted thoroughbred pedigree expert Alan Porter cites a study carried out by Clive Harper in New Zealand that compared the extent of balanced breeding in moderate versus top class performers. The study concluded that while both groups showed comparable levels of in breeding and line breeding in the first three generations there was a marked difference in the incidence of both when taken back to the sixth and seventh generation with the top class performers showing a much higher incidence. This finding confirms in a general way the basis for Wallace’s "two streams from the same fountain" theory.
There are some who would say that they put their faith in modern genetics rather than "outdated" theories and while the great advances in the understanding of genetics have played a role in the development of many species of plants and animals I am not so sure that the horsemen of today understand and apply genetic theory any more than any of their predecessors. There is, however, a school of thought, based on studies at the Dr. Max Gluck Institute with the University of Kentucky Equine Program that hypothesizes the existence of recessive sex related genes that are mutations of a normal gene traceable to a single source and can determine such things as heart size. For recessive genes to be expressed they need to be inherited in double strength (from the sire and the dam). This theory is best known as the X-Factor Theory as documented in the book of the same name.
The X-factor is based on the theory that the X-chromosome or female chromosome carries certain recessive genes that result in performance factors such as large heart size. Recessive genes will only manifest themselves if inherited from both sire and dam and only if the genes are passed to individuals in a certain way. X-chromosomes can be passed from mother to son, mother to daughter and father to daughter but not father to son.
The X-factor is believed to have originated in a single female through a genetic mutation. From my own research I have found that keying on those individuals that trace through X-factor connections to Minnehaha and/or to daughters of Pilot Junior is an important and useful way to short list prospective sires that initially show compatible line-ups. Minnehaha, by the way, is considered to be the best maternal family currently with more top performers than any other.
The practice of Pedigree Matching or balanced breeding or whatever name you may want to give it would automatically provide the opportunity for such genes to express themselves and result in top performers.
The most common approach to matching pedigrees is based on the axiom of returning to the sire the best blood of his dam. This theory is the basis for the fame of Tesio, the noted thoroughbred breeding expert credited with the inspiration behind the breeding of Northern Dancer, and has proven to be applicable to standard bred breeding as well.
Best blood is normally defined as the sire lines associated with the proposed dam and in its simplest form this means finding a mare whose paternal lines (Primary Match) or maternal lines (Secondary match) are of the same lineage as the maternal lines of the proposed stud. As we shall see, however, Pedigree Matching in standard breeds, as indeed we also find in thoroughbreds, also covers the reintroduction of certain bloodlines, into pedigrees deficient in those lines or vice versa, resulting in what is considered an "outmatch" mating. An outmatch is similar but not exactly the same as an outcross since it can contain common lineage on both sides of the match but it must meet certain conditions to be recognized as such.
A Pedigree Match therefore exists in the following three ways.
1. Primary matches where the broodmare sire lines (the primary lines of the dam) correspond with the primary lines (maternal lines) of the proposed sire as in the example of Speedy Crown.
2. Maternal matches where the maternal lines of the dam match the primary lines of the sire as in the example of Albatross
3. Outmatches where the maternal lines of the dam match in whole or in part the primary lines of the dam but not those of the sire.
The matches are determined by what are called line-ups which consist of six letters each representing the lineage of a particular sire line in the pedigree. Each standard bred horse can be identified by this lineage code. The line-up for any one individual consists of the four "primary" lines as shown on the attached examples plus two "secondary" lines. Each of the letters refers to one of four sire lineages through which all standard breeds trace back to Hambletonian. e.g. A – The Abbe, D – Direct, P – Peter The Great, X – Axworthy. For trotters, since there is usually no presence of A and D, the dominant lineage of Peter The Great is split into three main branches designated as V – Peter Volo, S – Peter Scott, and W – Worthy Boy.
The comparison of the six letter code for any broodmare to that of a prospective sire is the first step in Pedigree Matching. Full matches are easily identified since, as in the case of Speedy Crown, the line-ups are identical.
Speedy Crown by Speedy Scot XSXV SX
Out of Missile Toe by Florican XSXX SV
While the letters are not necessarily in the same position in each line-up they do appear in equal numbers for each lineage. i.e. three lines to Axworthy (X), two to Peter Scott (S) and one to Peter Volo (V).
Maternal matches and outmatches have a different pattern. Here you will find that there is an imbalance but that it shows a consistent pattern in that when the line-ups are compared there are two lines or more of the same lineage that occur in one line-up but not in the other and vice versa. A classic maternal match is evident in the case of Albatross.
Albatross by Meadow Skipper PDXP AP
Out of Voodoo Hanover by Dancer Hanover AXXX DX
Here we have three lines to Peter The Great in the sire but none in the dam line-up while we have three lines of Axworthy in the dam that have no equivalent in the sire. Note that the one line to Axworthy in the sire line-up is balanced off by the fourth X line in the dam as is the line to Direct on both sides. If you look at the maternal lines of the dam of Albatross i.e. those of Vibrant Hanover, you will see that they are DPXP as traced through Walter Direct, Peter Volo, Guy Axworthy and Peter The Great, the exact same sires through which the lines of the dam of Meadow Skipper trace.
Beach Towel is a good example of an outmatch with the maternal lines of Sunburn (DPAP) being the same as her primary lines (PDPA) and a match as follows:
Beach Towel by French Chef PXPP AP
Sunburn by Armbro Nesbit PDPA DA
The outmatch of D in the dam to P in the sire requires us to use X as equivalent to A in an otherwise perfect match, a not uncommon situation given the affinity of Axworthy to The Abbe.
Very rarely you will see matches that have an outmatch pattern as far as the line-up comparison is concerned but there is no substantial similarity (three lines or more) between the sires primary lines , the dams primary lines or the dams maternal lines as required in the matches above. These extreme outmatches quite often produce extremely fast performers with Cambest and Matts Scooter being two of the fastest pacers of all time that fit this pattern.
PEDIGREE MATCHING FOR SUCCÉS
The extent and frequency of Pedigree Matching in our champion performers is remarkable and cannot be merely a matter of coincidence. It would be foolish to assume however that Pedigree Matching alone guarantees success on the racetrack. It is not the only key to successful breeding but it can at least start you in the right direction. The conformation and disposition of both sire and dam are also important factors to be considered that may make the decision more difficult, not to mention the affordability and availability of the sire of choice.
Many other factors that determine success are involved including the conditions under which the foal is conceived and raised, the care and training it receives as a yearling, the avoidance of non hereditary health problems and a good measure of luck. The extent to which the pedigrees match in those top performers that survive the many non hereditary mishaps that can befall them on the way to greatness is, however, impossible to ignore.
It certainly would appear that Pedigree Matching planned or otherwise, plays a big part in the breeding of champion race horses. As a method of sire selection or indeed of picking out suitably bred yearlings and broodmares it quickly identifies the ones that statistically, based on past patterns, have the best chance of success. There are, no doubt, examples that prove exceptions to this general premise and, indeed, many useful and fast performers exist that do not quite fit the patterns presented here but whose upbringing and training has resulted in them overcoming their perceived genetic deficiencies. Among true champions of the sport, however, they are few and far between.
 | 
