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YOUR EQUESTRIAN QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Why is a horse’s breeding often described as ‘by stallion A x stallion B’? Why is the damline ignored?
Because stallions are much more prolific in the number of progeny they can produce and have their pedigrees more widely publicised than mares do, their pedigrees simply become more well-known. Referring to the stallion in a horse’s pedigree can, therefore, provide significantly more information about the horse you are interested in. For example, a horse by Ubergabe (sire) x Arko (damsire) would provide more information than saying the same horse was by Ubergabe (sire) x Anna (dam). Unless you know Anna personally, this phrasing would only really inform you on 50% of the pedigree. An alternative way of referring to the pedigree is ‘Ubergabe x Anna (Arko)’, which tells you a lot more about the horse’s genealogy. That being said, the dam line is often the most important for breeders. Because mares produce relatively few offspring – say 10 at most in a lifetime – if half of them performed well in competition, that’s
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a hit rate of 50%. A stallion might sire 1000 offspring, and if he also had five performing well, his hit rate would be only 0.5%. To match the mare’s hereditary prepotency, he would need to have 500 competing successfully. This is why breeders value performance in the dam line so highly.
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