stallion predominance: a discussion
ARTICLE REPRINTED FROM PACEMAKER 1981 BY PETER WILLETT
The predominance of the great stallions We have reprinted an article first produced in Pacemaker magazine, December 1981 written by the late Peter Willett explaining how the few truly great sires defy the most enormous odds. Over the next two issues of International Thoroughbred, Alan Porter will be picking up Willett's mantle to discuss how things have changed today with the influence of large stallion books and new developed research in to genetics and pedigrees
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T IS REMARKABLE how individual stallions are able to dominate whole areas of activity, even the huge thoroughbred populations of the final quarter of the 20th century. A case in point is the near monopoly of the leading places in the list of the 1981 firstseason sires’ list in the British Isles claimed by Northern Dancer sons, Be My Guest, The Minstrel and Far North of whom the latter pair, of course, are full-brothers. Of these three eminently successful firstseason sires only Be My Guest, who stands at the Coolmore Stud in County Tipperary is stationed in the British Isles, though Be My Guest, like The Minstrel, Far North and Northern Dancer himself was bred in North America. The odds against this kind of domination being realised are enormous, in purely numerical terms. The greatest number of foals by Northern Dancer born in a single year is 42, which, with more than 30,000 foals born in North America annually during most of his stud career means that he has
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The greatest number of foals by Northern Dancer born in a single year is 42.... it means that he has never accounted for more than about 01.14 per cent of total foalings
never accounted for more than about 01.14 per cent of total foalings on that continent. If the achievements of Northern Dancer as a sire of first-season sires are extraordinary, confounding all reasonable predictions, then it is true that the most potent stallions have been beating the odds, all throughout thoroughbred history, and thereby making the most essential contributions to the evolution of the breed. Research by Valerie Bowden in Volume 38 of the General Stud Book, and described in her paper “Inbreeding in Thoroughbred horses” written in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Msc (Animal Breeding) at Edinburgh University revealed that Northern Dancer’s grandsire Nearco contributed 7.25 per cent of the genetic makeup of the thoroughbred in the British Isles, that Nearco’s sire Phalaris contributed 6.125 per cent and that Pharos’s sire Phalaris contributed 7.275 per cent, the highest contribution of any stallion coming within the scope of Miss Bowden’s research. St. Simon held similar sway at the
