Thoroughbred Horses
History of the Thoroughbred horse:
This form of horse was originally bred in The United Kingdom as a result of the English horsemens need to possess a swift race horse. There are three that founded this breed which are: Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian, all named after their owners, Thomas Darley, Lord Godolphin and Captain Robert Byerley. All of these stallions were shipped to the United Kingdom from the Mediterranean Middle Eastduring 1670 and 1710. The conclusion was a breed that could bear weight with consistent pace over extensive distances. In the region of 9/10 of current thoroughbreds have come from Eclipse whose grandsire was Darley Arabian, who was never beaten in eighteen races. This started a very selective breeding practice which has continued for nearly 250 years, breeding the greatest race horses, giving them superiority and distinction on the race track.
Around the turn of the 1700’s, breeding reports for Thoroughbred horses were meager and regularly unfinished, and typically, they would not name a horse until the juvenile horse had proven themself worthy. A man named James Weatherby, through his own investigation and relentless work, and by the collection of his own privately owned pedigree reports published the initial volume of the General Stud Book. This was done in 1791. The principal publication listed 387 mares, each of which could trace back to Eclipse. The General Studbook is still in print in the United Kingdom by Weatherby and Sons. Several years afterward, as thoroughbred racing increased in popularity in North America the need for a pedigree registry for American Bred Thoroughbreds, similar to the General Stud Book became apparent.
In 1873, the first American Stud Book was published by Colonel Sanders D. Bruce. This gentleman used up almost a lifetime studying the pedigrees of American Thoroughbreds. He followed the pattern of the General Stud Book producing six volumes of the register until 1896 when the project was taken over by The Jockey Club. The integrity of the American Stud Book is the foundation on which all Thoroughbred racing in North America depends. The initial edition of the American Stud Book released by The Jockey Club had a foal number of approximately 3,000. In 1986 in had grown to an incredible 51,000. These days The Jockey Club runs an elaborate new computer technology to meet the registration issues posed by the gigantic amount of annual registrations. The Jockey Club owns and runs one of the most complicated computer systems in the world today, with its record holding over 1.8 million thouroughbreds on a main pedigree record, with names that can be traced back to the 1800’s. In addition to bloodlines, this computer also deals with daily racing results of every Thoroughbred race in North America, not forgetting the capacity to handle electronically submitted pedigree and racing information from the UK, Ireland, France and other leading Thoroughbred districts. An extra offspring of Darley Arabian is Diomed; he won the earliest running of the Kentucky Derby in 1780. When he was twenty one years old he was brought over to America where he started the male line through his son, Sir Archie.
Thoroughbreds are the horse of choice for track racing. Most thoroughbred horsesare born somewhere between January and April, although their certified date of birth is January 1 of the current year. Through their first year of growth, they are developing bulk and muscle with the youth commencing his training as a yearling. Thouroughbreds learn to take a bridle and a saddle and a short while after a rider on its back to break in the horse and prepare him for the starting gate and the run around the track.
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