Help needed reading the Tesio

[Ruby 160]

Hi there just asking on a Tesio pedigree sheet on the far right hand there is a list of numbers I guess relating to speed, endurance etc.????? Can anyone tell me what B3 means - Probably something really bad ha ha :-)

Thanks

Louise

[kmhood 1]

Give him a call

[Ruby 160]

I will - cheers

[bazzag 0]

The Bruce Lowe family numbers is it??

[Ruby 160]

Not sure thats why I was asking

[Breeder 607]

Louise -- they are definitely Bruce Lowe numbers. Suggest you do a Google for Bruce Lowe numbers to get an explanation. It will be better than me trying to explain on here.

[matt 0]

this will answer your question - it's the family numbers of the distaff line:

http://www.tbheritage.com/HistoricDams/FamilyNumbers.html

[Hunterville 0]

The Family Numbers commonly used to designate the various Thoroughbred female families were popularized by Bruce Lowe, an Australian pedigree researcher at the end of the nineteenth century. Lowe's work, Breeding Horses by the Figure System was published posthumously in 1895 by his friend and editor, William Allison. He had traced back the pedigrees of the complete list of winners of the oldest English classics, the St. Leger Stakes, Epsom Derby Stakes and Epsom Oaks, grouping them by direct lines of tail female descent, from dam to granddam and on back until the family was no longer traceable in the General Stud Book. He then tallied the number of classic winners produced by each family and listed them in declining order. The family with the most classic winners, the one descending from Tregonwell's Natural Barb Mare, was designated Family #1, the Burton Barb Mare second, designated Family #2, and so on. The resulting forty-three numbered families became the core of his study, and while few actually adhere to Lowe's resulting theory, many still use his family numbers as a convenient way to categorize Thoroughbred families. Herman Goos, who had first published a comprehensive collection of pedigree tables in 1885, expanded the number of Lowe families to fifty.

Lowe's theory went far beyond identifying female strains. Of these families, he found that nine in particular appeared to be indispensable in the breeding of top racehorses, and he divided these into two classes, running(family #s 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) and sire (family #s 3, 8, 11, 12, and 14) or as Lowe preceived them, feminine and masculine. His theory, too complex to relate here, was based on balancing the "feminine and masculine factors" by using these two classes of families as core to good matings.

In 1931, The Tabulated Pedigrees of Thoroughbred Horses (the "Polish Tables"), published by the Society for Promoting Horse Breeding in Poland expanded the tabulation of successful racehorses on a global basis. These were expanded upon by Captain Kazimierz Bobinski and Count Stefan Zamoyski in the first volume of Family Tables of Racehorses (1953), which compiled the families and detailed their lines of descent. Supplementary volumes were published through 1963. Research revealed that that some of Bruce Lowe's families went back to a common female ancestor, and so they were linked. Other groupings of mares were added to incorporate the global nature of the Thoroughbred.

Families 1 - 50 Bruce Lowe's original numbered English families, with Goos additions, traceable to the earliest volumes of the General Stud book

Families 51 - 74 Can be additionally traced to General Stud Book mares

Families Ar 1 - Ar 2 Native to Argentina

Families P 1 - P 2 Native to Poland

Families A 1 - A 37 Native to America

Families C 1 - C 16 Native to Australia and known as "Colonial families"

Families B 1 - B 26 Designated as "Half-Bred" due to some impure crosses

http://www.tbheritage.com/HistoricDams/FamilyNumbers.html

[Ruby 160]

You have completely answered my question that history is fascinating.

Thank you

Louise

[Hunterville 0]

Looks like a few of us went to the first result on google! Ironically just yesterday I was reading about the numbers in a great book called 'The blood The soil The gold and the world's first billion dollar thoroughbred' by Tim Gard. Published in 2007 it covers the history of thoroughbreds worldwide and focuses on breeding Australasian wide including a chapter on NZ, and 'colour schematics' charts depicting thoroughbred ancestery.

It says re. the numbers... 'Perhaps the remaining useful purpose of the Bruce Lowe family numbers is simply to be able to distinguish quickly between family lines. Any further conclusions from the number scheme would seem spurious'.

Highly recommended read for anyone with an interest in the breeding game... http://www.thebloodthesoilthegold.com

[kmhood 1]

Hunterville - your explanation was great, and today I picked up a "gem". I use the Bruce Lowe numbers all the time, but reading through your thread I will print it as designating the countries & a lot of other explanations are there.

I picked up a fascinating little book recently by Lyle Andrew who put the winning families (by a group of certain races in Australasia) in what he considered the order of their racing families merits - ie his top winning family (1978) was the number 2 family, followed by the 22 family, then no 3.. He spoke of their taproot mares of great worth - ie Miss Kate(1890) by Adventure-Sporting Life(1) from The Burton Barb Mare (2)line, 52 winners of 153 races. Euology (1911)(22) by Cicero-Kelibia by Upas-Goletta. from Belgrade Turk Mare line, 47 winners of 71 races. Celebrity (3(1938)by Nothing Venture-Cinna (1000 GNS winner) ancestor Bowex Mare by Byerley Turk. 32 winners of 84 races & disposition of No 3 family in 1979 was 3rd Best Classic NZ Family.

He leaves plenty of pages lined for anyone to take the time to fill in the winners of these families after 1978 - who knows how the order could change. Certainly a worthwhile read.

[Hunterville 0]

It's fascinating stuff isn't it. I was just reading parts of Tesio's book on Google Books free online, I find his theory on A.I and the energy produced in a natural mating and it's affect on the foal intriguing to say the least.

This evening I just happened to pull Sir Patrick Hogan's book off the shelf and flipped to this extract which may interest some of you...

'On BBC television, Robert Sangster told Peter Aliss in 1986 the foremost authority on pedigree in the world was Patrick Hogan of New Zealand. 'One of my methods is to work on the tabulation within the pedigree,' Patrick explains, 'with emphasis on the key producing male and female ancestors by the way of duplicating them under a system using the Bruce Lowe number they are given.

'I have a couple of books which I regularly refer to that were written around the time of the 1950's. One of these books focuses on the foundation mares and stallions, setting them out by means of classification under classic categories. That is, they are graded into one to five, under their Bruce Lowe numbers, as the classic families Group 1, which is best. Two would have been graded down - classic families Group 2 and so forth. These were powerful producers and they were graded on the basis of not only their performance on the racetrack, but their performance on producing champion racehorses.

'This method has been an important part of my plan in breeding successful racehorses, and was applied when I purchased Sir Tristram. I still refer to that method today.

'Bruce Lowe was an Australian pedigree researcher in the 19th century, and he categorised all the families. Instead of referring to horses in ancient times by name, he allocated them numbers. The Bruce Lowe numbers went from 1 to 29 - and I always worked on duplicating the Bruce Lowe numbers, which is no different to today.

'You don't find the Bruce Lowe numbers very often now, but they do still exist. Our sales catelogues used to have them. If you were ever given a pedigree for a horse for sale, it had to have the Bruce Lowe numbers.

'It was a simple procedure because, for example, Selene's Bruce Lowe number 6 while Lavendula is number 1. One isn't more important than 6, so the Bruce Lowe numbers weren't allocated to the best and worst. Number 14 is just as important as number 7. I very much have a liking for the number 9 family. It inherits within it speed, speed, speed.

'Eight generations is probably the ultimate for me to look at a tabulated pedigree and work out what I want to match it to.

My favourite key females in a pedigree are:

Number 9 Lady Josephine

Number 6 Selene

Number 1 Lacendula

Number 16 Plucky Liege

Number 2 Feola

From time to time there are new modern-day key females emerging, such as:

Number 2 Natalma

Number 8 Best in Show

Number 9 Eight Carat (in her own right)

'With male ancestors, I preferably like to see a cross of son and daughter and/or two daughters of that stallion, as opposed to two sons.'

[david hodgetts 31]

If you refer to classified on RC you will see I have a list of books for sale. One of theses is Thoroughbred Pedigree Charts third edition. This aprox 1935 print is an updated version of the 1922 first edition and traces the female lineage of all thoroughbreds back to the original taprrot mares. For instance Family no 1 was Tregonwells Natural Barb Mare and. It has all families known at that time. Also there is Wanklyn and Howells The Australiasian Racehorse 1908. This reference traces the imported families to Australia and New Zealand back to the original taproot mares through the broodmares imported from Great Britain. I used to study pedigrees relentlessly but now dont so if you are interested have a look and give me a call or e-mail.,