Thoroughbred Horses

History of the Thoroughbred horse:
This breed of horse was first bred in The United Kingdom as a result of the English horsemens want to possess a fast horse. There are three that founded this breed which are: Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian, named after their respective owners, Thomas Darley, Lord Godolphin and Captain Robert Byerley. All of these stallions were brought to the UK from the Mediterranean Middle Eastduring 1670 and 1710. The conclusion was an animal that could carry weight with sustained speeds over extended distances. Somewhere in the region of 9/10 of present thoroughbreds have come from Eclipse whose grandsire was Darley Arabian, who never lost in eighteen races. This began a very refined breeding process which has been going on for all but 250 years, producing the finest race horses, giving them superiority and distinction on the race track.

Throughout the turn of the 1700′s, breeding accounts for Thoroughbred horses were meager and regularly imperfect, and typically, they would not refer to a horse before the young horse had proven themself commendable. A gentleman named James Weatherby, through his own research and hard work, and by the consolidation of his own privately owned pedigree records published the earliest volume of the General Stud Book. He did this in 1791. The foremost book listed 387 mares, all of which could be traced back to Eclipse. The General Studbook is still published in England by Weatherby and Sons. Numerous years afterward, as thoroughbred racing became popular in North America the necessity for a pedigree registry for American Bred Thoroughbreds, comparable to the General Stud Book became clear.

In 1873, the earliest American Stud Book was available by Colonel Sanders D. Bruce. This man spent practically a lifetime researching the pedigrees of American Throughbred horses. He followed the pattern of the General Stud Book creating six volumes of the register until 1896 when the project was furthered by The Jockey Club. The accuracy of the American Stud Book is the foundation on which all Thoroughbred horse racing in North America relies. The initial publication of the American Stud Book released by The Jockey Club had a foal amount of roughly 3,000. In 1986 in had grown to an astonishing 51,000. Nowadays The Jockey Club runs a sophisticated new digital system to meet the registration challenges presented by the colossal amount of yearly registrations. The Jockey Club owns and runs one of the most complex computer operations in the world today, with its catalog holding more than 1.8 million thouroughbreds on a main pedigree store, with names that can be tracked back to the 1800′s. Including bloodlines, this database also handles daily racing results of all Thoroughbred race in North America, not including the capacity to handle electronically submitted pedigree and racing figures from England, Ireland, France and other principal Thoroughbred districts. An additional descendant of Darley Arabian is Diomed; he won the earliest running of the Kentucky Derby in 1780. At just 21 years old he was introduced to the US where he produced the male line through his son, Sir Archie.

Thoroughbred horses are the horse of choice for track racing. Most thoroughbred horsesare born between January and April, although their official date of birth is January 1 of the present year. Throughout their initial year of development, they are developing size and muscle with the youngster commencing his training as a yearling. Throughbred horses learn to accept a bridle and a saddle and shortly after a rider on his back to break the horse in preparation for the starting gate and the competition around the track.

For more information and horses for sale, please visit the Horse and Pony Directory.

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