The Potent Ramiro
The Holstein Ramiro, was so renowned for his potency that while he was still living, he carried a breeding license for 3 other registries: Westphalia, Holland and Belgium. Today, his bloodline is sought after in every registry that promotes sport. When studying Warmblood pedigrees, it is usually difficult to trace enough of the lineage to determine with confidence, the genetic strengths because so many Warmblood and Sport Horse pedigrees are partial or worse, inaccurate. What good is a pedigree to a breeder if it is not the true picture of the genetics? But with Ramiro we have an excellent example to work with. While running a 10 generation pedigree calculation on Ramiro, I found he had an incredible 34 lines of the Holstein founding sire Achill in the 7th through 10th generation. This multitude of lines is significant, and this is the background strength of Ramiro. Achill is the only still active sire line of the original foundation sires in Holstein. Achill carries the jumping blood in Holstein. 34 lines in 10 generations is a huge amount of a single ancestor, this is like Achill was sitting in the 4th generation rather than in the far reaches of the pedigree. When there is a strong background strength, if it is reinforced in closer generations, it will show in the progeny. Focusing Achill in Ramiro was done through 3 son lines and 2 daughter lines 4x5x5x4x6, mainly through the 3/4 siblings Palisa and Tobias. There is also reinforcement to this power (and complexity) with the 5/8 sister Vellada and the genetic 3/4 brother to Tobias, Rajah, through a daughter and on the bottom line. Achill is described (Rossow and Tietz) as a light bay, 17 1/2 hands, heavy boned but still shallow in body and not deep in girth. He was well muscled and had a high neck carriage, his back was a little weak, but he had an excellent hind quarter. Achill had good clean gaits and was very healthy, living until 28, and he produced his best son: Tobias, at age 26. The jump line started with him. Achill's sire and dam were 1/2 brother and sister, both out of Brilliant, a Yorkshire Coach Horse (which means at least 68 lines of him). Brilliant's own dam was out of a full brother and sister! And these siblings carried Burlington Turk, who is also here in Achill's dam, so even more inbreeding. Most breeds start with inbreeding- even incest like you see here, for it consolidates the genes, and gives a reproducible type. The Achill son, Tobias, is a good example of why genotype is more important to the breeder than phenotype, for physcially he was no prize. Today, he would surely fail a Warmblood inspection and be gelded. He is described as being light and wiry, with light boned legs, narrow hocks, short hip and average gaits. Yet Tobias became the most important carrier of the Achill blood and he consistently produced progeny far better than he was- with immense jumping talent. There is that pre-potence for sport again, even though his phenotype was far less than ideal, he became a genetic pillar of the Holstein breed. Favorit, one of Tobias' successful sons, is here in multiples, and while he was still the lean work horse type, he brought forward the jump. And with Favorit the Holstein phenotype showed some improvement. Favorit is described as having deep well sprung ribs, heavy bone in front, solid hocks, plus he had good movement and he produced offspring true to his type.
Ramiro certainly got the vitality, pre-potency and jump ability of the Achill line. But Ramiro was more than that, he had "sparkle", charisma, a bigger frame but with refinement, and great movement, which he was able to pass on more consistently than most modern sires can claim. This extra "star" quality came from the Elegant line of the old Ethelbert line, Ramiro has 22 lines of this in 10 generations. When Holstein brought in the Yorkshire Coach Horse, and then added more Thoroughbred, they were well on their way to the modern Holstein type that has made Holstein one of the foremost Warmblood breeds- they are a world wide success story. They never lost the Achill jump, but they got elegance, "pizzazz" along with substance, size and quality from the Ethelbert line. Ramiro refocused the sparkle of Elegant through the 3/4 brothers: Nordhauser and Lorbeer who are 4x4, close up and powerful. Lorbeer was described as "wide bodied, deep, high set neck, powerful, legs of steel, great gaits with impulsion, sound and good disposition. Ramiro also got genetic power from his Thoroughbred ancestors, including the 3/4 brothers Rochester/Tracery in Cottage Son. His pedigree is loaded with concentrated sport ability coming focused and expanded through sibling power. Ramiro was a full bodied horse of 16.2 1/2 hands, with "enormous presence, fearless and extraordinary jumper, with a good disposition, strong bone, good legs and feet" and his progeny were large framed, elegant, almost all with a spectacular jump. Clive Harper says: "Full and 3/4 relatives in a pedigree seem to be able to gather the strength from the past and bring it forward for utilization in the current generations." Side note: The Yorkshire Coach Horse, a key ingredient in the German Warmblood (along with Thoroughbred) is an extinct breed- beautiful, elegant coach horses, developed in England- not Germany. They were created from the Chapman horse crossed with the Thoroughbred. We know the Chapman horse today as the Cleveland Bay. You will find the Yorkshire Coach Horse at the base of not only the Holstein, but Hanoverian, Oldenburg and even Trakhner used some. Link to Noteworthy, an American bred stallion- with sex balanced inbreeding to Ramiro.
Back to Siblings
|
