American Sources of Sport Excellence

For those of you who have been immersed in the warmblood and sport horse culture of the last 30 years, I have a surprise for you: America has excellent sources of sport genetics in our native breeds. Huh? I know it is a shocker, but it is true nonetheless.

During the research process for my book I discovered America has had a sport horse breed continuously from the early 1600s, and that breed, which I call the Running Horse, is the root source of our domestic breeds that succeed at sport today- that includes the American Thoroughbred, American Saddlebred, Standardbred, Morgan, Quarter Horse and our own domestic 'warmblood' which is the Hunter bred horse- a breed we have been selectively breeding in this country for 300 years. I must be kidding, right? How come you have never heard this before if it is true? It is because we did not understand the genetics of the modern sport horse, for if we did we would have remembered that we have breeding this same type of horse since Colonial times.

I discovered this history through study of course, but also being a Tesio methods breeder I built up an extensive database of pedigrees and in so doing I was able to trace the origins of our domestic horses all the way back to the Colonial era. What I found both astonished and delighted me.

One result of this education is that I have a newfound admiration for the genetic essence of our domestic breeds. I ascertained our original Running Horse breed is of the same root source as that of the English Thoroughbred. It was a small race-saddle horse which possessed prodigious amounts of speed and stamina along with natural gaits and a friendly disposition. This breed originates from the Hobby- an ancient Celtic breed, the purest strains being from Ireland.

Our Colonial Running Horse was a sport horse of the highest grade- able to run races at all distances from 1/4 to 4 miles- several times a day, at both the pace and the gallop- all 100 years before the Thoroughbred reached our shores. And it was an excellent saddle horse as well, tough and durable, friendly and comfortable, they were prized possessions of our forebears, bred originally in New England, Virginia and New York, they quickly spread to all the Colonies for both race and saddle use. (You may read a full history of these marvelous horses in "The North American Sport Horse Breeder"- to be available in early summer 2012).

Our modern light horse breeds of Thoroughbred, Morgan, Standardbred, Saddlebred, Quarter Horse, Missouri Fox Trotter and Tennessee Walker all directly descend from this same source. A few years ago I would have had trouble swallowing this knowledge, for one thing I had no understanding about naturally gaited horses and how the fastest and most agile horses descend from them; but not now, for after years of research I am convinced that the best sport bloodlines in the world today come from these early sport horses both in the British Isles and on our continent. The equine historian and breed organizer John Wallace (1800s) and the more modern scholar Alexander MacKay-Smith have determined that speed both at the trot and the gallop originate from the pacing (gaited) bloodlines. And here is the kicker: the recent advances in genetics, such as Mitochondrial DNA studies have confirmed what their research taught them- that speed and sport ability come from these horses.

Now, because many of our American breeds have common ancestors they also now have a natural genetic affinity for each other in proven sport genes. Our often ignored light horse breeds are not based on a farm or coach horse, but from a true sport horse. Sport is in their DNA. While we have been searching far and wide for good sport stock the sad reality is we have had it here all along and did not recognize it. This means we don't have to add it- we just have to re-activate and concentrate it: Tesio Methods.

This information on the superb genetic base of our native horse breeds is far too important for us as breeders to not explore and exploit. Therefore, it is now my goal to change all that, to help us discover the hidden gold in our domestic sources and to demonstrate how to unlock that potential. This will require identifying the key bloodlines that are potent sources of the sport talent which will give us the sport success we have been searching for. To that end I will present modern examples of domestic sport horse talent.

For those of you who need more convincing I advise you to move on to the articles linked below where some of these domestic sport breeds of excellence are discussed.

Links to Domestic Breed Discussions: