Mumtaz Mahal

Impossible to Ignore

Called the Flying Filly, Mumtaz Mahal is described as lightening fast, having faultless conformation, with quality, size and a good temperament. She was the champion two year in England, and many say she is the fastest filly of all times. She was bred by Lady Sykes and bought as a yearling by the Aga Khan. Mumtaz Mahal is at the head of his most successful family of winners.

Even without the spots, you will not be able to ignore this mare, nor should you want to. If you have sport success in your horses than you probably have her or a close relative of her in your lineages. A product of two tightly bred parents: The Tetrarch-inbred to 3/4 siblings Bend Or/Rose of York, and Lady Josephine who is 4x4 to the full siblings The Nun/Norfolk. Even though these duplicated lines are stayers (Bend Or, Norfolk), not sprinters, concentrating them this close up will produce speed. The experts state that building up the far reaches of the pedigree does the opposite: produce stamina.

In the breeding of sport horses we have all been told to avoid sprinting thoroughbred lines, that they are generally not good riding horse material. But in this case, you will have some trouble avoiding this queen of sprinters. Mumtaz Mahal is the dam of Badruddin, Mirza II, Rustom Mahal-who is dam of Abernant, Mah Mahal who inturn produced Mahmoud, and also Mah Iran, and Mumtaz Begum- who produced Nasrullah and Sun Princess- the dam of Royal Charger. These are only some of her progeny, but these lines are interwoven into the modern race horse, and yes, the modern sport horse. In addition, her dam, Lady Josephine, is the dam of the fast and sound Fair Trial, and his sister Sansonnet who is the dam of Tudor Minstrel. This is a virtual who's who of important Thoroughbred bloodlines- all stemming from one mare and her mother.


Mumtaz Mahal Pedigree

Take a look at her pedigree. Look at the duplications, and if you are familar with Thoroughbred lines you will notice that many of these repetitions are of known staying sources. For instance, Lexington, is an old pre-potent American line, a successful race horse and sire when race horses were expected to race 4 mile heats, several times a day, this is after many of them had to ride 10 to 20 miles into the races. It would be fair to say that Lexington is a source of stamina. Yet concentrating his lines close up has produced a source of speed.

There are lessons in this pedigree that we may apply to our sport horse breeding programs. Mumtaz Mahal is not inbred herself. She is out of 2 inbred parents. Each side of the pedigree engages the background of the opposite side's inbreeding. This is why she was a top sprinter herself- she improved and intergrated the bloodlines of the sprint parents. In addition, Mumtaz is a phenomenal broodmare, she and her sister are so prolific that they are considered part of the fabric of the modern Thoroughbred. She has the 3 daughter lines of the broodmare sire Hermit- a filly factor. The full and 3/4 siblings from her sire and dam provided strong filly-colt factor combinations. This is a beautiful pedigree- excellence for performance and for breeding. When building our sport horse lineages we want to try to have a pattern like this, not of course with sprinting lines, but with sport transmitters. When we have a horse that has good sport duplications close up, we will want to find a mate that connects to the background of that strength.

The super sire Landgraf, while an cross breed has a similar pedigree pattern to Mumtaz, both parents being inbred while he is not. Landgraf.


On the Pedigree Generation Position page it was mentioned that 3x3 inbreeding seldom produces super sport performers, but does create superb breeding stock. Close inbreeding concentrates the genes, and makes them more dominant, passing talent down reliably to the progeny. Closely inbred horses are often difficult to train because of nervousness or high energy, an amateur rider might then find them hard to manage.

The most important thing you can do when building in your duplications is understand the genetics of the target horse- if there is weakness of any type, you will concentrate that along with the athletic talent you were looking to double up on- this is more crucial than whether you linebreed or inbreed. And there are inbred horses who not only avoid the nervous temperament, but become performance stars as well as producers. Noteworthy, successful Inbreeding to the sound and solid Ramiro. And Asher inbred to the sound and sane Abiza.

We need to know our market- what we are breeding for, because a very advanced rider often wants that extra brilliance that can only come from concentrating the power lines close up. We can learn much from the pedigree pattern of Mumtaz Mahal. She had all the brilliance of a sprinter, but the workable temperament of a stayer, and she is one of the top producing broodmares ever. Her pedigree construction is an example of how to include close concentrations successfully.

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