Ep 42: OTTB on Tap Evaluates Thoroughbred Pedigree, Conformation & Suitability Vol 1: Baybuilt, Floo Powder & Dragon Moon

Ep 42: OTTB on Tap Evaluates Thoroughbred Pedigree, Conformation & Suitability Vol 1: Baybuilt, Floo Powder & Dragon Moon (Transcript)
[00:00:00] Hi everyone. And welcome back to OTTB on tap. I'm Neve. And I'm Emily. Hey, Niamh, what's on tap today? Sorry, I just. You can't even say it. No, I just read what you just said as you were saying it, and I think I've been watching too many psychological thrillers, honestly.
I feel like I'm in two worlds at the same time. Is that the topic of our podcast today? That's what's on tap? Inside Niamh's brain? Nobody needs to go in there. It's a dark and mysterious place. Okay. No comment. Hehe. Hi, dear listeners. You asked and we answered, we love getting feedback about topics you'd like for us to cover and, oh, for fuck's sake, sorry, it's matter.
Outlook just chimed in. Whatever. I'm going to retake that, but I need to see what I'm still going to laugh at you. Dear listeners, you asked and we answered. We love getting feedback about topics you'd like for us to cover, and one of the things that we see over and over again are queries about pedigree. We thought it would be super helpful to also look at the horse's conformation and make some connections between their breeding and how they're put together.
And finally, Emily and I are going to guess what we think the horse would be like to ride, which discipline it's probably suited for, and more. We hope you all enjoy this series as much as we've enjoyed prepping for it. Please remember, this is only for fun, and these are only mine and Neve's opinions that we have gathered from our experience and our research.
A lot of people say you don't ride the bloodlines or the confirmation, and there's always exceptions to every rule, especially with off track thoroughbreds. This is just intended to be educational and entertaining. Also, please make sure to check out our website, www.
ottbeyondtap. com, sign up for our newsletter, and you'll be the first to know about bonus content, upcoming episodes, and more. And more. We formatted this series in a way that we hope translates really well to podcast format, but because it's not a visual format, we're going to make sure to include confirmation picks details and links to information that we gathered as well on our website and under the corresponding episode show notes.
Yes, and we'll mention the Horsebites Jockey Club name, talk about their race history and breeding, and then Nev and I will give our unique thoughts about their confirmation. We actually have not shared this with each other, by the way. We've written up our own top secret evaluations, so we don't know what the other one thinks.
And also wanted to clarify to make it even more fun. We asked listeners on Facebook if they would submit a confirmation photo and a jockey club name. So that is what we're going off of one to two confirmation photos. I think one horse, we have one photo. The other two, we have two photos and their jockey club name.
We haven't gotten any information from their owners. And all of these horses were submitted by their current owners for evaluation. Side note, if you'd like to submit for an upcoming episode, let us know. Anyway, first up we have a thoroughbred named Bay Bilt. So he's a 12 year old bay gelding bred in Maryland.
Bay Bilt's racing record shows he competed 10 times with just one win. His speed figure only spiked during that one victory, and I think it was like maybe 84, which is still pretty low for a racehorse and it's not uncommon for horses that didn't. Find a lot of success at the track to only have one or two high speed figures and speed figures are a number that's calculated based on an algorithm.
So it's based on the time it takes for the horse to complete a race the track conditions. There's a couple of different ways that they figure out that number, but it basically reflects the performance on a given day and his other races show that he was actually quite slow.
Interestingly, looking at his pedigree, first glance, I see that there's no inbreeding through the fifth cross, which is really a positive sign for genetic diversity. I tend to lean, it's funny when I look back at horses I've liked in the past, they often have little to no inbreeding. I don't know if there's a connection there, but just something interesting to note as most of this is.
He was never sold at auction. He seems to have stayed with his breeder, Lindy Clark, throughout his entire racing career. And a little shout out, we do know Lindy personally, and she is a wonderful representative of the off track thoroughbred. So thanks for all that you do.
But it's interesting to share that his sire, love of money has such a strong pedigree. He was a standout winning the grade two, Pennsylvania Derby, and he defeated horses like Tappet and Pollard's vision. He only lived to be 11, but made an impact with his limited full crops. Sired 26 winners from 84 foals with progeny earnings over 1.
5 million. Also a little side note, if you listened to last week's episode 41 Love of Money was the sire of my 2013 RRP Makeover Horse Victory Money or Prima. And so if you want to hear a little bit about her and her traits and maybe see how they compare to You can listen to our last episode, 41, selecting and training an OTTB for the Pimlico showcase.
I think it's safe to say that you have quite a soft spot for that particular line. Yes. She's one of my favorite horses of all time. So it's pretty cool. And since he did have unfortunately limited breeding career, you don't see them all that often. So when he popped up, I was like, Oh, this is fun.
Yeah, it was really cool. So love of money's sire, not for love was quite a big deal in Maryland after retiring from a successful racing career of his own under trainer Graham motion. He became Maryland's leading sire for nine consecutive years at North view stallion station. [00:06:00] He did not sire any grade one winners, but his offspring were tough and durable.
Durable though often known for being quirky. Yeah And I actually didn't know that he raced under a grand motion. I know I was excited when I saw that Who's look fairly local to us at Fair Hill? Not for love was part of the mr prospector sire line Which has a legacy in Maryland the influence of Northern Dancer who stood at Winfields farm also helped boost the sire You Line success in the region, not for love's bloodline is notable for sport horses too.
He was the broodmare sire of California chrome, who most of you probably recognize a big name in recent years. And not to forget Bay built damn Royal roughneck. She's by mech. I think is how you say it. It's M E C K E who was a notable racehorse in her own right with earnings over 2. 5 million. Going back to the Maricide, Babil also carries the influence of Smarton through his dam's lineage.
Smarton was known for his toughness and consistency. Although he wasn't the best of his crop, he always gave his best and passed on those qualities to his progeny.
His most significant contribution is probably through his daughter, classy and smart, the dam of smart strike, a two time champion sire. And I think it's just interesting looking at his pedigree as a whole and just making some initial thoughts about this horse. The breeding there on both sides, the dam and the sire line, there's a lot of fast horses, really good sought after sport horse connections there.
So Already before I even saw a picture of the horse, I had an idea of what I thought this horse might be all about.. So as I already said love of money was the sire of one of my all time favorite personal horses.
And I'm very partial to this horse. Having said that, we all know the sire is only half of the pedigree and often the dam is thought to be more influential. To the offsprings temperament on the side or side, not for love is very sought after for great temperament and making good sport horses. I also like to see smart and in the lineup when I'm looking at a pedigree on the downside, I really actually admit to not being super knowledgeable about most of the names.
On the damn side. I do love that there's no inbreeding, as I mentioned before, and also foolish pleasure and bald ski lead themselves to athleticism. And I also looked up to see if Cherokee fellow is related to Cherokee run, but it isn't. Sometimes those names can send you down a rabbit hole, yeah, and even before looking at the horse's confirmation, I would expect just from the breeding though, just from what I can gather and read from that pedigree, I would expect this horse to be a good all around prospect with nice movement. Awesome let's get into the assessment and the way that we're going to do this is we're going to go through eight different topics concerning confirmation. So we've got overall balance, head and neck, shoulder, whether humorous, back hind quarters, legs, hooves, if we can see them and our final impressions.
And then we're going to talk a little bit about what job we think this horse might like to do. So Emily, do you want to take it away with overall balance of Bay built? Yes, let's see what we both thought. It's like we have to reveal our answers. I know so first of all, overall balance, I want to say overall impressions that this is a nice photograph to evaluate the horses in a balanced positions on level ground, and it's perpendicular to the camera, which always helps when you're trying to judge things like angles.
And overall proportions so that we don't have one part of the horse that's facing away from the camera and one part that's closer. As you all know, when you're taking a photo, you want to be smaller. You get in the back, right? Same thing applies. But he appears to have a lovely overall balance.
And overall, I think he has a very compact feel. You can see that his head and neck. Shoulder and hind quarter all feel very balanced. None of those areas seeming larger or smaller or more powerful or weaker than the others in general. How about you? My first impressions were a nice looking horse overall.
I said that the sire lineage has created a strong stamp here. I think that there are many love of money, not for loves that have this signature look about them. I would say that if we put a, confirmation photo of Prima and this horse side by side, you'd see a lot of similarities. Yeah. And we can do that.
Yeah, we can. And I said that he doesn't look to be super tall. I guess he's about 16 hands, 16 one. Yeah. It's really hard to judge size from a photo with nothing else in it. Yeah. But. He feels compact. So however that large he actually is, I had the same feeling that he was probably about that size.
And Prima is about 16 one, she might be 16 two now, but when I had her, I think she was closer to 16 one. Yeah. So just from my kind of historical knowledge that's where I would place him. Moving on now to a topic number two, head and neck. What are your impressions? Yeah. Baybelt's head looks to be an appropriate size for his body, which I know it sounds silly, but like you do see horses that you're like, that head seems a little small for that body.
He's got a really nice expression. His ears are pricked, which is always nice to see though. Very tough to get in a confirmation photo as we all know. I think that his neck in proportion to his body is a good length and I like the angle of his neck. I think he'd be a horse that would feel balanced in front of you and he'd also be able to make a nice outline for dressage.
His neck also ties into his chest nice and high, which is something that sport horse breeders are looking for more and more. It should give him that nice neck set and good freedom through his shoulder. [00:12:00] I just want to say here as I add my notes, I'm not going to repeat any comments that are. Redundant. Cause Emily basically honed my eye for me.
So there are going to be things that we're both going to repeat. And just for the sake of our listeners, I won't be she's copying me. I looked in the notes and just, yeah. So I said that he's got an intelligent and a keen expression. I said, I think this horse might be a little on the cocky side.
But enjoys work. He just looks like the type that, yeah, he just looks keen. Okay, what are we doing? We're doing confirmation photos. All right, cool. Now it would be interesting to find out how many it took to get this beautiful photo that was submitted, but that's a different story.
Yeah. I said, he's got a bit of a thick throat latch. Which might lead me to believe that he's an occasional cribber. It's not super pronounced where I would make a guess that he's an actual cribber. But it could just be the shadow because there is a dark shadow on the photo. But it is something that you can sometimes spot.
Make a guess at in a photo. Yeah. I didn't notice that too. I didn't write it down, but it's just one of those things that I think when you're looking at confirmation, you're looking for a lot of the good, right? You're trying to find out, all of the things that are really special about the horse, but then you're also looking for some things that you're like I don't know if I like that, also just clues. One of the very first horses I bought off the racetrack, I bought him. Saw him in a stall, he had no cribbing collar on, bought him, got him shipped, and I was Boarding him at the time and the barn owner called me and was like your horse cribs and I was like What are you talking about?
And she was very adverse to cribbing I think so Luckily, I got a cribbing collar very fast and it was fine But it's just something to put in your arsenal to maybe ask about
but when you look at the other photo of him, I see it again in that photo a little bit, but it also could be that he trained in a way that he just had a bit of an overdeveloped under neck muscle, which is pretty common as well. Or it could just be how he's made. Yeah. Exactly possible. Yeah moving on to the shoulder wither area I think he has a lovely shoulder with a nice upright humerus Which is something that I learned to look for from jimmy wofford I actually have his book here and I wanted to read a little quote.
It's training the three day event horse and rider And he says the shoulder should join a long and rather upright humerus. An upright humerus has extensive forward movement, which allows free motion for galloping and jumping. And that's something that over the years, when you look at a horse on the ground and then you see it move and jump, it's We'll start to really stand out for you.
And it's one of the biggest things that I look for. I'm going to draw on the photos and accompany the website with that. So you can take a look there as well. I think his wither is not super pronounced, especially for a thoroughbred. Which doesn't really mean anything one way or another to me. I just thought it was of note and it goes along with his like overall compact. There's nothing that stands out as exaggerated about this horse to me and I think that the wither isn't, super size scraper high or anything like that.
So it fits in there. , yeah, like you said he's not super angular where you can see every little, sharp turn on his body. But that being said, the way that this photograph was taken and the way that the shadows and highlights are, it's almost a perfect candidate for drawing on a photo because you can literally see the outline of the bones and the shapes of the muscles on top of those.
So having that humorous, like you said, also creates this beautiful shoulder muscle connection And he's got a nice long radius and short cannon bones, which is something that you taught me to look for. So that in combination with the angle of his shoulder would suggest that like he can snap those legs up if he needs to, and probably has pretty good freedom of his shoulders on the flat.
It's so funny. You said that because in a couple minutes, I'm going to have a direct contradiction to you, but let's go on. What Emily and I like in horses is going to differ from sometimes.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So back what do you think about his back? I'm gonna put you in the hot seat. All right I said overall he's got a very well developed top line. It looks looks nice and strong. He doesn't have a super set back wither, but it's set back enough that I feel like you'll feel like the horse is out in front of you.
And he is got a big, strong shoulder which has nothing to do with his back, but I'm going off course now, but I did say that I would be very curious to know if this owner has struggled at all with Saddle Fit.
Because of where his back kind of starts and how developed his front end is. He's got a very powerful front end. Yeah I was similar in that. I think his back looks well muscled. It's an appropriate length for his overall proportions. I felt a little bit the opposite though. I don't think it's too short.
Like I think sometimes you get a horse with a huge shoulder and a really short back and because his wither isn't set back super far, I don't think it would really cause too many issues. However, having said that I am not a saddle fitter. , but I think his back is, appropriate for the horse.
Yeah. Yeah. And , the owner has done a beautiful job developing his top line because we have a photo of him from 30 days off the track and this is a more recent photo and you can really see that she's put a lot of time and energy into developing that correctly. Yeah, absolutely. And that's pretty cool to see that before and after.
It really is. Yeah. So as far as his hindquarters, I think he has a strong hindquarter. I always look for the triangle between the point of the hip, the point of the buttock, and the stifle. And I will draw that on the images as well. His is [00:18:00] almost, you can almost see a perfect triangle there. Yeah, it's a totally equilateral triangle, which is, I think, often preferred.
If I'm going to pick for a side to be longer, I would like the line from the point of hip to the point of buttock to be the longer side and be a little shorter between the point of hip and the point of stifle. But his is perfect, so there's no reason to really argue with that. But again, looks really well muscled.
Looks like he has plenty of power there and matches the rest of his body. So I said that we've got two pictures of this horse, one from when he was 30 days off the track, like I mentioned in a more recent photo. And I mentioned my overall impression of him was that he was a sturdy type of horse.
But when you look at the picture of him from 30 days off the track, he's got a fairly undeveloped body. Musculature from his stifle down to his hawk and I was actually making my comments primarily off of the newer photo and I said, Oh, it looks like maybe he's a little weak there from Stifle to Hawk over his Gaskin.
And then when I looked at the photo from when he was right off the track, my kind of curiosity was was satisfied there because he does look like he, was a little weak behind. So again, to piggyback on what I said about this horse's top line. This horse has been ridden very correctly to develop a strong, powerful hind end that you can see is structurally there, but they've clearly worked on it.
I said that I would prefer to see his Hawks a tad lower set. And With his with a shorter hind cannon bone to allow him to really reach under himself easily and push off with that powerful hind quarter so I don't think there's anything really wrong.
It's just my personal preference And I think it just isn't He might not find it as easy to engage and push off as he might be if his Hawks were a little bit lower set Yeah, but I don't think it's anything that would impact his soundness or career choice or anything like that Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. I feel like if he was going to be a jumping horse, you would maybe see it in his form and some, way, shape or form there.
All right, let's move on to legs.. So his front legs, I think look very straight from the side, not over or behind the knee. He's got lovely patterns, not too short or too long.
His angle matches his hooves. If I were to comment here, I would say that maybe. I feel like his cannons could be a little bit shorter much as I said, on his hind legs in proportion to his forearm. So I would expect him to have a touch of knee action in his gates, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
But if you're looking for a horse that has a really low sweeping movement, you would want a shorter cannon and a longer forearm than what I think he has. Yeah. I feel like I've never seen a move, so I feel like that knee action. Is coming back into style in terms of what dressers are liking.
And I know you've mentioned it a couple of times. You're like, if I had Alex now, I would have gotten rewarded for that movement. His hind leg, I thought, again, it looked a bit weak from stifle to Hawk.
I agree with your comment about the Hawk could be a little bit lower set. It's hard to tell from this particular angle because of how he stood up. I'd like it if his legs were in the opposite direction. But his patterns behind look. A touch longer than I would like because of how his hind cannon bones are structured.
But it could just be the angle. And I think I said something similar of I felt like him pushing from behind would be a little bit challenging for him, which actually might be why he had a bit of a weaker gaskin. So I didn't actually notice that about his hind. Past turns, but now that I'm looking I see that, And it could just be the way that he's standing because he's not totally square with the leg That's closest to us and it's just a little bit tricky to tell again, these are just our impressions from one or two photos.
So and then let's move on to feet Yeah I think he has a very solid hoof and he looks barefoot. That's what I was thinking. Which is a tough thing for a lot of OTTBs. He's also standing on gravel or pavement, so kudos to the owner. Yeah. Has plenty of heel. His pasterns appear to match his hoof angles well, so I don't see anything.
Alarming from looking at his feet. Looks like they've been really well taken care of. Yeah , I would love to know more about the transition that they've gone through from, because you can't see them in the 30 day off the track photo. So I'm really curious did he come with a good heel?
Was there much work involved there? And I'd love to hear the farrier's perspective on keeping this horse. I know this horse is based, I think, in Maryland. And, Up in our area, the ground can be pretty punishing. It can go from very wet to very hard quickly. Yeah, really good angles all around the, actually the front feet and the back feet look, it's just got four really nice looking feet.
So yeah. Congratulations. And what are your. Final overall impressions about the horse. So I said, I think this horse would thrive in many disciplines. I said lateral work might come a little easier than collection based on his build. I think he's probably a good mover with a strong work ethic based on his family genes.
He's probably got a good gallop and probably moves easily across the ground. Interesting. I said, overall, I really like this horse. Obviously, I'm partial to the breeding from my old horse by the same sire, but it's so cool to see another one. From this photo I think he'd be a really balanced horse to ride with a good canner and a good front end over the fences.
Basically, we really like your horse. Yeah. Can we steal him? To be fair, Emily and I are both Probably going to everybody's horse for the most part. Oh, I did want to mention here really quickly. We are toying with the idea of doing some follow ups on some of [00:24:00] these horses.
So if you are an owner of one of the horses that we're speaking about, please reach out to us again and let us know if you would like to do a little follow up with us. So next up we have Flu Powder, who is a 13 year old gray gelding bred in PA. He had an unremarkable race record with only five starts, hitting the board a few times and winning about nine grand.
I was looking at Flewpowder's pedigree and I have to say it's really impressive. Both the sire and dam lines are packed with famous names and influential horses. His sire line is especially notable. Yeah, his sire exchange rate was quite the star. He was a graded stakes winner and For buffing.
Extremely successful stallion, siring 68 stakes winners. He was purchased as a yearling at Keelan for 1. 4 million back in 1998. I'm known for being a classy, well structured horse. This is the sire. Yeah. Yeah. Not flu power. It's wild. Yeah. It's a lot of money. Known for being a classy, structured horse, passed on power and competitiveness to his offspring, whether on dirt Or turf.
Yeah, exactly. And exchange rate was by Danzig, who is practically legendary in the thoroughbred world. Born in 1977, Danzig was a powerhouse sire producing 188 graded stakes winners and 10 eclipse award winners with earnings surpassing a hundred million. He also sired Dane Hill, who became the first thoroughbred stallion to sire 300 stakes winners.
I love both Danzig and Dane Hill. And remember learning about danzig and how influential he was He had a strong resemblance to a sire northern dancer though. Danzig had a bit more scope he only stood at 15, three hands and had some physical issues like being light on bone and having offset knees, which ended his racing career and sometimes appeared in his progeny.
But despite those knee issues, he passed on a sense of power, balance and speed. Danzig was highly intelligent, but also territorial, allegedly, especially about his paddock, though he mellowed with age. And I think the territorial attitude might have even contributed to his competitive nature. Yeah, for sure.
And looking at the dam line, it's just as remarkable. He's out of La Wildcat, who's by Forest Wildcat. Forest Wildcat was hugely successful sire with 678 foals and 379 of them turned out to be winners. That's more than 34 million in earnings. Wow. And of course, Forest Wildcat was by Notorious Stormcat, another iconic name.
He was foaled at Dairy Meeting Farm and trained by Jonathan Shepard. Fun fact here, Emily and I used to rent this particular farm at Dairy Meeting. And it was pretty wild. Pretty excited when we moved in and they let us know that Danzig was full there and Stormcat was full there and many other notable horses.
Influence as a sire was massive and his stud fee at its peak was 500, 000. Stormcat produced 108 stakes winners and was known for his good hip and solid build, though he had a little bit of a fiery temperament. Yeah, I've heard about that and I know that I'll talk about this in a minute, but people tend to feel.
very polar about Stormcat. They either love him or hate him in a pedigree. Yeah. But he was described as having a strong competitive instinct. His offspring were sometimes considered mad by top trainers like Aiden O'Brien that did not have a sense of self preservation. But we're fast and powerful, which is likely what made them stand out on the track.
That's really, they had a lack of self preservation. Yeah. I feel like some of the best horses are that way though. Could be. Exactly. Stormcat also passed on some of his physical traits like offset knees, but he gave his progeny a lot of tenacity and ability. It's that. Combination of attitude strong confirmation and competitive drive that made him such a successful sire for sure And when I took a look at his pedigree The first thing I noticed was Danzig up close and I was like, okay, I'd expect him to have a little bit of fire to him.
And I saw the forest wildcat and stormcat and I thought, okay, if you couple the Danzig and the stormcat, I wouldn't expect him to be the type that a beginner would necessarily be wanting to choose as their first restart or someone new to OTTBs. But I will bet he's a fierce competitor.
brave and tough. Yeah. And then there's a couple of other names in the pedigree that are quite far back, but he also has theatrical and conquistadors yellow and they are both names that are standouts to me in terms of athleticism. And if I see those names I'm usually pretty happy and interested in the horse.
Yeah, I would expect him to be very smart, tough horse that is quick off the aids, but also very loyal to those that he knows and trusts. Yeah, I feel like that's something that I know that like I've said about Stormcats before, and we disagree here, but They can be a little tougher in terms of partnering with them, but I feel like once you build that solid connection, they can be like your ride or die.
They're great partners. Yeah. Yeah, they'll dig deep for you. For sure. Yeah, I think especially you got a really good one, then you will be a convert. Yes. So let's dig into the confirmation.
What do you want to go first with your overall first impression and balance? Initially I had one picture to work with, but then you found another picture. My overall balance was that he was slightly a downhill build with a powerful hind end and hip that possibly overpowers the front end.
Yes. I felt that he appears to be well balanced in [00:30:00] terms of between his head and neck, shoulder and hind quarter. In terms of like I think the overall proportion. Yeah he's also the best stood up of the three horses I know the picture of bay belt is probably a little bit more attractive because the sun's shining and he's coat is glossy but this horse has his hind legs in a better position so you can see them a bit more Although his feet are in the grass.
So Can't have everything, but I did know that his hind end does appear to be just a bit higher than his withers, which really is not uncommon in off track. There are breads like remember their bread to run fast, mostly straight lines with wide turns. They're not bread to jump big fences or perform upper level dressage movements.
I'll say that while many might fault this, I've seen plenty of off track thoroughbreds that are a bit high behind, but have no issue carrying themselves and being quite light on the forehand. So I would say this is the case of kind of confirmation is as confirmation does. Yeah. And for certain types of riding and disciplines, this might actually be desired.
Think about how a typical quarter horse is put together. That's what , my first impression of this horse, Was yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then moving on to the head and neck. What did you think? I said he has a workman like head It's a bit. It's a little bit blocky through his muzzle, but he has a really kind eyes Yeah, huge big kind eye and big honest ears.
So really cute and endearing I do think his neck is actually set pretty well despite being a little bit higher behind. It has a good length to it when you look at his overall kind of body. I'd like to see how he carries himself when he moves. I'd be really interested to see that. he might go a little low in front, but sometimes they surprise you.
What about you? Yeah, I think I said this horse has a really sweet expression and it gives me the feeling of an old soul. Yeah. There is just something about the look in his eye where he just seems like he's been around the world already. Yeah, no, he looks really, like a really cool horse.
I like how his, the top of his neck connects into his wither in his back. And I think that, like you said, thinking about how he might move might be interesting. Cause hit the connection. In front in his chest is not what I would say would be ideal, but he might surprise us and actually be quite elegant and the way that he holds his front end the gray.
I think in terms of his shoulder again, we have a horse with a nice shoulder. He's got a lovely upright humorous. I'd prefer his actual like scapula to be a bit longer and attached to a more prominent setback wither. Especially if he was a horse that you wanted to go and jump big fences on or something like that, but I still think he looks plenty capable.
Yeah, I actually said that, and I think it was because I only had the one photo initially, but I said the photo was a little tricky to evaluate because in the one photo, he almost looks like he's standing over his shoulder a little bit. But I said that I'd like to see his wither set back a little bit more, but he does look to have an actual strong shoulder, especially in the second photo, you can see how the muscles have developed over there and It's hard on greys to really evaluate sometimes, especially from a photograph.
And then moving on to the back, I said that he's got a good length of back with a nicely developed top line, deep heart girth, and I said I would suspect that this horse swings nicely over his back. That's a good, that's an interesting observation. What do you think? I said his back looks appropriate.
That's it? That's it. No, but I also started looking at him a bit harder and looking at him overall He's the type of horse I feel like you have horses that fit into a square or horses that fit into a rectangle Like a rectangular box or a square box and he's more of that rectangle. So he's a bit like Longer with shorter legs, not that he has short legs, but he's definitely more of that rectangular shape.
Yes. So it goes along with my initial impressions that he might travel a bit low and long throughout his body. And then what did you think about the hindquarters? He also has that nice equilateral triangle that I look for I think on him though, I prefer because he's shaped a bit differently than our first horse overall, I would like there to be a little bit more of length between that point of hip and point of buttock, but I am being very picky when I say that because he has basically a perfect triangle there.
Yeah, I said I love this horse's hind end and the Danzig stamp really shows here. Danzig had an extremely. Robust hind end that just looked very strong. It was, in these two photos of this horse, like his whole outline of his hind quarters just looks very strong and well developed.
He's got a well defined romp and flank looks to be quite powerful. Yeah, for sure. What did you think about his legs? I probably got it wrong again, but for his front legs, I said, he's got a nice long radius and short cannon bones. And with the shoulder angle, I think he would rotate pretty well over fences.
If I had to fault them, I would say his legs could be a little bit longer in front. And then his hind legs again, I really like his hind leg. The connection between his, gaskin, stifle and hawk is long and sweeping. And I bet he's got great push from behind.
Can we disagree a little bit? It's funny. In the photo with the sunset in the background, which you mentioned earlier, he's standing a bit over his shoulder and that I feel like [00:36:00] his front legs look straight. But when you see that photo where he's standing over his shoulder, that can actually make horses look a little bit over at the knee.
But I do think that's just how he's standing. On a side note, I personally feel like if I'd had to choose for a confirmation fault over at the knee would be probably one of them that wouldn't bother me unless it was really severe. A lot of the old time Trainers and riders used to actually seek that out if they were looking for a jumper, but not saying that this horse has that.
It's just how he looks in the one photo. Yeah. Hind legs. I actually think he looks a bit light through his gaskin which is a bit surprising as he looks well muscled elsewhere throughout his body. And I would prefer a lower set hawk on him. He has a really open hawk angle, it looks almost straight behind, which I feel like might hinder his ability to really collect and push.
But again, it's the sort of thing you would have to look at and see him move. Yeah, and I feel like when you think of the mechanics of how all those pieces move together sometimes they can look like they have a really powerful hind step and it just happens to be the way that the leg is put together, and sometimes they can have a less dramatic looking step, but I actually like a lot of push from behind.
So it is really tricky to tell sometimes. And then what did you think about his feet? Yeah, it was really hard to evaluate. The first photo we got, he's standing in grass. So you really can't see them. The second photo with the sunset in the background, they look decent and well shaped.
That was about as much as I could really tell. Yeah. I just said he looks to have a good enough foot, but he might still be working on transitioning into a new career. That his pastern angles. all around look a little bit long, but they may improve as the heels grow out more and support the legs.
So I think he'd be an interesting horse to see in another six months or 12 months and see how that shakes out. I think to looking, , I feel like his hind pasterns are a bit long. Especially in that sunset photo. Yeah, but overall, I really like the energy I get from this horse. He really, for some reason, I just get this feeling that he's a trier.
I think with his slightly higher hang quarter and his hocks being slightly higher set, something like upper level collection for dressage might be tough for him, but I bet he has good quick speed and he's super handy. To ride and turn and to me I he just screams western to me. When I first saw him like I kept comparing him to a quarter horse in my brain And I could just picture him jogging and loping in western tack, but also turning up the heat for the speed events So I would think that he's quick and smart and tough but maybe doesn't have the biggest, loftiest stride in the world.
I said that I like this horse a lot. He reminds me a lot of my first thoroughbred that had some similar qualities of a quarter horse. That's funny. Yeah. I, the more I looked at him, , he just really reminds me of my first horse Riley. And I said I guess he's a good mover and presents a very nice picture under tack.
He looks like he could jump well, and I think he might make a nice Hunter or a lower level of enter. Cool. So it's interesting to hear our take takeaways cause there's plenty of overlap, but there are some Strong differences as well, and I hope that our listeners find that interesting All right, we've got one more yes, who do we have now, let's see
sorry. I'm not following the Going off script. Oh last but not least. We have dragon moon A Kentucky bred nine year old gelding. So I was looking into his pedigree and it is just full of big names. Super Saver, Maria's Mon, AP Indy, and even Buck Passer. And I'll mention a few others in a minute, but really just jam packed with heavy hitters, both for racing and sport horses.
Yeah, I'll say that all three of these horses were really fun to look at because not that it won't be fun to look up horses that have a more unique background with maybe some sires and dams that we haven't heard of before, but , these horses just kept getting nicer than the next, I couldn't believe it.
Yeah. Super saver definitely stands out since he won the Kentucky Derby. So I think people know his name. I saw that dragon moon's dam lunar gal is by yes, it's true. Who was a major player in the breeding world. He didn't have any Mr. Prospector Northern dancer or Seattle slew in his bloodline, which is pretty rare.
But his. Progeny still earned over 58 million and included more than 50 black type winners. And a black type winner is basically either a graded winner or a horse that has been decided on that it is a superior raced horse or breeding stock. Yeah, it's really cool. Yes, it's, yes, it's true was known for passing on smooth fluid movement to his offspring, which is a trait that people would really value obviously.
Super saver, on the other hand, has a more delicate reputation. He was game, but eventually retired due to bone bruising on all four of his cannons. Still, he went on to have a solid stud career, standing in places like Australia, Argentina, and Turkey. That's so interesting. When I was doing research for this episode, I was , fascinated by the fact that, I think because they thought he was just going to be such a good sire, they just shipped him all over the place.
I also read that Super Saver passed on a kind, good natured temperament to his progeny, which is always a plus. And as for Dragon Moon, he was sold at the Keenland yearling auction for 140, 000. And then at a Tattersall sale in Ireland as a two year old for over 257, 000.
Wow. That's a lot of money. I learned about something new when I was researching this episode. I had never heard of the tatter salt's 2-year-old sale [00:42:00] before, so I gave it a Google and apparently they breeze the horse on the track so the potential buyers can see them gallop and observed their stride.
And I thought that was really cool and unique. And then I found out that ha also happens in the us. So I think it's, as Emily said, it's quite controversial because they're breezing these two year olds at an extremely high rate of speed. Yeah, always learning. But it is really cool though that he was overseas and he started his career in england and raced there for his first eight starts and then he was shipped to the u.
s In late 2018, but unfortunately he never won a race here. His race record says he made around 1, 400 per start over 27 races. Yeah, I noticed that too. There's a small break in his record between 2020 and 2021, which may have been because of COVID. I think a lot of horses had pauses in their race schedules because of that.
Yeah, I think it's interesting that. He's bred to the nines and I think they really had high hopes for him and it sounded like he started off pretty strong and then by the time he made it to the U. S. just wasn't living up to the expectations, which is always interesting to see. But when I looked at the pedigree, this is a horse I'd probably buy off of pedigree alone.
Yeah. I love that he has very little inbreeding. His pedigree is packed with attractive names to me, and while none of them on their own probably stand out as a must buy, the combination just feels very pleasing. I love the Maria's Mon, Wavering Monarch line, as well as Kara, which is way far back there. I love to see that older Irish blood.
AP Indy who we haven't discussed, but he's always a beauty mark in a pedigree to me generally means great temperament and athletic, usually nice, substantial types of horses. Yes, it's true. I've always heard great things about as far as temperament and athleticism. And then the quiet American Fapiano line is something I really like.
Fapiano stands out to me for great movement. I know it's far back in this pedigree because. Year was he born? Like 77 or something like that. 31. Yeah. But the quiet American also, I feel like adds in good temperament. So yeah, he's bred to have a really good temperament, on both sides.
Agree. And it's unusual to see that many of those types all in one pedigree as well. But yeah, that's an excellent point about saying this is a horse you'd probably buy on Pedigree and be like, at the very least, it's going to be nice to work with. Yeah. Agree. Now to our assessment. I am so curious about this one, because I feel like you and I are going to have a lot of overlapping opinions, but you never know.
Are we? I don't know. We had some big surprises so far. All right, so let's see as far as my like overall balance I have to say that I have a suspicion That in real life this horse is more balanced than he appears in the photo We only have one photo of this horse and as you'll be able to see When you take a look at his hindquarters are turned away from the photographer Which makes them appear smaller in proportion to his neck and back his neck looks super long You In this photo, but so while it's also a great example of how one photo can make a valuation tough and that first impressions count.
However, since we have looked at thousands and thousands of horse photos, I feel like both of us, our brains can fill in the blank. Yeah. If you will, when you're looking at it and you're also a photographer and I have a design background, so I feel like we are good at visualization. Yeah.
Yeah. We can rearrange stuff in our heads. And it's definitely something that is a practice learned skill. But yeah, so I, I have to say, if I was looking just at the photograph, I would say his hindquarter looks a bit smaller than his front end, his neck looks very, quite long but I think if he was, Perpendicular to the photo.
He would appear quite balanced. Agree. I said it's not a traditional confirmation pick. It looks like he's just out in his turnout paddock. So he's not standing a square correct as I would like, but I can use my imagination because I can already tell that he's put together with all the right parts.
Yes. So head and neck. He. Strikes me as having a very pleasant overall outlook with he's got larger ears and a very kind substantial head. He's a lovely eye and his face appears in good proportion to the rest of him. He just looks like a good dude.
Yeah. I said, I can't completely tell by this photo, but he looks to have a nice strong outline on his face. He's got large ears, which I have a big soft spot for. He's got a beautiful long neck. And although it's not super developed in this image, I can picture how it will improve over time. I also added he has a long neck, which is great for the horse to be able to balance themselves.
I personally like a horse with enough length of rain in front of me. So I don't feel like I might topple off the front end. Yes. But I will say that his neck appears to be lower set in this photo and where his neck ties into his chest and shoulder is quite low. So that could limit him a bit in his upward balance for things like upper level dressage or jumping.
Bye. And maybe predispose him to be a little bit on his forehand kind of naturally. Yeah. But for a discipline like hunters, it might actually be the preferred next set. I also thought on this horse that his throat latch area was a little bit thick. And just a bit coarse for I could just see him wanting to lean a bit on his front end.
It is tricky because I think in this picture, he's standing so over his shoulder and he's turned like from the. Beginning of his chest. He's turned away from us. It's a little bit I'd be [00:48:00] so curious to see this horse stood up proper on a flat surface perpendicular, because I think his whole, our whole opinion of him would probably shift a little bit.
So maybe that's something we could ask the owner to update us with that would be cool. I thought he had a really nice shoulder. If you look at super saver he's like a carbon copy. We'll definitely include a picture of him. I said that he's got a very nicely or very nice, highly sought after angle and his humerus, which could suggest that he can rotate it and lift his front legs really well. I agree that he's got a very nicely defined, very well sloped shoulder, good angle between the scapula and the humerus. Though I still get that impression he's a bit heavy through the shoulder and forehand. Again, it might just be this photo and that point of his shoulder could be higher.
I do think he'd have a really nice sweeping stride versus a ton of knee action. For jumping, I'd expect him to make a nice bascule over the jump, though maybe not be the snappiest or quickest with his front end. Interesting. Going on to his back and his heart girth he's got a nice short coupled build, which is a little bit hard to tell from this photo, but I'm going to make a guess there.
He's got a deeply sprung rib cage and I would guess that he probably feels pretty good to sit on. Yes. I also commented on his well sprung barrel that would take up leg well, I like the depth of that heart girth. And he, his back looks strong and really nicely muscled from this angle. And then moving on to the hind quarters, I just said that of the three that we're evaluating today, this one has my favorite hind end with a low set Hawk, long Gaskin and well developed hind quarters, which I know is putting it really simply, but that's just what I'm looking at.
Yeah. I said I do wish that we had a photo of him more squared up. And not leaning away from the camera, but I see a nice strong hindquarter with good angles from the point of the hip, but I can stifle fairly equilateral, but I feel like he's got a little bit more length in there. And just, he gives an impression of just being very powerful through his hindquarter.
Yeah, agreed. And then moving on to his legs, his front legs, it's a little bit tricky to tell cause he's got fly boots on. Yeah, but I do like his radius. I would say it's just a little bit tricky cause I can't really tell where his Fetlock is. I think I like his front leg. I think I like his front legs.
Yeah, I can only see like how long his radius isn't to me. That looks good. It's hard to tell just how short the cannon bone is Yeah, I basically said the same thing. It's pretty impossible to tell with the fly boots on he is standing over his shoulder in the photo So a little bit like the last horse in the second photo of the lot of flu powder It could make them appear a little bit over at the knee, but I don't think that he truly is I think it's just how he's standing . For the hind legs again, I like that low set Hawk good and a good distance from cipher or Hawk. And I do see that in him in a moderate amount, again, a little tough to evaluate, but I think that his overall, his hind end and hind legs should really supply sufficient power to move and jump well, if that is his intended purpose.
Yeah, I said I he's got very good hind legs that look to be very correct and supportive for his body type He also has probably the best fetlock pastor and hoof connection in his back legs, I think of the three horses. But I'm judging that on one leg that's underneath of him. So again, I'm not, I think it could actually change quite drastically with a different photo.
Yeah. And he looks like he's got a nice heel, good hooves that, that seem to match nicely. Yeah, I think I just said he's got pretty good looking feet. He's just standing on stone dust. That's a little bit tricky and his front feet look like maybe they need a little bit more time to develop some heel.
Again, it's a little bit tricky to tell. What did you think overall? I said this horse would thrive in many disciplines, but he says a venter to me. I bet he's got a super gallop and finds collection work easy. I would suspect he's really nice on the flat and he's an expressive jumper. My guess is by his build, he has a better than average walk and canter.
I said, this looks like a really pleasant horse. I bet he's a better than average mover and jumper. He may have a tendency to lean a bit on his forehand though. And it's funny, I wrote part of this after just looking at his pedigree and from there I said I'd expect this horse to be substantially built with an even temperament and above average movement with some loft to his gates.
I'd say he's probably a big and lofty jumper. I don't know if he's the quickest off the ground with his legs. Yeah. He'd make a really good eventer or dressage horse or maybe even a good show hunter. Yeah, awesome Yeah, I think of the three he's probably the most my type if I had to pick one of the three though I think I would also I don't know.
They're all nice. I can't really say that. There's something to like about all of them and they're, it's like you, you go from their expression to their, I don't know. There's just a lot to, it's why the OTTBs are like potato chips. This is true. You can't choose just, or you can't eat just one.
Yeah. Or choose what you're looking for in one moment of your life can be so different over time and you know what you want when you're at a highly competitive point in your life might be totally different to what you're looking for when you work a nine to five job and you have more limited time.
And yes, confirmation is a big part of. What makes up their suitability and soundness and, their pedigree does play into their personality, sometimes their attitude about work and things like that. There's just so many factors that [00:54:00] make up each of these horses. Yeah. And it's
I don't know what I'm trying to say. No, I think originally I was like, oh, maybe we can rank them for a second and third, like they used to do in the old confirmation clinic. But I think that would be so hard to do because we're looking at a breed, but a breed that's so Versatile and horses can be built in so many different ways and do well at so many different things.
Yeah, so I feel like It would really be hard to do that with this group of horses Yeah and I want to reiterate the point that we're certainly not Comparing these horses to one another in terms of this one's better or this one's Not as good or anything like that. But like We just really want to compare them to their pedigree and their race record and use that as our guide for our final evaluations.
And we really hope that you guys like this series so far. If you have any opinions or feedback about anything that you'd like us to include, please let us know. We got around 40 submissions so far, so we're going to start incorporating this segment into our schedule. We may even make this Patreon only content at some point.
Oh, I've mentioned this before, but we would love if you hear your horse mentioned on the podcast, if you'd reach out to us and maybe we can see how close we were on some of our guesses. So if you guys think that'll be fun, let us leave us a comment.
Do you have anything to add Emily? No, this is something we've wanted to do for a really long time and we've been overwhelmed with the response We would love more submissions. Send us your photo And your jockey club name, and maybe you will see your horse episode to reiterate what Emily was saying before about especially with the last horse and how he was stood up for a photo.
We are working on some special content that we're going to release, over the next six months that will include some things about how you can really change the impression of a horse based on how you stand it up for confirmation. And we've got lots of things in the pipeline. We tend to get a little bit.
Excited about things when you guys get excited. So that's actually why this episode is coming out a couple of days late, because we went down a research rabbit hole and came out and realized it was Monday. And so we hope that you appreciate the time and effort that went into us doing that.
And let us know if you would prefer to hear the podcast on Tuesdays versus Thursdays because we're thinking about mixing it up, but nothing concrete yet. If you like what you heard today, please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts. You can follow OTTB on tap on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik TOK and contact us with interview candidates and topic suggestions at OTTB on tap.
com. We love hearing from you. Bye. Bye.