The Female Line
Thoroughbred horses are traced through the "distaff" or female line, known as their "family", dating to the beginning of the General Stud Book (GSB). This was done because the mares produce far fewer foals than stallions. Thoroughbred Stud Books around the world cite pedigrees in tail female style - meaning that the ancestry is traced through the maternal, rather than paternal line.
Horses that come from “good’ families will usually command better prices than one with an inferior family, although they may not prove to be better as racehorses or sires/broodmares. However, modern genetic studies have revealed that there are some cases where the haplotype in the mtDNA of modern Thoroughbreds differs from the stated dam line, suggesting that some records contain errors.
Read more about this topic: Thoroughbred Breeding Theories
Famous quotes containing the words female and/or line:
“You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy and generous and self-indulgent, like the relationships between women when there are no men around. They make each other presents, and they have little feasts, and nobody punishes anyone else. This is the female way of going along when there are no men about or when men are not in the ascendant.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)