The conscientious and persistent end aim in the breeding of any thoroughbred is for a better racehorse – a champion that will soar as on the wings of a Pegasus, highlighting the Turf and providing memories for the dreamtimes.
The determining factors in the equation of the high-class racehorse are pedigree, conformation, performance and temperament (not necessarily in that order) and the selection process is guided by each individual breeder’s choice of how best to keep alive in the breeding blueprint these characteristics.
A century and more ago, it was an ad hoc approach, a painstaking and individual task which meant for the breeder long hours of scouring books and written record to ascertain the breeding of each horse; and the keeping of copious, but necessary, notes on those constants (conformation and performance and temperament). There was little or no access to the research of others, despite duplication through privately kept records being rife.
But also, there were dedicated, possessed individuals, not professional breeders per se, who sought to rationalise the breeding process, simultaneously linking the past with the present, and composing a structured picture of the links in the breeding process through the female line
The first to publish some shape and order was a JOHN HENRY WALSH, who under the pseudonym “Stonehenge”, issued in 1885, a collection of Thoroughbred pedigrees. Later in that same year, the more profound deliberations of the German HERMAN GOOS, published his work in which he sought to establish a classification of female lines, his work a series of genealogical tables of the English Thoroughbred, issued under the title: “STAMM – MUTTER DES ENGLISCHEN VOLLBLUDPFERDES.” In this Goos classed and numbered “Families” according to victories in a number of races which he considered significant, his qualifying races identifying 61 “Families.”
Four years later, in 1889, a third publication of genealogical tables appeared, under the title “FAMILIEN TAFELN DES ENGLISCHEN VOLLBLUTS,” compiled by another German, FRENTZEL, whose research paralleled the work of Goos.
Goos, not to be outdone, in that same year issued a second, enlarged and revised edition, of his Goos Tables.
Meanwhile, C BRUCE LOWE, English-born and Australian domiciled, beavered away unearthing the links and data meant to prove breeding theories he sought to promote.
To achieve his end, Lowe took those races he considered pre-eminent of world racing, the Epsom’s Derby and Oaks Stakes and the Doncaster’s St Leger Stakes, linking each winner to an ancestress at the very birth of the Thoroughbred, in fact, to those mares, not thoroughbred themselves, but which together with the Arab and Barb stallions founded the breed.
Armed with his findings, Lowe number-named each source mare in numerical sequence according to the success of their descendants in those Classic races, naming Tregonwell’s Natural Barb Mare first of them all, through to Family No. 43.
Lowe’s work, unlike the works of Goos et al, was published in English, then as now a universal medium of communication, and brought his work to a general audience, subsuming the earlier reference works of Walsh, Goos and Frentzl, which had never received the blanket response of Lowe’s interposition.
Together with the works of Walsh, Goos and Frentzel, his unifying work brought an overdue recognition to the female side of pedigrees, giving focus to the mares within the breeding equation; the christening number-names of Lowe remain the identifying symbol of each descendant, colts and fillies, in direct female line and family relationship to this day.
Lowe completed his work around the turn of the century, set down his theories in manuscript form – and died. His work was published posthumously under the title “BREEDING RACEHORSES BY THE FIGURE SYSTEM.” His theories, intended to revolutionise and to make more scientific the breeding process, immediately captured the imagination’s of all, both professional and non-professional breeders of the Thoroughbred, and the spotlight was taken, albeit only of a moment, from the stallion as the sole bestower of pedigree, conformation and performance.
But fame was not to be the lot of Lowe. His carefully researched work and argued views, although initially embraced enthusiastically, were as quickly and brutally rejected as arrant twaddle, and left a reputation bereft of credibility – astonishingly, although a century separates him from life, his name remains today a “red-rag” to some breeding-cum-racing commentators. But all was not lost. Over the years Lowe’s work (for which he receives little praise or credit), embraced that of Goos to shape the Family Tables.
Most in breeding today are familiar with “The Family Tables of Racehorses” by Kazimierz Bobinski and Stefan Zamoyski, popularly referred to as “Bobinski’s Tables,” published in 1954 by J A Allan & Co. It is an indispensable bridge between the past and the present.
What is not generally known is that there was a forerunner to Bobinski’s work in both format and layout, a work issued in 1933 by “The Society for Promoting Horse Breeding in Poland.” This publication embraced the Families and Numbers of Lowe (43), and an additional seven Families appearing in Goos, establishing a 50 Family Tables format. For convenience, they divided the taproot mares by figure though to modern taproots, which were given alphabetical symbol as for instance Family No. 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c, etc, defining the various modern branches stemming from each taproot mare.
Bobinski followed this format, but increased the number of taproot mares from 50 to 74. Bobinski also embraced countries not included in the Polish book, and American and Colonial Families. As a matter of interest, in Bobinski’s Tables,” Families No. 32 to 74 are embraced in just 6 of the 135 pages.
As indicated above, the taproot mares, over the centuries, have splintered into many and separate branches. These modern taproot mares were largely self-selecting, a point at which natural separation developed. They were adopted as convenient points of tangent by the Polish Tables and Bobinski as those branches significant to their time.
In “Peerage of Racehorses” the breakdown of the Family No. 1 is 23 stems, many of which can now be said to have reached the point where they divide again. The modern taproot mare, the aptly named matriarchal queen Paradigm, through her daughter, Paraffin, her granddaughters Footlight and Illuminata, and her great-granddaughters, Chelandry and Gas, together have forged a dynasty. Now, descendant mares, each a step on the stairway, are with descendants thick enough on the ground to entitle them to recognition as modern taproot mares. Modern taproot mares are not written in stone, and in the flux of change Paradigm and Paraffin will take a backseat. As with Footlight et al, the likes of La Troienne and Picture Play are also ready to assume the mantle of modern taproot mares taking an identity of their own from the Casuistry (Fam No.1) branch from which they spring, bringing these branches of the Family No.1 into the 20th/21st centuries. (In “Family Trees of Racehorses,” current efforts are towards selecting from the self-selecting mares, those points of reference as of the above instances).
The service Lowe and others did for racing in defining the Family cannot be overstated. Had this been Lowe’s sole purpose, then in an industry that readily honours its heroes and servants (races carrying the name of Admiral Rous are raced at Newmarket, Doncaster, Ascot and Goodwood), then Lowe’s name would enjoy honour and like status. But his name is associated only with his theories, and he remains without celebrity. Ergo… when next your eyes fix on a Family No., spare a thought for the unfortunate Lowe, and silently mouth an appreciation that his work readily parts the curtain of time, and order, not chaos, meets the mind.
Once, the Family No. was de rigueur, the signal element identifying the Family to which a particular thoroughbred belonged. In older yearling sales catalogues, it was a constant, a bracketed number that immediately identified the Family of each individual. Then, on a whim, the Family No. was withdrawn. English, and I believe American catalogues continue to studiously ignore identifying entries by their Family Nos, but Australian and New Zealand catalogues have accepted that it was in error to reject this knowledge, and have replaced the identifying “figure” to yearlings and others coming in to the market place. Some countries, as England, flirt with “of the same Family as…” followed by the name of a famous horse as “Hyperion” – but who knows off he top of the head from which Family Hyperion* was a descendant.
The Bruce Lowe, American and Colonial Family Nos. are (in my view), essential to a ready identification of any horse, wherever in the world. It may be seen as too loose a homogeneity, but beyond all questions, it encompasses in broad context, every thoroughbred.
