This is an article I posted under an unsuitable thread and Treve thought it should have its own thread. I agree, but then I came across another article today that I almost posted under the Justify thread, even though the point of the article was much more about breeding and a certain breeder. I'll start the thread out with the article about genetic diversity, then post the new one. I would love to see similar articles you found interesting.
Byerley Turk Reaching The End Of The Line
More: http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/by ... -the-line/As we all know, the only bottom line most breeders really care about is found at the base of a balance sheet. And the ink they use, red or black, tends to be ascribed sooner to the top line of a pedigree than to the one running along the bottom. Commercial yearlings are branded first and foremost by their sires, even though the equal genetic contribution of the dam should make her family of critical interest.
On the one hand, then, it was edifying to see three Classics in eight days magnify names in the bottom line: Miesque (Nureyev) as grand-dam of G1 Prix du Jockey-Club winner Study Of Man (Fr) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and great-grand-dam of G1 Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Alpha Centauri (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}); and the great Urban Sea (Miswaki) as fourth dam of Derby winner Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), besides also being dam of his grandsire.
Arguably, however, both Miesque and Urban Sea are exceptions to prove the rule. As such celebrities, in both their racing and breeding careers, they stand out luminously in a family tree: barely less of a short-cut, in terms of attention span, than crediting everything to the sire. But when Study Of Man, for instance, takes one of the best pedigrees in Europe to stud, we should be no less interested in all the other spars and buttresses that support the family around his famous grand-dam. It will be easy enough, at that stage, to be excited by the fact that Study Of Man is out of a mare by one of the great modern broodmare sires in Storm Cat. But how many people, in renewing their admiration for Miesque, are still asking themselves how much of her priceless legacy might be credited to her mother Pasodoble-who was by Prove Out (Graustark) out of a Sanctus (Fr) (Fine Top {Fr}) mare?