by Rose Sylvia

Tbpedix is an online pedigree forum that has attracted members in over 20 countries since being founded in 1999 by Lexington pedigree advisor Les Brinsfield and Texas breeder Rose Sylvia. The three day event was held at the Campbell House Inn in Lexington, Kentucky from October 23-27, 2001. Topics presented during the three day conference ranged from pedigree analysis to elements of sports science to the cutting edge use of hyperbaric chambers in human and equine medicine. Additional activities included farm visits, spontaneous discussions and a Breeders' Cup party.

Attendees were treated to a glimpse of his brilliance as Les Brinsfield expounded on the significance of concentrations of Domino and La Troienne in modern pedigrees. Les is the founder of Pedigroup Inc., Pedigree Post and co-founder of Tbpedix.

Crestwood Farm pedigree analyst Robert Keck showed another facet of his Thoroughbred knowledge with his presentation comparing pedigree, physiology and Typology in the Thoroughbred with emphasis on slow and fast twitch muscle inheritance. Rob is also very knowledgeable about the methods of great breeders, pedigree analysis concepts and applications.

Three Kentucky-based Thoroughbred breeders shared their thoughts on the business including the tradeoffs involved in pedigree decisions forced by real world constraints of turning a profit. Best known for his affiliation with Wafare Farm, Nathan Fox provided insights on breeding marketable foals and how the economy and the uncertainty due to what is being called Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome could affect the market.

Highland Farm's manager Peter Kirwan offered tips on the time to buy barren mares and the reality of managing business growth. Peter recommended developing relationships, saying, "Relationships are what keep everyone going."

Owner and general manager of Old Frankfort Stud, Jim Plemmons comments were very insightful, ranging from describing a market being driven by pinhookers to predicting economic slowdowns. He estimated that the market was 40% lower than value and only 30% of breeder's sales were financially viable. Most significantly, he said, "This is not the horse business. This is the people business." He suggested buying maiden mares that had been bred right, breeding to proven stallions whose best foals have a pattern that works, and using first crop sires that had reasonable starts on low stud fees.

Tbpedix members were especially pleased Clive Harper, author of The Thoroughbred Breeders' Handbook, was able to travel in from New Zealand to share his knowledge of the patterns in pedigrees. He provided many propositions for determining what these patterns are and which are most significant. He distributed tables of horses tail female to Bruce Lowe family numbers 7 and 8 and passed around a copy of his book of Genetic Equivalents, available through Glengarry Books (http://www.glengarrybooks.co.nz/). Clive worked personally with Harold Hampton and assembled Harold's third volume of The First Scientific Principles of Thoroughbred Breeding. Watch for Clive's soon to be published next book on Thoroughbred broodmares.

A former statistics instructor at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Ann Ferland presented an in depth look at German racing, breeding, and female families. She provided racing and breeding terms in German, lists of leading sires and broodmare sires, and produce records of major female lines. Her handouts included the names, distances, locations and class levels of German stakes races as well as insights into their use of closer inbreeding than currently practiced in most other countries.

For the second year in a row, Anne Meredith made the long trip from New Zealand to share her extensive knowledge of line breeding principles and her cutting edge pedigree program Pedigree Planner. Anne was requested to expand on her demonstration in a second session that included impromptu brainstorming and a database search for the ideal mate for the great New Zealand-bred mare Sunline.

Janeen Oliver, pedigree consultant and owner of Honeysuckle Farm, presented her latest Mare Line Chart, this one on Bruce Lowe female family number 8. Similar to the popular Sire Line Charts, Janeen has painstakingly created a similar type of chart for foundation mares. Also called a Mare Mitocondrial Chart, they offer a visual representation of the most important branches and descendants of each family. Janeen's charts are available via e-mail to pedigrees101@aol.com and are very valuable for gaining insights into relationships between elements of any pedigree.

Co-founder of Tbpedix, Texas breeder and pedigree researcher Rose Sylvia drew from her background in the computer industry to give an overview of available online and offline pedigree research resources. She reviewed online stallion registers, BRIS American Produce Records, the capabilities of various pedigree programs and how to locate information on the internet. Those resources are linked from Rose's Equine Info web site at (http://www.equineinfo.com/horseracing/pedigree.htm).

Maurice Bevin expounded on the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and the healing power of pure oxygen on medical problems in horses and humans. Maurice is a construction diver working in Scotland with a medical background in using HBOT to treat decompression sickness, a condition in divers also called "the bends." HBOT is a very new technology for horses, currently used only by Winstar Farm in Kentucky on their own horses and offered to the public by Oak Creek Farm in Texas and Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in California. Oak Creek Farm has a foal chamber on order that will be located in Kentucky and dedicated to the treatment of hypoxic foals.

Texas breeder Tom Young gave a presentation on the project he and Anne Peters undertook to update Vullier's Dosage (not to be confused with the modern concept of Dosage popularized by Dr. Steve Roman). They created a database of stallions in the pedigrees of great racehorses during the 20 year interval of 1980 to 1999, calculated the frequency distribution of all the horses within six generations and tabulated the results to come up with 11 modern day stallions and the desirable standard influence for today's optimum racing prospect.

A visit to Lane's End Farm afforded the opportunity to view their stallions including Charismatic, A.P. Indy and Fit to Fight. Some were brought out for picture opportunities while others were observed in their stalls or turn out paddocks.

Tbpedix member Janeen Oliver hosted a tour of her Honeysuckle Farm and provided a warm place on Breeders' Cup Day for great racing and discourse. Due in part to the brilliant handicapping skills of Tom Young, who advised rolling pick threes in addition to a joint pick six effort, the group realized a profit on the joint venture which many contributed to the fund to replace Janeen's laptop which disappeared during the conference.

Drawings were held daily for donated door prizes of full versions of TesioPower and Pedigree Planner pedigree software and a full color Bruce Lowe family 8 Mitochondrial Mare Chart. Free demo CDs of TesioPower were also available during the conference.

Special thanks to Tbpedix supporters George Waggoner and Carlos Perez who were not able to attend this year's conference and to convention supporter Carlos Perez whose donation provided full course catered lunches for all participants each day and subsidized expenses for the conference and transportation for speakers from the Southern Hemisphere.

Members of Tbpedix are published authors and have been speakers at other conferences including the 2001 CTBA Pedigree Seminar. At the upcoming first International Thoroughbred Breeders Seminar to be held February 4-5, 2001 in Cape Town, South Africa, five of the eight speakers are members of Tbpedix.