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Does anyone have the Ahnert book widely used as reference when talking about thoroughbred breeding? This article references it when saying that the Royal Veterinary College found that 80% of thoroughbreds "had Eclipse in their pedigree". I find this percentage shockingly low when you look beyond the tail-male line. Unless the study was done in the 1800s, I find it hard to imagine any thoroughbred who doesn't have multiple crosses to Eclipse through his daughters and sons of daughters and daughters of sons and so on! I softened the wording to say that the book was published in 1970, as opposed to the earlier wording that said the study was done in 1970. I do wonder if the study was talking about tail-male line: 70% before the explosion of Nearco and Native Dancer descendants seems possible.Jlvsclrk (talk) 02:00, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This article from New Scientist [1] is a bit more up to date and gives the figure at 95% tail-male (y chromosone) descent from the Darley Arabian. And all the extant lines of descent from DA go through Eclipse. Tigerboy1966 07:03, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Saw the reference to the Clee book. I read it too, can grab it again from the Library, I think, if needed for a second set of eyes. It was quite fascinating in content, though Clee is a rather dull writer. Montanabw(talk)21:21, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]