Re: Take offense at "nag"
"all thoroughbreds come from a mere 3 stallions"
What about the maternal lines? Everyone seems to concentrate on the paternal ancestry as if the mares are simply vessels in which to incubate a replica of the stallion. But the mare provides the only X chromosome of a stallion foal, one of the X chromosomes of a mare foal, half of the rest of the nuclear genes - and all of the mitochondrial genes. Given that it's the last which provides the critical mechanism of aerobic respiration if there's any variation, however small, in that it could have a significant effect on performance.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
