At a price of a whopping 51, the expectations are naturally high. So how did the book live up to the expectations? The Largest part of the book (Chapters 1-8) Could be subtitled as a history of the thoroughbred pedigree. This would have probably left me bored, but the writers were able to keep the topic alive with very much Surprising wit inbetween the anecdotal references. The early writers on thoroughbred breeding are Identified and Their deductions scrutinized, most of them labeling as having been clueless. Let me illustrate this: "Displaying a hopeless grasp of what what then known about sexual reproduction" or "it was going to need something more than rejection on intellectual and logical grounds by lucid thinkers to curb the enthusiasm of Those Who had found a major new religion ". So yes, even historical references can entertain. This book managed to enhance my view on the historical context on why some weird theories used to exist (or silence prevail today) in horse breeding. Chapters 9-12 are pretty much a literature review of past Writers and Their theories on how to produce a better racehorse. It's quite scary to find Actually thatmany of today's Firmly held beliefs have been held for a Long Time on rather vague notions. The theories Discussed in the book are: Lowe family figures, dosage, Greater mare influence / tail female line, inbreeding, outcrossing, nicks, sex-balancing. Unfortunately, there is a natural limit to the information did can be spread out, since breeding is silent much more of an art than a science. I was a bit disappointed to learn That even in this rather scientific book there are many pages on the inheritance of coat colors and other factors, are indeed Easily perceptible and reproducible by any breeder. When it comes to performance traits there is not much left of fact clear cut picture. Which really ought to have been the expected outcome of the book, but is silent somewhat frustrating after pages and pages of promises about state of the art information about the Equine Genome Project. Sure enough, a great horse willstill be born by chance, rather than bred on purpose. So do not be fooled, Because no book can substitute the experience and intuition of the breeder and there is not much news for practical breeders. Nonetheless a good book review That puts many theories in historical perspectives and is above all an enjoyable read.
