Thoroughbred Horse for sale

The term Thoroughbred describes a breed of horse whose ancestry traces back to three foundation sires — the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerly Turk.

Named after their respective owners — Thomas Darley, Lord Godolphin and Captain Robert Byerly — these three stallions were brought to England from the Mediterranean Middle East around the turn of the 17th century and bred to the stronger, but less precocious, native horse.

The result was an animal which could carry weight with sustained speed over extended distances, qualities which brought a new dimension to the burgeoning, aristocratically-supported, sport of horse racing.

So began a selective breeding process which has been going on for more than 250 years, breeding the best stallions to the best mares, with the proof of superiority and excellence being established on the race track.

Key to this selective breeding process is the integrity of the breed’s records.

In early days, Thoroughbred breeding records were sparse and frequently incomplete, it being the custom, among other things, not to name a horse until it had proved outstanding ability. It was left to James Weatherby, through his own research and by consolidation of a number of privately-kept pedigree records, to publish the first volume of the General Stud Book.

He did this in 1791, listing the pedigrees of 387 mares, each of which could be traced back to Eclipse, a direct descendent of the Darley Arabian; Matchem, a grandson of the Godolphin Arabian; and Herod, whose great-great grandsire was the Byerly Turk. The General Stud Book is still published in England by Weatherby and Sons, Secretaries to the English Jockey Club.

Several years later, as racing proliferated in the fast-expanding continent of North America, the need for a pedigree registry of American-bred Thoroughbreds, similar to the General Stud Book, became apparent. The first volume of The American Stud Book was published in 1873, by Col. Sanders D. Bruce, a Kentuckian who had spent almost a lifetime researching the pedigrees of American Thoroughbreds.

Thoroughbreds are most commonly associated with horse racing but they excel in many area. They originated in Britain starting in the late 17^th century for speed and racing with the influence of Arabian bloodlines. Today, they continue to dominate the racing industry but Thoroughbreds also excel in eventing, show jumping, and dressage. They come in a variety of solid colors like bay, chestnut, and black and, on very rare occasions, palomino and pinto. On average, a Thoroughbred stands between 15 and 17 hands high (60” to 68”at the shoulder) and weighs from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds with a lean build.

There have literally been hundreds of famous thoughbreds including:

• Seabisquit
• Secretariat
• Man o’War
• War admiral
• Eclipse
• Seattle Slew
• Nyquist