Horse pedigree search: sire, dam, damsire and family

How do you search a horse's pedigree?

Type a horse, sire or dam into the pedigree search box. Each result shows the sire, dam and damsire with links, plus the female family where RaceWatch has traced it.

Results cover thoroughbreds that have run in Britain or Ireland since 1990, the stallions that sired them and the mares that produced them. Where a horse raced and later went to stud, one result links to both pages: the race record and the sire or dam page. Spelling slips are forgiven, so a search for Enabel still finds Enable. Horses with the same name are told apart by their country suffix, such as City Of Troy (USA) and City Of Troy (GB), and by the trainer shown under the name.

• Horse: race record, pedigree tab and family
• Sire: progeny winners by season, distance and going
• Dam: every foal that ran and how they did
• Family: the female line traced back generation by generation

What does a thoroughbred pedigree show?

A pedigree is the family tree of a racehorse. The top half follows the sire line and the bottom half follows the dam line, doubling in size with every generation back.

Every thoroughbred in Britain and Ireland is registered in the General Stud Book, and every one traces back through its sire line to one of three foundation stallions: the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerley Turk. For judging a racehorse, the first three generations matter most. They name the sire and dam, the four grandparents and the eight great-grandparents, and they show which stallions appear more than once.

How do you read Frankel's pedigree?

Frankel is by Galileo out of Kind, by Danehill. Galileo is his sire, Kind is his dam and Danehill, the sire of Kind, is his damsire.

Frankel was foaled in 2008, trained by Sir Henry Cecil and unbeaten in 14 races. His sire Galileo was by Sadler's Wells out of Urban Sea, a line built on middle-distance stamina. His damsire Danehill was a source of speed, and Kind herself was a sprinter. A pedigree that blends a stamina sire with speed on the dam's side often produces a horse effective at a mile to ten furlongs, which is where Frankel did his racing.

The search result for Frankel shows the same line in one row: sire Galileo, dam Kind, damsire Danehill, and the female family named after Rockfest, the mare two generations above Kind. From there the sire link opens Frankel's own stallion page, where his progeny in Britain and Ireland are counted winner by winner.

What is a female family?

A female family is the line of mares running from a horse's dam to her dam and on upwards. RaceWatch names each family after the earliest mare it can trace in British and Irish records.

Breeders put great weight on the female line because a good mare tends to pass on her ability through several generations. Frankel's dam Kind was out of Rainbow Lake, whose dam was Rockfest, so on RaceWatch Frankel belongs to the Rockfest family. The family page lists every descendant that ran in Britain or Ireland, how many won, and which won black-type races, generation by generation.

Kind also produced Noble Mission, a full brother to Frankel by Galileo who won the Champion Stakes. A full brother shares both parents, while a half brother shares only the dam. Sales catalogues are built around this idea, listing the dam's other foals and the best winners in the family beneath each lot.

What do the sire and dam pages add to a pedigree?

The sire page counts how the stallion's offspring have performed, and the dam page lists every foal she has had on the racecourse. Together they show whether a pedigree is working in practice.

A sire's progeny figures in Britain and Ireland are split by distance, going and season, so a stallion whose runners win mainly over sprint trips, or mainly on soft ground, stands out quickly. The dam page is smaller but often more telling: a mare whose first three foals all won is a strong sign for the next one. RaceWatch counts only runs in Britain and Ireland since 1990, and runs abroad are left out.

• Leading Flat and jumps sires are ranked on this season's winners
• First-season sires are tracked from their first two-year-olds
• Leading families and broodmares are ranked on winners and black type

When does a horse's pedigree matter most?

Pedigree matters most before a horse has shown its own form: unraced two-year-olds, horses stepping up in trip, and horses running on new ground or a new surface.

Once a horse has raced a few times, its own form is the better guide, and breeding becomes a tiebreaker. Pedigree still helps when a horse tries something new, such as a first run over a longer trip, a first run on the all-weather or a first run on heavy ground. In those cases the sire's record under the same conditions is the nearest evidence available, and the horse page shows it next to the horse's own figures.

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