Excellent series. You have expressed very well what many of us believe. The thoroughbred is essential to sport horse success. The European WB industry is well organized and well marketed and dominate…

Excellent series. You have expressed very well what many of us believe. The thoroughbred is essential to sport horse success. The European WB industry is well organized and well marketed and dominate the world's governing bodies. They are the ones who say that chasing success is irrelevant to competitive jumping success.

There is a saying in the US, "Courses for Horses, and horses for courses." The people who control course design will also control the type of horse that is needed for success. As long as courses are designed for warmblood traits (something that has been happening since the early 1960's per Count Toptani in his book "Show Jumping"), WBs will excel.

In my opinion, you have forgotten at least three very influential and relatively modern TB sires in Sport--Wild Risk, Sicambre, and Relic. Relic comes in through daughters, but the other two come in through their sire sons. Wild Risk is found in almost all great modern day event horses. Bold Bidder (US) is in the pedigrees of at least three Olympic level event horses--Winsome Adante, Withcote Nellie, and a French horse who was at Athens whose name escapes me at the moment.

BTW, in your listing of modern showjumpers with a huge infusion of TB blood, you forgot Butterfly Flip, who is out of a TB dam.