RRP’s Bloodline Brag: The Only March Madness Bracket You’ll Need This Year

To encourage more OTTB enthusiasts to utilize its amazing user-driven Bloodline Brag resource, the Retired Racehorse Project is putting together a Sire Madness bracket of the most popular Thoroughbred sport horse sires! Find out how you can get involved.

Much of our knowledge about bloodlines in the sport horse world is an oral history, passed from horseman to horseman through the generations. A few breed organizations do maintain a Hall of Fame or similar catalog to highlight foundation sires or well-known stallions who produce horses well-suited for certain disciplines, but much of our knowledge of good names to see in pedigrees for upper-level dressage, professional rodeo or three-day eventing is simply in our heads.

As the off-track Thoroughbred is once again recognized as an athletic, versatile and highly-trainable partner in a variety of disciplines, horsemen are starting to discover which bloodlines may be well-suited to certain jobs and which lines may be hotter or quieter, and even which lines may be prone to certain health issues down the road. In an effort to record all of that valuable information and create a database to help Thoroughbred enthusiasts find the right horse for them, the Retired Racehorse Project — producers of the popular Thoroughbred Makeover event — have created the Bloodline Brag.

The Bloodline Brag is the Internet’s first user-driven database of bloodlines specifically tailored for second-career Thoroughbreds. With a Retired Racehorse Project membership, users can enter information about their own horses, including their breeding, their suitability towards specific second-career disciplines and their overall soundness. While some of this information can be a bit subjective depending on the individual, the idea is to paint a picture of what bloodlines might be best suited for certain aspects of the horse industry, and ultimately help place more Thoroughbreds in great post-racing careers.

To help bolster interest in the Bloodline Brag, the Retired Racehorse Project is holding Sire Madness and placing sixteen of the most popular second-career sires in a bracket, with fans voting for their favorites! The sixteen chosen sires will be based on Bloodline Brag submissions, so if you have a favorite sire of your OTTB, make sure you enter your horse’s information into the database. A membership with Retired Racehorse Project is NOT required to view the Bloodline Brag; this information is available to everyone!

To sweeten the deal, any horses entered into the Bloodline Brag during February will be entered into a drawing for $50 in RRP store credit! Time is ticking away — enter your horse before midnight tonight to be eligible, and keep your eye on the Retired Racehorse Project Facebook page for information about March Madness.