Contents Page
Introduction................................................................................................................
System Requirements.................................................................................................
Installation..................................................................................................................
Getting started...........................................................................................................
Quick start..................................................................................................................
Displaying Pedigrees...................................................................................................
Pedigree Screen..........................................................................................................
Number of Generations..............................................................................................
Shortcut Menu............................................................................................................
Horse Details...............................................................................................................
History List..................................................................................................................
Analysing Pedigrees....................................................................................................
Highlighting.................................................................................................................
Linebreeding, same colour...............................................................................
Highlight specific horses..............................................................................................
Linebreeding, both halves, by sex...............................................................................
Relationships, one at a time........................................................................................
Relationships, all Families............................................................................................
Modern taproot...........................................................................................................
Line of inheritance of the X chromosome Lists:...........................................................
Important ancestors.....................................................................................................
Linebreeding Tools.......................................................................................................
Linebreeding Relationships..........................................................................................
X-Chromosome............................................................................................................
Finding Specific Horses in Pedigrees............................................................................
Find..............................................................................................................................
Highlight specific horses..............................................................................................
Search pedigrees.........................................................................................................
Comparing Two Horses Within a Pedigree..................................................................
Dosage.........................................................................................................................
Lists...............................................................................................................................
Tracing Families...........................................................................................................
Descendants.................................................................................................................
Tail analysis...................................................................................................................
Planning Matings..........................................................................................................
Test Mating...................................................................................................................
Horse Records...............................................................................................................
Data Entry.....................................................................................................................
Modifying a Horse’s Details..........................................................................................
Deleting a Horse from a Pedigree.................................................................................
Deleting Records from the Database............................................................................
Importing and Exporting Records.................................................................................
Update database..........................................................................................................
Backup changes............................................................................................................
Changing Data Tables...................................................................................................
Horse Colors.......................................................................................................
Chefs de Race...............................................................................................................
Special Lists..................................................................................................................
Important Ancestors....................................................................................................
Double Copy Mares.....................................................................................................
Managing Your Output................................................................................................
Printing........................................................................................................................
Printing Options...........................................................................................................
Produce HTML Pedigrees for Email..............................................................................
Colours.........................................................................................................................
Screen display Help......................................................................................................
Using the software.......................................................................................................
Planning matings and selecting horses for purchase....................................................
This user guide is designed to get you started using Pedigree Planner and to show you how to access
the main features. To assist you in using the software, there is help available within the program, which
describes the individual commands.
Pedigree Planner will run under any version of Windows, including Windows 10. A good quality
monitor will let you display seven generations on the screen.
When you order Pedigree Planner you will receive a USB flash drive containing all the files needed to
install Pedigree Planner. Detailed instructions are in the file InstallPP4.docx. If you are unsure about
how to install the program after reading this file please seek help from someone who is confident
working with Windows and the Windows registry.
Pedigree Planner is password protected. We’ll give you more information when we send you the
installation files.
A detailed description of how to use Pedigree Planner is in the following sections of the manual, but if
you wish to get started right away the following paragraphs might help.
Type in the name of a horse or the first few letters in the box labelled “Enter Horse Name” and press
Enter (or click on “View Pedigree”). This will take you to a list of horses that start with the letters you
typed. Double click on one of these horses to show the pedigree.
From the pedigree screen, all of the commands are available from the menus at the top of the screen, or
from the toolbar. You can use either the menus, the toolbar or the following function keys or
keystrokes to give you quick access to the many features of this program.
Linebreeding summary: click the Analysis menu, then Linebreeding, or use the LB button on the
toolbar, or use Ctrl-L.
Relationships summary: click the Analysis menu, then Relationships, or use the Rel button on the
toolbar or use Ctrl-R.
X-Factor summary: click the Analysis menu, then “X-Factor”, use the X or use Ctrl-X.
Tail analysis: click the View menu, then Tail Analysis, or use F4.
Descendants: click the View menu, then Descendants, or use F5
Highlighting: click the View menu, then Highlighting, or click the Highlighting button on the toolbar, or use
F6.
Printing: click the File menu, then Print, or use the Print button on the toolbar, or use Ctrl-P.
Change the window within a pedigree: Double click any horse, or click any horse and press Enter to redisplay the part of the current pedigree which starts with that horse.
Generate a new pedigree for any horse on the screen: First, click any horse to highlight it, then click the
View menu, then View Pedigree, or use the View Pedigree button on the toolbar, or use Ctrl-V to
display a new pedigree for the highlighted horse.
To display the pedigree of a named horse, enter the name in the box on the main screen.
Pedigree Planner will display the Find screen, listing details of all of the horses with that name in the
database. Select the correct horse from this list by reviewing the sire, dam, sex, year of birth, country of
origin, click the horse’s name and then click OK to display the pedigree.
If the horse you want is not listed, try clicking the “fuzzy search” box. The Find screen will then
display details of horses with similar names, which allows for misspellings, apostrophes etc.
If the horse is not listed on the Find screen, it is not in the database, so click “New horse” and enter the
details as set out under Data Entry in this manual.
Pedigree Planner has a unique pedigree display that allows you to easily view any window of a
tabulated pedigree.
You can generate, for instance, an eight-generation pedigree, but a screen can’t possibly display the 513
names all at once. Pedigree Planner handles this by easily allowing you to view any window of the
larger tabulated pedigree – similarly to the way spreadsheet programs like Excel allow you to view a
window of a large spreadsheet.
Under the default settings, the screen displays a window of six generations of the eight generation
pedigree that has been derived. You can select any horse on the screen using the mouse or the arrow
keys and double click on it to change the viewing window. Now use the arrows on the toolbar (or the
arrow keys) to move the viewing window around.
You can choose both the number of generations for which your pedigree is derived and the number of
generations that you display on the screen and print.
Pedigrees can be derived for an unlimited number of generations, but a maximum of seven can be
displayed on the screen. Default settings are as follows:
Number derived 8
Screen display 6
Printer 8
Eight generations have been chosen as the number derived so that three-quarter relations can be shown
in the sixth generation and full relations are shown in the seventh generation.
Default settings can be changed by clicking the Options button on the main menu screen. Choose the
Pedigree tab to change the number generated or the number displayed and choose the Printing tab to set
the number to print.
Right-click the mouse on any horse in the pedigree to display a menu for pedigree displays, analysis
and data entry.
You can view the details of any horse on the screen.
Use the View menu or right-click on the horse, then click View Details and the complete Details
a window will be displayed.
The status bar at the bottom of the screen displays some of the details for the horse currently selected.
The field to the right on the status bar is used to display either the racing record, breeding record,
comments or dosage for the currently selected horse.
To change the information displayed there, either click Options on the main menu screen or use the
Edit menu on the Pedigree screen and click Options. Within the Options window click the Pedigree tab
and from the “Select extra information on status bar” section select the information you wish to appear
on the status bar.
To make it easy to refer back to pedigrees you have been working on, Pedigree Planner keeps a history
list.
To display the list of the pedigrees that you have recently generated either click on History on the main
menu, or click the tool bar’s History icon on the Pedigree screen, or click the Pedigree menu and select
History. Double click any line on the list to display that pedigree.
You can also display the previous pedigree in the history list or the next pedigree in the list. Either click
the Pedigree menu and select Last Pedigree or Next Pedigree, or use the Last Pedigree or Next Pedigree
buttons on the toolbar.
The history list is maintained when you close Pedigree Planner, retaining the list of names for the next
time that you use the software. Click on Options, then the Pedigree tab to change the length of this list
from the default setting of 20.
The analysis tools in Pedigree Planner are mainly designed to assist you to analyse pedigrees by
linebreeding principles and have been extended to include the X chromosome line of descent and important
ancestors.
Dosage can also be calculated if required.
For a description of the theory behind these breeding principles, please refer to the companion booklet
to this manual, Breeding Theories – An Introduction.
The following list sets out how to access each analysis tool from the pedigree screen.
The default display is for linebreeding to be highlighted in different colours i.e. each horse that is
duplicated in a pedigree is shown in a different colour. Click on the highlighting icon on the toolbar to
list the alternatives:
This is useful if you are printing pedigrees in black and white and wish to manually highlight certain
lines.
You can select particular horses that you wish to highlight in a pedigree by checking the “Highlight
specific horses” box or by using the View command on the menu. The “Select Horses” screen is
displayed and you can add or delete horses from this list. See the Highlight Specific Horses section in
Finding Specific Horses in Pedigrees.
Linebreeding, both halves, by sex
This is useful to identify linebreeding where there is a strain both in the sire and in the dam i.e. to
exclude linebreeding such as (0) x 4s, 4d, where the linebreeding appears only in the dam.
Relatives (also known as genetic equivalents) can be displayed one set at a time, as the screen can
become confusing with several sets of relatives displayed at once. To change the highlighting to the
next set of relatives, click Next Relationship under the View menu. For each set of related horses, you
can select whether or not you wish to highlight the ancestors they have in common.
All sets of relatives in the pedigree are highlighted simultaneously.
All horses sharing the same family number (where they are entered in the database) are highlighted,
with each family a different colour.
Where modern taproot mares have been identified and set, all horses descending from these mares are
highlighted, with a different colour for each mare’s descendants.
Line of inheritance of the X chromosome
Horses on the line of inheritance of the X Chromosome are underlined, and horses duplicated are
highlighted in colour. If “Show double copy mares” is ticked, then any mares that have been set as
carrying a double copy of the large heart factor are also highlighted.
The horses in the List that you selected from the drop-down box will be highlighted. See the section on
Lists for further information.
Any horses in the special List IMPORTANT are highlighted in the current pedigree. See the section on
Lists.
To help analyse linebreeding in pedigrees, tables of linebreeding and relationships are available from
the toolbar or the Analysis menu. A table detailing information about horses on the line of descent of
the X Chromosome is also available.
Each of these tables can be sorted by clicking on the column headers – thus you can sort alphabetically,
by percentage and so on. Each table also has a Print option.
Click on the linebreeding icon on the toolbar, LB, to display a table of linebreeding. Alternatively,
click the Analysis menu, then click Linebreeding.
This table has four columns listing the names of the horses that are duplicated in the pedigree, the
number of times each horse is duplicated, a percentage weighting of the extent and closeness of the
linebreeding, and where each duplication occurs.
Click on any horse in the list, then click Go to Horse to find the duplicated horse in the pedigree. Use
Next Occurrence on the View menu or the shortcut key F3 to find the next occurrence of the
duplicated horse.
Click on the icon of the relationship on the toolbar, Rel, to display a table of relationships. Alternatively,
click the Analysis menu, then click Relationships.
This table has two columns. The first lists the related horses, showing the extent of the relationship, and
the second column lists the ancestors in common.
Select any line in the table and click on Highlight Relationship to highlight the related horses (in blue)
and the common ancestors (in red). Use Next Relationship under the View menu to highlight the next
relationship.
Use the threshold setting to set the minimum common ancestry that Pedigree Planner uses to display
relationships. The default is set at 50% or genetic half relatives.
Click on the X toolbar icon, to display a list of all the horses duplicated on the line of inheritance of the
X-Chromosome. Alternatively, click the Analysis menu, then click X-Factor
This table has four columns; the name of the horse duplicated, the number of times it appears, its
percentage of the total pedigree, and a second percentage of the pedigree which has been calculated to
take into account the effect when the line of inheritance for this horse is through a male.
To find in the pedigree any of the horses from the table, either double click on the horse or click the
horse and then click Go To Horse.
Finding Specific Horses in Pedigrees
Pedigree Planner has three search tools to assist you to locate influential horses in one or more
pedigrees. Find and Highlight Specific Horses operate on the current pedigree and Search Pedigrees allow
you to search either the entire database or a nominated list of pedigrees for horses that match criteria
which you set.
From the Pedigree screen, click on the Find icon, or click Find Name In Pedigree under the Edit menu,
to display the Find window. Enter the name of the horse you wish to locate and Pedigree Planner will
search the current pedigree for the full number of generations that you specified in deriving the
pedigree.
The first occurrence of the horse will be highlighted. Use Find Next under the Edit menu or the F3 key
to progressively highlight each occurrence of the horse.
To highlight within a pedigree only horses that you select, either click the Highlighting button on the
toolbar and click Highlight Specific Horses, or click the View menu and select Highlight Specific Horses.
To select each horse that you want to have highlighted, click Add, then in the Find window type the
name you want into the Find Horsebox, click Search, then select the correct horse and click OK.
Alternatively, use the Select List button, choose a List and the horses from that list will be added to the
horses to highlight.
Then click OK and Pedigree Planner will highlight those horses, giving each horse a different colour.
If you have the option “Just highlight these horses” marked, Pedigree Planner will only highlight the
horses you have selected.
If you have “Show rest of linebreeding in black” marked, Pedigree Planner will highlight the horses
you have selected and highlight the rest of the linebreeding in this pedigree in black.
If you have marked “Highlight lines of inheritance” Pedigree Planner will highlight the lines of
inheritance for each of the horses you have selected. You can set the number of generations back that
are to be searched for the selected horses.
When two lines of inheritance for any one horse intersect, the horse at the intersection will be
highlighted bold. When the lines of inheritance for two different horses intersect, the horse at the
intersection will be highlighted bold in the colour of the closest selected horse.
If you click the Analysis button while the Highlight Specific Horses window is displayed, Pedigree
Planner will display a table of percentages for the horses listed in the window, similar to the
Linebreeding table.
The Search Pedigrees feature allows you to perform four types of search:
1) search the pedigrees of one or more horses for one or more names
2) search the database for horses containing specified names
3) find in the database horses that match specific criteria e.g. are grey or are at stud in a specific
country etc.
3) perform a constant factors analysis on two or more horses
This is a very powerful and, in places, quite complicated feature. There is a detailed description of this
command in the Pedigree Planner Help. The following paragraphs are a summary of the uses of this
feature.
To run Search Pedigrees either click the Search Pedigrees button on the main menu or from within a
pedigree click the Edit menu and then click Search Multiple Pedigrees. Note that Search Pedigrees does
not use the pedigree on the pedigree screen.
Lists can be used as input to both the Pedigrees to the Search window and the Horses to Search For
window.
To use this command, first, specify the pedigrees that you want to be searched.
Either
- tick Search all horses, or
- click the Descendants of… button to choose the descendants of a specific horse, or
- add individual horse names manually by clicking Add, or
- use Select List to enter the names from a list or
- use any combination of the last three methods to enter horses’ names in the Pedigrees to search
window.
Then, if you wish, you can set criteria that specify which of the horses in Pedigrees to Search will
actually be used. For instance, if you selected descendants of Danehill, then you can select only his sons
by setting SEX=” S” in the Details to Search for the grey window. Click Select, click the down arrow next
to the SEX box, click on “S”, then click OK. See the Pedigree Planner Help for a more detailed
explanation of how to set search criteria.
If you do not enter any horses into the Horses to Search for: window then only Output Formats that will
be available are List Matching Horses, and Table of Occurrences.
List Matching Horses will list those horses from the list in Pedigrees to Search that match the criteria
set in Details to Search For, and Table of Occurrences lists the horses that occur more than once in the
pedigrees of the horses in the Pedigrees to Search.
If you enter horses into the Horses to Search for: window, Table of Occurrences will become
unavailable, and you will be able to select List of results, Summaries only or List Matching Horses.
If you select List of results, then for each pedigree searched, Pedigree Planner lists each occurrence of
each horse searched for that is found in the pedigree, and produces a summary for each pedigree
searched. The summary includes the name of each horse searched for, the number of sons found, the
number of daughters found, the total number of strains found and percentage influence for each of the
totals.
Summaries Only lists the summary figures.
List Matching Horses lists which pedigrees the names searched for were found in, without saying
wherein the pedigree those names were found.
Comparing Two Horses Within a Pedigree
It is often useful to be able to compare two horses from within a pedigree so that you can see the
placing and extent of the common lines.
To compare two horses within a pedigree, click the first horse, then click the second horse, then click
the Pedigree menu and select Test Mating.
Alternatively, left-click the first horse, then right-click the second horse and select Test Mating from the
shortcut menu.
To go back to the horse from whose pedigree you selected the two names to compare, click the
Pedigree menu and select Last Pedigree, or click the Last Pedigree button on the toolbar.
To display the dosage on the status bar for any horse selected on the screen, use the Options command on
the main menu or use the Edit menu from the pedigree screen and click Options. From the Options
window click the Pedigree tab, click Enable Dosage if the box is not ticked, and then click Dosage in
the ‘Extra information on status bar’ box.
Dosage is calculated based on the Chefs de Race as nominated by Dr Steven Roman and the OwnerBreeder Committee on Dosage. An updated list is published on the Internet at http://dosage.online/.
You can add to and amend Pedigree Planner’s list of Chefs de Race by choosing the Database tab from
the Options window and then clicking Chefs de Race.
The List feature is extremely useful and allows you to save several horse names into a named list so
that they can be used as input to other routines later.
Lists can be created either by individually entering each horse name or by using the Save to List button
on one of the searches to save the output from that search.
To create or edit a list manually either click Edit Horse Lists from the Main Menu or click List
Maintenance in the List Menu.
Horse Lists can be used as input to any of the searches by clicking Select List, or a list can be used as
input in the pedigree screen in the first position, or in the sire or in the dam.
To use lists on the pedigree screen either click Test Mating on the Main Menu, or click New Pedigree
in the Pedigree Menu. Then click the position where you want to use the list (first name, sire or dam).
Then click Use List from the List Menu, and select a list in the correct position. Pedigree Planner will
display the pedigree of the first horse from that list in the position you nominated. To display the next
horse from the selected list, click on the correct position and either click Next Horse in List from the
List menu, or use Alt-K. Pedigree Planner can also display the list in reverse order if you use Last
Horse in List from the List menu, or Alt-J.
Pedigree Planner has two tools to help you to trace families, Descendants and Tail Analysis.
Descendants allow you to look forward from a pedigree, tracing horses that have descended from the
horse you are studying. The tail analysis allows you to look backwards, tracing a horse back to the known
origins of the breed.
From the main menu click on Descendants, or from the pedigree screen, click on Descendants under
the View menu to display a list of the progeny of the subject of the pedigree.
The Descendants screen will be displayed, listing all of the progeny recorded in the database. Check the
Sons or Daughters box if you wish to follow a sire or dam line only. For each horse listed, the sire or
dam, sex, family number and year of foaling will be displayed.
If one of the progeny in the list has a box with a plus sign alongside its name, this horse also has
descendants in the database. Click on the plus sign to display a sublist and repeat the process to follow
each generation. Click on the minus sign to close a sublist.
Select any horse on the Descendants list and click Show Pedigree to display the pedigree of that horse.
The View menu also lists New Descendants. This performs the same functions, but for whichever horse
you select in the pedigree, not for the subject horse.
From the main menu click on Tail Analysis, or from the pedigree screen, click on Tail Analysis under
the View menu to list either the female line or male-line ancestors of the subject of the pedigree.
The Tail Analysis screen will be displayed, listing each successive sire or dam - check the Tail Male or
Tail Female box to follow either a sire or dam line. For each horse listed, the generation number, sire,
dam, sex, year of birth, family number and country of origin are listed.
Select any horse on the Tail Analysis list and click Show Pedigree to display the pedigree of that horse.
The View menu also lists New Tail Analysis. This performs the same functions, but for whichever
a horse you select in the pedigree, not for the subject horse.
You can use Pedigree Planner to plan matings for your mares or stallions and analyse the resulting
pedigrees.
From the main menu click on Test Mating. A pedigree screen will be displayed with the words “Test
Mating” instead of a horse’s name, and you can enter whatever parents you like in the sire and dam
positions.
To view the pedigree of your mare against several stallions, first of all, remove the current stallion from
the Test Mating. Click on the sire, click Delete from Pedigree on the toolbar and click Yes when
Pedigree Planner asks you if you are sure. Alternatively, after clicking on the stallion, click the Edit
menu, and select Delete From Pedigree.
Then type the name of the next stallion into the sire’s position on the pedigree.
You can also use this method to test one stallion against several mares.
Each of these test matings is stored on the History list so that you can easily retrieve any of the
pedigrees.
Pedigree Planner has a large database of current horse pedigrees and many thousands of Thoroughbred
ancestors traced back to their origins. You can easily extend or modify these records:
Enter a horse name in the box on the main screen and click “View Pedigree”. You can type in either
upper or lower case – Pedigree Planner displays all names in a consistent format.
The Find screen will be displayed and, if the horse you want is not listed, try clicking on “Fuzzy
search” to check for mis-spellings etc.
If the horse is still not listed, click on “New horse” and the Horse Details screen will be displayed. The
sire and dam are not entered at this stage but you can enter some or all of the following details:
Year of Birth as a four-digit number.
Colour, enter the first two letters or select a colour from the options list
Sex entered as S or D for sire or dam.
Family Number, as the Bruce Lowe family number or other designation.
Country of Origin, as one of the internationally accepted abbreviations e.g. the USA, GB, AUS etc.
First Year at Stud
Breed (TB by default)
Comment
Race Record (including starts, wins, money won, etc)
Breeding Record (including the number of foals, number of stakes winners etc)
Southern Hemisphere, 1st Year at Stud, the year this horse first stood at stud in the Southern
Hemisphere.
Southern Hemisphere, Country, the country where this horse is currently at stud in the Southern
Hemisphere.
Northern Hemisphere, 1st Year at Stud, the year this horse first stood at stud in the Northern
Hemisphere.
Northern Hemisphere, Country, the country where this horse is currently at stud in the Northern
Hemisphere.
(The last four fields are not available for Quarterbase)
When you have finished entering the horse details, click OK and the pedigree screen will be displayed
again.
Use the mouse to click onto the place for the sire, type in the sire’s name, press Enter and select the sire
from the Find screen.
Repeat the data entry process for the dam and for any other gaps in the pedigree. Any horses entered
are automatically saved in the database.
An alternative way to start entering a new pedigree is to click on Data Entry on the Main Menu. A
blank pedigree will be displayed and the cursor will be on the position of the first name. Type the name
of the horse and press Enter.
If there is a horse of that name in the database the Find screen will be displayed, and you should
proceed as above, from the paragraph about the Find screen.
If there is no horse of that name in the database the program assumes that you want to create a new
record for the name and it will display the Details screen. You should proceed as above, from the
paragraph on the Details screen.
Please note that if you have misspelt the horse’s name, and don’t actually wish to create a new record
for that name, clicking on Cancel in the Edit Details screen will stop the program creating a new
record, and return you to the beginning of the pedigree, where you can type the name again.
The details of any horse in the pedigree can be edited in the Details window.
Click on the horse so that its name is highlighted, then either click Edit on the menu and select Edit
Horse Details, or click the Edit Horse Details icon on the toolbar. Alternatively, right-click on the horse
and select Edit Horse Details from the menu. Change whichever field you wish, then click OK to store
the changes in the database.
If necessary you can change the horse’s name in the Details window. This is the best way to correct a
misspelt name, but be aware that if you make a mistake, you may not be able to find that horse in the
database.
Deleting a Horse from a Pedigree
If the wrong horse is displayed in a pedigree, you can delete it by first clicking on the horse. Then
either use the delete key or click on the Delete from Pedigree icon on the toolbar.
You can also right-click on the horse and then select on Delete from Pedigree on the menu.
Note that this only deletes the horse from the pedigree you are working on – the horse remains in the
database.
Deleting Records from the Database
If you enter a horse in error or discover a duplication or error in the database, you can delete the
incorrect record from the database.
On the pedigree screen, select the horse you wish to delete and use Delete from Database from the Edit
menu. Pedigree Planner will ask you if you are sure and you need to confirm the deletion.
If the horse whose record you are trying to delete has progeny, the “Horse has Descendants” screen will
be displayed. You can view the descendants and select either to delete all references, which will leave
gaps in the pedigrees of the progeny, or enter another horse name to replace the incorrect horse in all of
the progeny.
Importing and Exporting Records
Pedigree Planner has two tools to assist you to manage your database of horse records, Update
Database and Backup Changes.
Update Database enables you to easily import records from a special update file created by Pedigree
Planner and supplied either on USB or by email.
Backup Changes creates the special update file, allowing you to send new records that you have
entered to other users and maintain backup files.
Update Database also allows you to convert old Pedigree Planner databases, or to import other
databases into Pedigree Planner format, either by merging your database records with an existing
Pedigree Planner database, or by converting your database into a separate Pedigree Planner database.
See Pedigree Planner Help for more information.
From the main menu click on the Update Database. Set Update File to be the name of the special update
file, and select which type of update you would like. Click OK.
Or set Update file to be the database you wish to import and select Import Old Database.
To create a database suitable for importing into Pedigree Planner, you will need to create a Microsoft
Access database with a table called HORSES with the following fields:
ID Number (or Autonumber)
NAME Text(50) - the name of the horse (maximum 50 characters)
SIREIDX Number - ID number of sire
DAMIDX Number - ID number of dam
Databases identifying the sire and dam of a horse using other methods must either be converted to
index form before importing or, alternatively, changed into an update file. (See Below).
The following fields are optional:
FAMILY Text(5) - Family No.
SEX Text(1) - S or D or G
COLOUR Number - colour no. - index into colour table
YOB Text(4) – Year of birth
YOD Text(4) – Year of death
COLOURNAME Text(25) – horse’s colour
COUNTRY Text(5) - the country of origin
BREED Text(2) - TB, SB, QH, MO, PF, or PT
STUDYEAR Text(4) - 1st year at stud
COMMENT Text(1024) - Comment field
RACE RECORD Text(1024) - Race record
SP Yes/No - StakesPlaced
SW Yes/No - StakesWinner
GW Yes/No - GroupWinner
STARTS Text(5) - No. of starts
WINS Text(5) - No. of wins
MONEYWON Text(20) - Money Won
BREEDRECORD Text(1024) - Breeding record
FOALS Text(5) - No. of foals
STARTERS Text(5) - No. of starters
WINNERS Text(5) - No. of winners
STAKES WINNERS Text(5) - No. of Stakeswinners
AUCTION PRICE Text(20) - Highest Price at Auction
YEAR SOLD Text(4) - Year sold at highest price
It is possible to "import" a database using names to identify horses by creating an update file. This is a
Microsoft Access database with the following differences:
The table called DUMPTABLE instead of HORSES.
SIREIDX and DAMIDX can be absent.
The following fields are required:
NAME Text(50) Name of Horse
SIRE Text(50) - Name of Sire
DAM Text(50) - Name of Dam
SIRESIRE Text(50) - Name of Sire's Sire
SIRE DAM Text(50) - Name of Sire's Dam
DAMSIRE Text(50) - Name of Dam's Sire
DAM DAM Text(50) - Name of Dam's Dam
From the main menu click on Backup Changes. Pedigree Planner will provide a default file name for
saving the changes.
Choose whether you wish to backup all records or additions and alterations only, in which case only
records added or changed since the date of your last backup, by default, will be backed up. You can
change the first date if you wish. By default, the second date in the Backup Date Range will be the
current day’s date. If you wish you can set the second date in the Backup Date Range to a different date
so that Pedigree Planner only copies records from between those two dates.
Use the “Don’t save comment field” if you have used these fields for commercially sensitive
information that you do not wish to pass on to others.
There are two database tables that contain additional information that can be used by the program.
These are Horse Colours and Chefs de Race
To add new information to these tables or modify the information already there, click Options, click the
Database tab, and click the name of the table to be changed.
These are the names of the horses’ colours that are stored in the database with each horse record. All
the standard horse colours are already in the table, such as bay, chestnut, brown, grey etc. New colours
are easily added.
Abbreviations are stored with each colour name.
It is recommended that you only change the abbreviations in this table. If you alter the names there will
be horses whose colours do not match any of the abbreviations.
This table contains the Chefs de Race as defined by Dr Steven Roman and the Owner-Breeder
Committee on Dosage, and published on the Internet at http://www.ownerbreeder.com/cheflist.html
There are two special lists that are available if needed.
The list IMPORTANT has been set up for Important ancestors, which are horses that have been
identified as being of particular significance to the breed. Horses entered in this table can be
highlighted on the pedigree screen as described in the Important Ancestors section of Analysing
Pedigrees in this manual.
This table is currently empty, which allows you to identify and enter those horses that you think are
particularly important.
The list DOUBLE contains a list of those mares that have been identified as carrying a double copy of
the large heart factor on their X-chromosomes. The mares currently in this table have been taken from
Marianna Haun’s book The X Factor. It is easy to add new names to this table as more double copy
mares are identified.
Pedigree Planner offers a number of ways in which you can tailor and personalise printing and screen
displays, plus a facility for producing HTML files to allow you to email pedigrees.
To print tabulated pedigrees from the Pedigree screen, use the Print icon on the toolbar or the Windows
standard Print, Print Preview and Page Setup function under the File menu.
To print tables of linebreeding, relationships and X chromosome line of inheritance, use the Print
button on the relevant screen or use the default settings described below. Page Setup for printing tables
is under the Analysis menu.
From the Main Menu, select Options and then the Printing tab to:
• Set the number of generations to print
• Control fonts and font sizes in printed pedigrees and lists. Note that font sizes for pedigrees
are different for different generations and are listed in the box titled Font Sizes.
• Select to use colour or black and white as the default for printing pedigrees
• Print the year of birth with the last generation of a pedigree
• Print the linebreeding summary each time a pedigree is printed
• Print the relationships summary each time a pedigree is printed
• Print the X factor summary each time a pedigree is printed
Produce HTML Pedigrees for Email
You can produce HTML pedigrees from the pedigree currently being analysed.
To control the appearance of the HTML pedigrees click on the HTML tab in Options, and set the size
of the pedigree table, its alignment on the screen, font, font sizes and column widths. Adjust the
column widths by sliding the vertical bars between each column, and then click the Update % button to
make sure that the percentages do not add up to more than 100. Using these controls you can create a
pedigree to suit most email requirements and web page designs.
To create an HTML pedigree, on the Pedigree screen click “Save as HTML” under the File menu, and
choose a file name for the pedigree. You can now attach the saved file to an email, or use it on a web
page.
To set the colours and style used in both screen displays and printed output, from the Main menu, select
Options and then Colours.
You can also control the colour of the background of the pedigree, using RGB values. The default is
Windows grey.
To set the number of generations displayed on the screen, from the main menu, select Options and then
Pedigree.
To change the size of the font on the screen, from a pedigree click the Edit menu, click Options and
click Font Sizes.
To change the column sizes on the screen, from a pedigree click the Edit menu, click Options and click
Column Widths.
The settings in Column Widths and Font Sizes are unlikely to need changing, but if you do change
them and do not like the end result, clicking Default will restore the old values.
Help
The Help item on the menu gives access to Windows standard help screens. Just type in the first few
letters of the subject you want help on. You can also use the F1 key to give you help relating to
whatever screen you are currently using.
Planning matings and selecting horses for purchase
Pedigree Planner software gives you fast, professional information to help you analyse test matings and
pedigrees.
If you would like assistance in choosing purchases or planning matings we offer a full pedigree
consultancy service and would be pleased to quote our services to you