Breeding

GET /v1/horses/{horse_id}/pedigree

Sire, dam and damsire, plus others by the same sire.

Available on

Free key 24h – 7d

Live today + 3 days

Archive back to 2017

Complete 2017 → upcoming

Complete + Analyst 2017 → upcoming

Send your key in the X-API-Key header, or as ?key= if your tool cannot set one. A date outside your plan's window returns 403 outside_window naming the window, never an empty array.

Parameters

Name	In	Type	Required	Description
horse_id	path	string	yes	Opaque horse identifier.

Request

curl https://api.apihorseracing.com/v1/horses/hs_V8JGH6/pedigree \
  -H "X-API-Key: $AHR_KEY"

$ch = curl_init('https://api.apihorseracing.com/v1/horses/hs_V8JGH6/pedigree');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER     => ['X-API-Key: ' . getenv('AHR_KEY')],
]);
$data = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), true)['data'];

const res = await fetch(
  'https://api.apihorseracing.com/v1/horses/hs_V8JGH6/pedigree',
  { headers: { 'X-API-Key': process.env.AHR_KEY } }
);
const { meta, data } = await res.json();

import os, requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.apihorseracing.com/v1/horses/hs_V8JGH6/pedigree",
    headers={"X-API-Key": os.environ["AHR_KEY"]},
).json()

Response

200 OK application/json harvested 8 days ago

{
    "meta": {
        "request_id": "2bd134b5673bfd2d",
        "data_as_of": "2026-09-12T05:10:27+00:00",
        "plan": "analyst",
        "window": "2017 → upcoming",
        "note": "Breeding for this horse has not been fetched yet."
    },
    "data": {
        "horse_id": "hs_V8JGH6",
        "name": "The Galloping Bear",
        "sex": "g",
        "colour": null,
        "pedigree": {
            "sire": null,
            "dam": null,
            "damsire": null,
            "status": "pending"
        }
    }
}

A real response from /v1/horses/hs_V8JGH6/pedigree, captured by calling the live API rather than written by hand.

Response fields

Each field is described once and rendered on every endpoint that returns it, so the wording cannot drift between pages.

Field	Type	What it is
horse_id	string	Opaque horse identifier.
name	string	Race title as published, sponsor and all.

Errors this endpoint returns

Code	Status	When
unauthorized	401	No key, or one we do not recognise. Check the header name and that the key has not been rotated from your account page.
not_found	404	The identifier is well formed but nothing has it. Distinct from invalid_id, which means the identifier itself is wrong.
invalid_id	422	The prefix does not match the kind of thing the path expects, or the identifier is malformed. A horse id passed where a race is wanted lands here rather than returning the wrong race.
rate_limited	429	Past your per-minute rate. Retry-After is set, and X-RateLimit-Remaining tells you where you stand on every successful response too.
server_error	500	Ours, not yours. Every response carries a request_id; quote it and we can find the exact request.

Run it live

A real request from your browser straight to api.apihorseracing.com with your own key. Nothing is proxied and nothing is logged by this page.

Your API key

Remembered in this browser so you do not paste it on every page.

horse_id

What this is for

Sire, dam and damsire, plus other horses in the archive by the same sire so you can see what a stallion actually produces rather than what he is said to produce.

Breeding records are keyed on the name rather than on a source identifier. The source's own identifiers for sire and dam were unusable: they repeated the subject horse's identifier on every record, which would have made every horse its own father. Keying on the name is imperfect where two stallions share one, and honest about being imperfect.

This pass runs behind the results crawl, so coverage is climbing. The field table below and /v1/meta/coverage both tell you where it has reached.

Common uses

Studying a sire

The related horses give you a population to run through the statistics endpoints.

Filling a pedigree panel

Three generations is more than the source publishes; two is what exists.

Notes

A null sire means the pedigree pass has not reached this horse. It is not a statement that the breeding is unknown.