Entries Tagged 'Breeding Theory' ↓
August 30th, 2020 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion, News
“He strikes us as a real classic stallion. He gets a very good type and is a total outcross with his pedigree free of the major European forces like Sadler’s Wells, Galileo, Montjeu, Danehill, Green Desert, Invincible Spirit, Danehill Dancer, and Dubawi.
“We are thrilled that he is coming to Coolmore and are very excited about what he might achieve when paired with our Galileo mares,” stated Coolmore spokesman David O’Loughlin.
The above quote explains succinctly why Coolmore have outlaid a no doubt eye-watering sum to purchase upwardly mobile French stallion, Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj).
The breeding powerhouse have no shortage of Sadler’s Wells and Danehill bloodlines at their disposal and their brains trust must have been mulling over for quite some time the age-old question, “Where do we go next?”
Clearly they’ve seen Wootton Bassett as the answer to that question and their conclusion is not exactly surprising given that the son of Iffraaj has shown a remarkable ability in the last year or so to throw class and to throw that desirable quality consistently. To date he’s produced 106 winners, including 15 SWs and another 12 stakes-placed performers.
So what does this all mean for the kiwi breeder? Well, Almanzor now looks a much safer bet than he did when he arrived and full marks to Cambridge Stud for what was then a courageous decision to stand him.
Turn Me Loose has his first juveniles out and about this season. As his dam is bred on the Danehill – Sadler’s Wells cross, it will be very interesting to see how his youngsters perform.
Ribchester, the winner of four Group 1s in Europe, begins his third SH season at Haunui next week. At $15,000 he will no doubt attract many of our most commercial mares. Inbred to Nureyev, and featuring the highly successful Nureyev – Last Tycoon cross he must be a very strong chance to make a significant impact down here.
Jon Snow’s first foals are arriving about now and Wyndspelle is about to begin his first season at stud. Both Group 1 winning sons of Iffraaj are at bargain fees. Wyndspelle stands at $5000; ATC Derby winner Jon Snow is at $3750.
Wyndspelle features the Iffraaj – Sadler’s Wells cross which Coolmore are hoping to build on; Jon Snow has a similar pedigree to Ribchester. Inbred to Nureyev, he has the Nureyev – Last Tycoon nick as well.
Interesting times.
May 16th, 2020 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
We’re all in these difficult times together and If Little Avondale and Cambridge Stud can offer breeders significant advantages by using their stallions, I can follow their example by offering free mating advice for the coming season.
Little Avondale have trimmed Time Test’s fee from $10,000 to $6000 and I’ve been unable to resist this inducement. I can well remember when Rich Hill reduced Pentire’s fee to the same amount – and the angst when the mare concerned failed to get in foal, especially when the son of Be My Guest left SWs all over the place in subsequent years.
I really rate Time Test and he should cross well with many of our leading bloodlines. Inbreeding to Sadler’s Wells clearly works well and if you’re going to inbreed to Danehill, something most of us approach with caution, Time Test’s Dansili line is one that should be relatively risk-free. The mare I’m sending is bred on a Rip Van Winkle – Dansili cross, so I’m going for broke.
If you’re thinking of using Time Test, then have a look at the photos of last year’s foals on the LA website. It’s something of a challenge to tell them apart.
Cambridge Stud’s 2020 strategy is to offer a
payment on live foal deal – an arrangement which will appeal to breeders
whose cash flow isn’t what it used to be. They offer two stunning
physical types in Almanzor and Embellish and deserve to be rewarded for
their initiative.
To date, other studs’ announcements of their 2020 fees have been notable for their adherence to 2019 figures. Let’s hope they think again. Wouldn’t six weeks’ free agistment be a powerful inducement?
In recent years I’ve often published a review of fees
based on what I’ve considered to be the extent to which they’ve
represented value for money. I plan on doing this again in a coupe of
weeks, but one stallion I’d like to mention at this stage is Derryn.
His offspring on Gavelhouse have been nice types and my experience with breeding a mare to him has been more than satisfactory. Tuscany Rose is a mare that has yet to leave two foals alike, even when bred twice to the same stallion but her Derryn filly we’re currently weaning is an absolute cracker. She appears to have a fair amount of Lonhro in her, which is certainly encouraging.
November 26th, 2017 — Breeding Theory, News, Winners
That was impressive. Racing three wide for a good part of the journey and carrying 60kg against a useful field was not enough to stop the son of Fully Fledged from scoring his first black-type success in yesterday’s Counties Bowl. In doing so, he became Cloughmore’s 27th individual black-type winner and gave us our 60th stakes race victory.
Thinking back to when I advised successful breeder Kaye Sanders to send her Maroof mare Keshava to Fully Fledged, I recall that she told me that her mare was a one-paced but handy sprinter and we agreed that finding a stallion to impart a degree of class was clearly a priority. I had recently seen Fully Fledged (Align) at Fairdale Stud and had been impressed by his physique and his temperament. Racegoers will recall that as a 2YO he ran through the Trentham running rail and I suspect that many breeders remembered that incident and had doubts about using him as a stallion. The old prejudice against chestnuts also came to the fore, I’d imagine, together with the thought that possibly Align wasn’t entirely desirable as a sire of sires.
Anyway, I always had a soft spot for Align, having been associated with Donna Logan’s selection of the impressive but ill-fated Align to Infinity, and I had long-since developed a theory about breeding sprinters. As long as the dam was quick and came from a speedy family and provided that you didn’t lose that speed by selecting a stallion with significant and dominant stamina influences, you had a decent chance of producing a fast racehorse. How much class it had was another matter but, as always in breeding, you have to give yourself a chance.
Apart from the Northern Dancer duplications, the only significant cross which features in Fully Funded’s pedigree is the Grey Sovereign x Crepello nick, but it’s a cross for which I have a deep affection. As time has rolled on, these two stallions occur increasingly further back in pedigrees (obvious statement of the year), but when they turn up in the same pedigree page it always adds to the appeal of the animal concerned.
Let’s hope Fully Funded makes it to the Group 1 Railway Handicap on New Year’s Day and that he gets a decent draw.
October 23rd, 2017 — Breeding Theory, News
It’s always difficult to design a headline for an article with multiple purposes, so apologies for the above.
One of the good news items relates to the RTR catalogue. It seems to offer a range of well bred-types with attractive pedigrees; I had real difficulty sorting out my feature lots as the overall quality was impressive. I was especially taken by some of the fillies. As always, the Analysis is available for sale in its totality and also via commentaries on individual lots.
Under the heading of “Thank Goodness They Are Starting To Show Something” is the news on the recent form of the stock of Super Easy. We all know that Prom Queen is a freak but the support acts have been well hidden until the last few days. Last weekend Easy Does It won nicely in Singapore, the day after the very smart Easy Beast was again successful, this time in Adelaide. Yesterday Easy Eddie cruised home as a red-hot favourite at Wyong and Lisdoonvarna won a Class 1 event at Nowra treating her rivals with disdain. Easing down, she recorded just a tick over 1.09 for the 1200. On a personal note, Tuscany Rose foaled a stunning filly by Super Easy during the week so that cheered me a up not a little.
If that sounds a little emotional, we all know that racing is a story of highs and lows. Maybe we’re all manic-depressives to some extent. Anyway, the bad news is that La Nouvelle Vague broke down during the running of the Winton Cup; best case scenario is that he’s a mere 12 months away from his next start but, to be realistic, tendon injuries are never good news. Hm. Many of my fellow owners have been here before and we really feel for the Eade family who have spent so much time and effort getting our horse to black type level.
In the bitter-sweet success category was the win of our now leased out Darci Brahma mare in the R65 2100 event at Ashburton. I referred to the Dee and Gee narrative in my 16 September article, “A Cautionary Tale”, but I really didn’t think she was capable of winning a $22,500 event so easily. Oh well, at least we owners can congratulate ourselves on selecting a decent horse while we repeat to ourselves, “If your horse was foaled in December, you do have to give it time to show what it can do.”
September 30th, 2017 — Breeding Theory, News
That was one tough performance. Carrying top weight on a Heavy 10 track and failing to settle in what is generally a slowly-run race did not prevent the gelded son of Handsome Ransom and the Istidaad mare Itsa Belt scoring a meritorious victory in yesterday’s Fasttrack Insurance 3210 at New Plymouth.
When Kevin Gray asked me to make some mating recommendations for his mares back in 2008, I well remember looking at Itsallbelt’s pedigree and thinking that this was going to be something of a challenge. As a racemare, she had failed to earn even a very small cheque in seven starts and her dam was by one of my least favourite stallions, Stylish Century. She did trace to the wonderful Flight family, but that was pretty much it.
One factor that I always have in mind is that I never encourage clients to spend their hard-earned on mares which could charitably be described as marginal. So that restricted my choice of stallion for Itsa Belt and also led me to start my search close to home. At the time Handsome Ransom had his first crop of 2YOs in action and they had attracted much favourable comment. He did have a weakness or two in his pedigree but at $4000 seemed to be a relatively low risk option; in addition, as a grandson of Roberto there was some chance that some of those desirable genes would end up in Itsa Belt’s offspring as Istidaad was out of a Roberto mare.
To be entirely honest, I had no idea that Itsallbelt would turn out to be a slow-maturing stayer that he is. Essentially, the Handsome Ransom mating was supposed to inject some speed into what was a very slow mare and to produce a reasonably compact physical type. I suppose that Itsallbelt has much more base speed than he dam did and maybe the Roberto duplication has helped in producing one tough animal who doesn’t like stopping, but this wasn’t one of those matings which makes you say – yes, I got that so right!
As I’ve said before, you’ve got to have luck on your side in this business.
September 23rd, 2017 — Breeding Theory, Horse Racing, News, Winners
Maybe Miami is becoming one of my all-time favourite gallopers. The son of Iffraaj and the Waikiki Star mare Miami was one of my selections for long-time client Kevin Hughes at the 2013 NZB Ready to Run Sale and I have followed his progress with more than usual interest. Yesterday’s win in the Open 1200 event at Riccarton was his ninth success from 28 starts and took his stakes winnings over the $200,000 mark. His success is also a timely reminder that you don’t have to pay a fortune at this sale to become the owner of a decent horse.
One of the things I really liked about Maybe Miami’s pedigree was the consistency throughout recent generations of his female family. When he went through the sale ring he was the eighth foal his dam had produced; six had raced and five had won. Most of the mare’s offspring had been by reasonably-performed but not top-class stallions and most of them had been multiple winners. To me, this sort of consistency indicates two things: such a mare can produce sound racehorses and these animals have at least reasonably adequate temperaments. The pedigree was nicely balanced, with duplications of Mr Prospector, Northern Dancer, Princequillo and Dr Fager; the last-named was a brilliant USA sprinter whose influence remains strong to this day. As an added bonus, Miami traced directly to the wonder mare La Troienne.
Clearly, there was potential here. My homework also told me that the brown colt had been sold by NZB at their Select Yearling sale earlier in 2013 for $31,000 and I therefore assumed that his value at the RTR sale would be in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. When Kevin called me and let me know that he had been the successful bidder on Lot 117 for a mere $20,000, I was as thrilled as he was.
As you will imagine, I’m looking forward to the Group 2 Couplands Mile at the CJC’s NZ Cup meeting with more than usual interest. Apart from Maybe Miami, La Diosa and Nashville have also been entered.
I’m also looking forward to this year’s edition of the Ready to Run sale.
September 10th, 2017 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
Readers of articles on this site will have been aware of my admiration for this son of Fastnet Rock for quite some time and, although it’s early days, I’m increasingly getting the feeling that I just may have been right.
As I’ve mentioned before, advocating for a stallion before he’s even got as far as getting his first mare in foal is just a little ridiculous because we have no idea what sort of foals he’s going to leave. We can make suppositions about which bloodlines will suit him best but this is a long way from analysing the pedigrees if his best runners after he’s had several crops to the races.
However, it’s worth saying that what really is boosting my confidence about Highly Recommended is that there are very good genetic reasons as to why all of his winners so far are decent horses.
His 2YO SW Waldorf is out of a mare bred on a Pins x Centaine cross. Highly Recommended’s female family has done very well with Pins’ sire Snippets and this mare also features two significant Star Kingdom lines – Kaoru Star and Todman – which complement Marscay in Highly Recommended. Group 1 placed Joyfilly has Storm Cat close up and the affinity between him and the Royal Academy influence in Fastnet Rock is well established. Yesterday’s impressive Riccarton winner Greenpark Gem has Kaoru Star in her pedigree, although of probably greater significance are the Nureyev and Blushing Groom lines in Stravinsky. Even the minor winner Vishnu has Kaoru Star close up.
It’s going to be very interesting indeed to analyse the pedigrees of High Recommended’s winners over the next few months. Both Waldorf and Greenpark Gem look well above average and Stylish Applause (Volksraad/Star Way) won very nicely at Te Aroha last weekend.
I’ll keep you posted
September 1st, 2017 — Breeding Theory, Winners
He’s only won a restricted maiden at Kranji after two of the favourites were withdrawn but the way this son of Darci Brahma dispatched his rivals in that event last Sunday suggests that he’s well above average. NZ Thoroughbred Marketing devoted an article to him in their 28 August edition; he clearly has some upside if his jockey and trainer are to be believed.
Metallocene was bred by long-time client Terry Archer out of the winning Galileo mare Glam Girl. Do feel free to research the purchase price: you’ll discover that Terry found himself an extreme bargain. If Australians have a fault (OK, I am just being polite) it’s that they under-rate world-class bloodlines if they haven’t set the world on fire on their own rock-hard tracks. Galileo was not rated by Australians when Terry made his purchase; which was just as well, I suppose.
Anyway, I did the mating for Glam Girl’s second foal, the Jimmy Choux mare Chambon, and when Terry intimated that it would be a good idea to spend some more serious money on his Galileo mare, I immediately thought of Darci Brahma.
I have always rated the potential of the Darci Brahma – Sadler’s Wells cross. Apart from the huge success of Danehill x Sadler’s Wells, The Sir Tristram strain in Darci’s pedigree has a strong affinity with Miswaki. Many years ago I urged Donna Logan to buy a filly bred on this Danzig x Miswaki x Sir Tristram cross; she developed into the Group2 winner Focal Point so I was confident that the Darci mating was worth trying from this point of view.
However, what about the 3×3 inbreeding to Zabeel that sending Glam Girl to Darci Brahma would produce? Would it make the progeny too dour or too temperamental? I remember talking to Terry about the risks but the mare really did need a big horse at that point in her breeding career and, at the end of the day, if you don’t take a few risks in life, where do you end up?
August 26th, 2017 — Breeding Theory
Every month the excellent Australian magazine “Bluebloods” publishes five-generation pedigrees of Group 1 winners from around the planet. (It’s always encouraging when our trans-Tasman cousins get something right; perhaps this comment is not unrelated to the topic of genetics which has been the focus of most of my recent articles).
Anyway, better not be too rude about the green and golds – there’s no credit in demolishing a soft target. Back to the pedigrees. This month’s edition of “Bluebloods” features 24 Group 1 winning pedigrees; I’ve just finished analysing them and they’ve thrown up some fascinating data.
No less than 23 of the 24 pedigrees feature inbreeding in the first five generations; 8 instances involve just one stallion, the other 15 contain duplications of either 2 (7 cases), 3 (6 cases) or 4 (2 cases) stallions and/or mares.
Of these 23 inbred pedigrees, no less than 20 include duplications of Northern Dancer in these first five generations. Other stallions who appear are Mr Prospector (7 times), Hail to Reason (2), Danzig (2), Nijinsky (2) and Blushing Groom (2). Buckpasser, Mill Reef, Never Bend, Sir Ivor, Sadler’s Wells, Storm Cat, Raise a Native, Native Dancer, Konigsstuhl, Tamerlane and Nearctic all appear once. On the distaff side, Special turns up twice; Natalma and Where You Lead make a single appearance.
When we try to interpret any data we’ve got to be careful. The most important question of all is – to what extent do these patterns of inbreeding occur in the racehorse population at large? In other words, if 20 out of every 24 racehorses have Northern Dancer duplications in the first five generations of their pedigrees, then we have proved nothing at all. Moreover, we need to remember that 17 of the 24 Group 1 contests referred to took place in the Northern Hemisphere, that part of the planet where Northern Dancer reigned supreme. And there’s also the question of whether or not our 24 races are a representative sample of all Group 1 events.
So what can we conclude? Well, our analysis may suggest that Northern Dancer is a more significant influence for racing quality than many of us had previously imagined. (You’ll have noticed that Danzig, Nijinsky, Sadler’s Wells and Storm Cat are all Northern Dancer descendants as well). It is generally accepted that inbreeding to this phenomenal animal helps to provide athletic ability, soundness and equable temperament in our mares’ offspring; it’s the dominance of these figures which may be surprising. Secondly, one out cross Group 1 winner out of 24 does not exactly strengthen the position of those of us who support out crossing as a method of improving the breed. Finally, it’s at least interesting that 15 of the 24 pedigrees we’ve looked at contained more than one incidence of inbreeding.
When the Southern Hemisphere Summer rolls around, I’ll repeat this exercise and report back.
August 23rd, 2017 — Breeding Theory
Some three years ago the excellent Manchester Guardian printed a fascinating article about thoroughbred genetics. I’ll link it below but there are a couple of points of interest which I’d like to comment on.
Firstly, the writer mentions the estimation that around 30-35% of racetrack performance is determined by genetics. Unfortunately, a detailed analysis of how this figure was arrived at was not produced, but you’d have to think that this is one very interesting statistic. Does it mean that agonising over the best possible mating is a waste of time or does it mean something entirely different. Perhaps it could suggest that since environmental factors affecting racing performance do not vary very much at all (please note, this comment is just for the sake of argument), then it must be the 30-35% genetic factors which make the difference.
The second really surprising aspect of the article was the assertion that inbreeding is much more likely to occur in the pedigrees of good sprinters than of good stayers. This is probably reasonably true and there’s also an implication is perhaps that good sprinters are easier to select from an analysis of their pedigrees than are good stayers. I’m not sure whether this data is solely sourced from the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s fair to say that the terminology used in this section of the article is anything but exact, but my experience has been that this is not the whole story. Sprinters can come from the most surprising bloodlines – Vonusti (Ustinov), Start Wondering (Eighth Wonder) – but stayers are much more predictable. It’s very rare for a 2400 winner to be sired by a sprinting stallion. I must admit that I haven’t any reliable data to back up this theory but it certainly my impression based on looking at thousands of sale catalogues.
Anyway, here’s what The Guardian has to say.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/22/horse-breeding-genetics-thoroughbreds-racing-dna
