Entries Tagged 'Breeding Theory' ↓
July 12th, 2017 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
It’s difficult enough to choose the right stallion for your mare but it’s even more challenging when you are shooting entirely blindfolded. I’ve always has a strong preference for third or fourth season stallions as by that stage breeders have some idea what a stallion’s progeny look like. In particular, if the horse throws conformational or temperament problems, it’s always nice to know about these before one invests the hard-earned.
Nevertheless, it is one of the mysteries of the universe that yearling buyers seem to have a mystical affinity with the untried and unproven. And, as we all know, it’s nice to be able to get good money for a yearling so the temptation to humour buyers and give them what they want is very hard to resist. We may end up by devaluing our mares but fashion and short-term gain seems to win every time. Beats me.
Anyway, having got that off my chest and admitting that, up to a point, I have no idea what I am commencing to write about, this year’s new stallions don’t seem to be a bad lot at all.
I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for Turn Me Loose. Strength, speed and class are attributes we broodmare owners are always strongly attracted by and the son of Iffraaj had all three qualities in abundance. Sure, you wouldn’t want to risk sending a Danehill- line mare to him but there are no other leading bloodlines that we would have reservations about. His fee also appears very reasonable.
A second horse which really appeals is Wrote. If you win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and are by High Chaparral from a mare descending from Special, you must have a decent chance of making it as a stallion. If you stand at the bargain fee of $5000 you start to look very attractive indeed.
And then there’s Vadamos. Any stallion with an annual Timeform of 126 is a pretty handy animal and you’ve got to be a very high-class racehorse indeed to win the Chantilly Prix du Moulin de Longchamp, often referred to as the mile championship of Europe. As a bonus, he’s bred on the same cross as Melbourne Cup winner Protectionist. $15,000 seems very fair value.
Please do not draw the conclusion that the other seven newcomers have little to recommend them. All in all, they are a highly promising group of stallions and let’s hope they all leave stunning progeny
June 23rd, 2017 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion, News
Many of us will recently have received a copy of the NZTBA’s excellent “Register of Thoroughbred Stallions of New Zealand 2017”. It’s a great reference volume but it’s certainly a concern that the range of stallions available to Kiwi breeders reduces on an annual basis.
This is not a complaint about our stallion owners. It takes a significant degree of financial courage to stand a horse at stud and there are very few stallions in the Register which are overpriced. In fact, the reverse is true. Darci Brahma is an absolute steal, as are Pentire and Keeper. Of the up and coming types, Shocking, Showcasing, Zacinto and Highly Recommended are examples of stallions which are well worth their advertised fees.
Clearly, the annual exodus of mares over the Tasman to visit Australian-based stallions makes a lot of sense for our breeders. We operate in an increasingly global industry and it’s unfair to blame breeders for making informed financial decisions, especially as some Australian operations offer significant inducements to attract New Zealand mares. However, it is equally true that every dollar spent by our breeders over there is one dollar less available to our stallion owners for re-investment.
Having said that, this year offers nine first-season stallions, compared to seven last year and five in 2014. In both 2013 and 2015 we also had nine new horses. So, in my view, our studs are doing their very best to maintain a supply of fresh bloodlines. The reason why fewer mares are being mated every year is the staggering level of production costs. I’m sure there are many small breeders like myself who structure their activities around their own small landholding; moving to town would mean the end of our breeding activities.
Anyway, from a personal point of view, the number of enquiries I’ve had for mating advice is very heartening. Clients are understandably motivated by getting value for money and it’s really important that the industry supports its members by offering a range of payment plans for service fees. Breeders have long memories and a good deal offered in one year will often lead to that wonderful phenomenon of repeat business.
January 2nd, 2017 — Breeding Theory, News
Like the rest of her owners, I was thrilled with Candle In The Wind’s close second in yesterday’s $200,000 City of Auckland Cup. It was her first Group placing and a tribute to the training skills of Donna Logan and Chris Gibbs and the horsemanship of Cameron Lammas. She has now won over $200,000 – not a bad return for the little filly costing a mere $2500 at the Select Sale of her year.
Values have moved ahead in the last five years, with this year’s Weanling Sale being a case in point, but having just completed my annual analysis of all three catalogues, I seriously doubt whether this year’s Karaka event will continue the trend.
I would go so far as to say that this is the weakest Premier catalogue that I can recall reading. It is clear that many breeders are either retaining their stock or selling them somewhere offshore. This is bad news for NZ Bloodstock and bad news for many vendors as it is hard to imagine high levels of enthusiasm on the buying benches. K1 colts not meeting the expectations of their vendors can be recycled into Ready to Run 2YOs but fillies tend to sell poorly in November so I am anticipating some comparative bargains amongst this year’s K1 fillies.
The Select catalogue is big, very big. Many lots clearly deserve their place but when you read some pedigree pages you have to say, “Really?” Accordingly, I am predicting some more “Candle” opportunities for astute buyers. Buying yearlings is very much akin to long-distance running; the longer the race the harder it is to concentrate and there are times in any sale with a hefty catalogue when buyers long for a cool drink rather than check out that yearling in a faraway box. This is especially true when sale hits a flat patch and it seems likely that there will be several of these in the 2017 Select Sale.
And, once again, the Festival is where the bargains are. I had more trouble ranking the lots in this sale than in the other two. There are some very clever matings in the slim Festival catalogue but I seriously doubt whether this sale will maintain its upward trend – especially as far as fillies are concerned. I suspect that this catalogue is where the physically backward yearlings have found their place. As we all know, time equates to money and so these yearlings need a special type of buyer – people with experience, patience and a significant level of disposable income. From a breeders’ point of view, let’s hope I’m wrong.
April 19th, 2016 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
I part-own a one-win Chinese Dragon mare named Oriental Bronze and have recently been struggling with a problem which many of you will be familiar with. Do I put her back into work? Do I breed from her? Do I move her on?
As I always advise my students, I thought I’d better start by doing my homework. To my surprise I discovered that Chinese Dragon has a 50% winners to starters ratio. As he’s only had one SW, he’s certainly not a good stallion but I’d thought that he was entirely useless. I’d also thought that he’d ended up somewhere like New Caledonia or Thailand, but no, he’s in Oz and standing at $3300.
The information about where he was standing comes from the article referenced below, which is quite fascinating from at least two points of view. Firstly, the Lucky Country has a huge range of stallions standing at very reasonable fees. Here in New Zealand we breeders have a very restricted choice. There are sound economic reasons for this but the fact remains that if we own a mare which lacks commercial appeal, just what do we do? Over-mating her in terms of service fee is just plain daft; we are often left with the choice of going to stallion X or leaving her in the paddock or getting rid of her. Whilst Option C is no doubt the most fiscally sensible solution, there’s always that nagging thought that just maybe she could leave a Bonecrusher or a Grey Way or an All In Fun…
The second thought produced by the article was how crucial opportunity is in a stallion’s career. Whilst Chinese Dragon was lucky enough to end up at Fairdale, he doesn’t seem to have been overly-well patronised by outside breeders with an avalanche of top-class mares. It’s true that assessing opportunity is quite a challenge because we’ve got to factor in the question of genetic suitability of mares for a particular stallion, not just how much black type they have close up in their pedigrees. If you’d like some proof of this, the enduring success of White Robe Lodge is a case in point.
Anyway, here’s the article.
Click Here To Read
October 13th, 2015 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
This is a serious horse. Local breeders will remember his dominant front-running display in the Group 1 Windsor Park Plate but some may not be aware that this attractive son of Footstepsinthesand was also successful in Group company in both Ireland and Hong Kong.
Thoroughbreds need to be physically and mentally tough to stand up to 36 starts in Hong Kong and for a stallion to do this is a remarkable achievement. Towards the end of his time in Asia his form did fall away but there are not too many stallions who retained their zest for racing to the extent that when he arrived in New Zealand at seven years of age he was more than making up the numbers at the highest level of competition.
Kiwi breeders may remember him as a front-runner but an examination of his best performances in Hong Kong show that he was a long way from being a one-dimensional racehorse. He certainly showed the ability to accelerate off a strong pace – a quality that many of us look for in assessing a stallion’s prospects. Any stallion with 50 starts on his resume must also have an excellent racing temperament and, as far as soundness is concerned, breeders would have few concerns with an animal which has competed in five different jurisdictions with widely varying racing surfaces.
Finally, those of you who have read my article about He’s Remarkable posted on 3 September will be well aware of my argument that we can easily be guilty of over-using a stallion’s own sire as a predictor of his likely success. If you are considering Pure Champion for your mare, the fact that Footstepsinthesand is not yet a noted sire of sires should not be seen as a negative factor. I’d be more interested in those statistics which tell us that the ability of Pure Champion is no fluke: his sire has produced 42 SWs and 565 winners from 1062 live foals – more than respectable figures.
Pure Champion is currently standing at Willow Glen Stud, Waimate, at the very reasonable fee of $4000 +GST. I am also impressed by Willow Glen’s agistment costs.
September 8th, 2015 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
Whatever he ends up achieving in his stallion career you’d have to agree that Linwood Park’s son of Encosta de Lago carries one of the most evocative names in the Stallion Register.
It’s often been observed that good horses deserve striking names and it would be interesting to undertake a study to see whether there’s a correlation between a first-season stallion’s name and the quality of mares he receives. I’m not suggesting that a horse’s name is a major influence in a breeder’s decision but we’re very brand-conscious in this day and age, so you do have to wonder.
Anyway, Echoes of Heaven is a name with all sorts of positive associations and after the first race at Wanganui last Saturday you’d have to agree that the number of positive associations increased by one. The Duke of Jazz, a $13,500 weanling purchase, defeated a couple of heavily-backed progeny of Savabeel and Darci Brahma narrowly but well. The son of Such Sweet Thunder certainly appealed as a likely juvenile on physical type but, as I’ve observed before, looks are one thing and performance is another.
Interestingly, Echoes of Heaven has had very few representatives at public sales. This year he had one colt in the Select Sale and just four more in the Festival. The Select colt was a half-brother to Group 1 winner Habibi and the three Festival colts which found new homes averaged $13,000. If the former colt sounds familiar, he’s the one that our Cloughmore Racing Partnership bought into. I’d seen him as a possible staying 3YO but he’s done everything right so far and we’re currently trying to find a 2YO trial for him.
Given that there were two offspring of Echoes of Heaven in the first 2YO race of the season, perhaps his progeny will come earlier than many expected. Nevertheless, I still rate him primarily as a legitimate chance to leave classic 3YOs. He was a very handy young stayer, his best performance being a second placing in the Group 1 South Australian Derby before he contracted a serious illness which effectively concluded his career. His full-brother Manhattan Rain is beginning to look an above-average stallion. To date he’s had 41 winners from 87 starters including 5 SW and 5 SP performers.
All in all, Echoes of Heaven is well worth serious consideration as a stallion prospect – especially if you’ve got a Danzig and/or Sadler’s Wells line mare.
September 3rd, 2015 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
Readers of articles posted on this site will be familiar with my enthusiasm for the stallion prospects of the Pentire horse He’s Remarkable. The other day I suggested to a client that HR might be a suitable mating for one of his mares.
“Oh no,” he replied. “I don’t fancy a son of Pentire as a stallion at all”.
I didn’t argue the point as I’ve learned the lesson over the years that thoroughbred breeders are extremely unwilling to jettison their prejudices. (I’d also have to say that there are more instances of otherwise entirely sane human beings following theories founded on a combination of prejudice and bad science in the world of thoroughbred breeding than in any other field of endeavour that I’m familiar with.)
Anyway, let me move on from my prejudices and ask you all a question. What do the following stallions have in common – Sir Tristram, Battle Waggon, Mellay, Noble Bijou, Balmerino, Zamazaan and Star Way. Yes, they are all highly successful stallions but, as they say on TV, there’s more…
That’s right! They are all sons of stallions that many people thought would find it totally impossible to leave sons who could become decent sires, let alone breed-shaping animals. Where would the recent history of New Zealand thoroughbred breeding be without horses of the calibre of Zabeel, Empire Rose, Grosvenor, Battle Heights, Panzer Chief, Battle Eve, Swell Time, Princess Mellay, Powley, The Phantom Chance, Prince Majestic, Bounty Hawk, Good Lord, Lord Reims, Sky Chase, Waverley Star….
You’ll note that I haven’t even got onto listing equine stars whose dams are by one of these stallions.
Anyway, I do think I’ve proved my case. Pentire is certainly a good sire. You’ve got to be considerably better than average to produce 43SWs including 12 Group 1 winners. He’s certainly been considerably more successful than Never Say Die (Battle Waggon), Trictrac (Balmerino) and Star Appeal (Star Way).
Perhaps I should conclude by noting that He’s Remarkable is out of a mare by Zabeel. Now, let me think, Zabeel’s sire was….?
June 3rd, 2015 — Breeding Theory, Choosing A Stallion
Readers of this site will have noticed that May was a great month for Cloughmore – ten individual winners constitutes our second best ever monthly result – but it’s now time to focus our attention on the forthcoming breeding season. My plan is to write a series of articles which focus on stallions which seem to be flying under the radar. There is no significance at all in the order in which these articles will appear, and I’m equally sure that there are stallions which I won’t be writing about which also deserve large books of mares.
I’m starting with the son of Red Ransom because I’ve previously written an article on him and he’s a horse which I’ve always thought is likely to be under-rated. His race record marks him as a racehorse of the highest class; Japanese form has long been undervalued by the New Zealand breeder – Shinko King being a case in point. To my eye, he’s a stunning looking horse and he also boasts a pedigree which appears to suit many mares in our stud book.
I’ve had a good level of success with inbreeding to Turn-to via the Don Eduardo – Prized cross (All In Black, Don Doremo) and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Roc de Cambes continues to cross well with Zabeel. The Group 1 placegetter Reminisce is out of a Zabeel mare and SP Ragnaar is out of a grand-daughter of Zabeel mare. Incidentally, there’s another line of Sir Tristram close up in Ragnaar’s dam.
We often forget that the success of our breeding industry has historically rested on the use of bloodlines which one might describe as stout. Recently we’ve moved away from breeding stayers in order to satisfy the requirements of a variety of Asian racing environments. We continue to do so at our peril.
January 26th, 2014 — Breeding Theory
There’s always much hype surrounding our national yearling sales but I really wouldn’t be at all surprised if the dream turned into reality this year.
Yearling parades appear to have been very well attended and the standard of the catalogues compares more than favourably with those of past years. The Select sale appears to be especially strong: the process I go through every year of trying to identify yearlings with superior pedigrees has been more challenging than I can remember. Trying to rank yearlings according to their likely value for money is never easy, but it’s especially difficult when pedigree page after pedigree page has significant appeal.
One comment I would make is that the stock of Rip Van Winkle have been extremely well mated. He’s a horse that really ought to succeed as a stallion; the compatibility of the matings behind this year’s yearlings make this increasingly likely.
Another factor in selecting yearlings is assessing the skill with which they have been prepared. Our industry is fortunate in having a range of successful businesses involving the preparation of sale yearlings but a relatively new addition to their ranks is Highden Park of Palmerston North. I’m usually reticent about extolling the virtues of various consignors but as I’ve had first-hand experience of the skills of Libby Bleakley and her team over the last few years, I can assure potential buyers that this is a draft which deserves serious consideration.
Finally, if any readers would like to be involved in racehorse ownership, please let me know. I’ve previously written about our involvement with promising Darci Brahma mare Candle in the Wind and may be able to offer you a similar opportunity after this year’s sales. However, I can’t guarantee you such a bargain as she now appears to be.
August 18th, 2013 — Breeding Theory, Horse Racing, News
Six winners in the last 13 days, culminating in Thy’s brilliant win in the Regal Roller Stakes at Caulfield yesterday has made it a memorable fortnight.
The O’Reilly – Star Affair mare, bred by Northland client Terry Archer and trained by Peter Moody, looked a forlorn hope on paper prior to the race, never having won over 1200 in any company – let alone in a Listed race on a turning track. However, the stunning black five year old had other ideas, rocketing home over the last 200 to record a stunning victory. Apparently she is now being targeted at the Toorak Handicap and Myer Stakes, both Group 1 events over 1600 metres.
The wistful tone of my headline also links to a quiet discussion I had with a prominent breeder recently. We were talking about the halcyon days of the mid – 1980s when the foal crop exceeded 6000 – and the argument used for some years now by studs that breeders should send mares to stud – by implication their stud – on the basis that the falling foal crop will place a premium on foals born the following year. My view was that there is a hole or two in that logic. For the law of supply and demand to work in this situation, the latter factor – demand – has to increase or at least stay the same. My fear is that demand by Kiwi investors looking to buy potential racehorses isn’t increasing in spite of strong efforts by trainers and syndicators. Moreover, demand by overseas buyers in particular focuses on the best quality individuals, the progeny of those mares which are being bred from; no Australian trainer is going to buy a NZ bred horse just for the sake of buying a NZ bred horse.
So what do we do? Do let me know your thoughts.
