One of the difficulties of advising clients about mating their mares is keeping a track of their eventual decisions and the results of those decisions.
In yesterday’s edition of the Manawatu Standard there was a short article about the impressive Awapuni winner, Nashville. The writer referred to the gelding being by Darci Brahma out of the Royal Academy mare Royal Kiss. That sounded familiar so I went to the filing system and it all came back to me.
I also remembered many interesting conversations I had with the late Bob Tait on the subject of breeding thoroughbreds. One such conversation involved Bob’s determination to send a mare to the first-season sire Darci Brahma. Should he send Royal Kiss or Key of Future? On analysing their pedigrees it became apparent that both mares would suit the son of Danehill very well indeed; I wrote to Bob and commented that “both appear to be excellent matings”. The Royal Kiss mating could “produce a racehorse with real brilliance”.
I am normally quite conservative in the way I phrase recommendations but this mating did appear to be somewhat special as it contained what I regarded as at least four major nicks. There certainly was a degree of inbreeding but the nicks were the key point I raised in my letter. It is going to be very interesting indeed to follow Nashville’s progress: if he turns out as good as I suspect him to be, he’ll be a very handy point of reference for future recommendations. I’ve long been doubtful about the wisdom of slavish devotion to inbreeding; identfying successful crosses which work well with other successful crosses seems to make much more sense.
Very much on the same theory one of my own mares, Mi Minnie, had been sent to D’Cash. Her second foal by him contracted a virus in his first few months of life and when I went to inspect my colt he was so unimpressive that I decided that as soon as he was weaned I would give him away. He wasn’t worth the expense of entering him in a sale. One had to be realistic.
Well, Lucario has yet to run out of the money. The recipients of the gift horse did a great job of making him the best he could be and after three consecutive placings sold him to clients of top Australian trainer Mark Kavanagh. After a placing and a spell Lucario was entered for a 1400 metre maiden at Ballarat on Sunday. As you’ll imagine, I watched the race with mixed feelings. Still no oil painting, he nonetheless was one of those horses which you’d describe as “big enough if he’s good enough”. On this occasion he was clearly good enough and beat his nearest rival, an expensive Encosta de Lago colt, convincingly.
Hm!
