Thano
Given the outstanding success of More Than Ready, any Group 1 winning son of Southern Halo must be highly rated as a stallion prospect. From a pedigree point of view, however, Thano is rather more than your run of the mill Southern Halo sire.
The affinity between Southern Halo and Danehill is well documented and most breeders with a Danehill line mare will give serious consideration to any son of Southern Halo within their price range. Thano has at least two other strings to his bow apart from his likely affinity with daughters of Danasinga, D’Cash, Cullen….
The first is that he should suit grand-daughters of Mr Prospector particularly well. More than Ready is out of a Woodman mare and Edenwold is out of a daughter of Mining – just two examples of the Southern Halo – Mr Prospector cross. But wait, there’s more. Thano also has Seattle Slew close up in his pedigree and Seattle Slew x Mr Prospector is one of the great nicks of thoroughbred breeding.
The second genetic strength of Thano’s pedigree lies in the similarity of Southern Halo and Seattle Slew: both are bred on a Hail to Reason – Nearctic – Mahmoud – Bold Ruler – Blue Larkspur cross. In other words, we can reasonably expect these major influences to be significant factors in the genes passed on by Thano. All these lines can stand further reinforcement so that mares strong in these influences should suit Thano well. Another approach would be to look for complementary influences for these stallions: Native Dancer, Princequillo and Ribot are three which come to mind.
One of the factors which help a stallion succeed is a broodmare population which suits his pedigree. On the evidence outlined above, Thano would seem to have an excellent chance of becoming a significant stallion.
