Reader Q&A: Cost vs. Quality

Question: My question is whether there a much greater risk factor when considering between two stallions that differ in the fact that one has many proven mares and was a very good performer himself, while the other is a young stallion that is well-bred but has never raced because of an injury, and doesn’t yet have a large number of offspring? The two stallions give a similar nick rating. I have a case like this where I’m trying to make a decision about cost vs quality. I should mention the tried and proven stallion is quite a bit more expensive of course. — Garrie (More…)

Research is a Mare Owner’s Best Investment

• Amy from Lexington asks Alan: I work for a small farm in Lexington and have been helping to plan matings. I really enjoy pedigree research and learning all the theories behind different nicks / crosses inbreeding / outcrossing, etc. The main problem I have run into had been finding a way to figure out what lines broodmare sires cross with. I was hoping you could shed some light on finding a good approach to look at a mare’s sire and gather information on what that horse has accomplished as a broodmare sire, and with what lines he has made those accomplishments. I would appreciate any advice you can give me. (More…)
  Written by Alan Porter | March 27th, 2008

Giant’s Riches

Yesterday brought the news that champion 3-year-old filly Rags to Riches was to be retired and bred to Giant’s Causeway.

The match of the history-making Belmont Stakes (gr. I) heroine with Storm Cat’s leading son is one that should create a tough runner, and a horse that will have no problems with classic distances.

Of course, we couldn’t resist running it through the TrueNicks program. This came up with the mating as a C based on the Storm Cat / A. P. Indy cross. That cross has produced only three stakes winners, albeit a couple of notable names, headed by the Haskell (gr. I) winner and Kentucky Derby (gr. I) runner-up Bluegrass Cat (TrueNicks, SRO), and graded stakes winner Untouched Talent. Storm Cat himself sired Bluegrass Cat and Untouched Talent from seven starters out of A.P. Indy mares, but so far there are 42 starters by sons of Storm Cat out of A.P. Indy mares, and only one stakes winner. (More…)

Ashado Booked to Street Cry

Darley announced this week that two-time champion Ashado, whose $9-million price at Keeneland’s November sale in 2005 was then a record for a broodmare or broodmare prospect sold at public auction, will be bred this year to Street Cry (IRE) (TrueNicks, SRO) (a stallion who is subscribed to TrueNicks complimentary hypothetical mating reports). This will be one of the more interesting matings of the year with the result being an inbreeding to the good sire Halo and containing a number of duplications of the outstanding broodmare Almahmoud.

The Street Cry/Ashado mating is an A+ TrueNicks mating and it is worth taking a look at. Why? It is a good example of looking at the pedigree in its totality. While the sire line/broodmare sire line is an A-level rating, and thus worth considering on that basis alone, there are also some other elements in the pedigree that look quite desirous especially when one looks at the pedigree of Street Cry’s grade I winning filly Cry and Catch Me (see attachments).

Gold Edition: Report from Australia, Part II

Continuing on yesterday’s search for the best potential matches for recently-retired Australian sprint star Gold Edition (AUS)…

Broadening our scope to look to other parts of the world raises a number of intriguing prospects.

Starting in the U.S., we have Street Cry (IRE) (TrueNicks, SRO), the Machiavellian son who has made such a sensational start to his stud career. Combining Machiavellian with Danehill — sire of Gold Edition — gives a rather unique mating, with three crosses of Northern Dancer’s dam, Natalma (through three different sources), and a fourth cross of her dam, Almahmoud, via Halo. The Street Cry - Gold Edition match returns a nice A+ TrueNicks rating. (More…)

Gold Edition: Report from Australia, Part I

The retirement of the brilliant sprint filly Gold Edition (AUS) engendered some speculation in Australia as to what might be her ideal mate, especially as she is by a son of Danehill, which naturally rules out some of Australia’s most illustrious sires.

With the help of the mating tool TrueNicks, we were able to indulge in some speculation about how the brilliant speedster might best be mated if choosing from amongst the world’s leading sires. One advantage of the TrueNicks platform is that, with the comprehensive database of The Jockey Club, which gathers known foals and race results from around the world, it is able to consider true opportunity based on actual matings from all corners of the globe. (More…)

In the Beginning

The launch of TrueNicks represents the completion of a full circle regarding my involvement in the Thoroughbred industry.

By age 19 I had completed three years “hands on” experience working at an English stud farm. Around that time, the English magazine Stud & Stable published an article with a grid showing sire line crosses and the percentage of stakes winners each cross had produced that year. As a student of statistics, it struck me that the calculations of these figures made no allowances for opportunity. In those days it would have been nearly impossible to track down all the foals that made up the population, so I did what seemed to be the next best thing. I dug out a copy of The Register of Thoroughbred Stallions – at that stage it would have included just about every sire of consequence in England and Ireland – and counted up how many stallions were recorded and from there calculated the likely percentage of the population represented by each sire line, taking into account hypothetical opportunity. (More…)