CS Online–The Little Questions
Karl Popper is one of my favorite philosophers of science because, long before Thomas Kuhn’s term “paradigm shift” was ludicrously appropriated to corporate lingo, Popper was saying the progress of knowledge depends on answers to very small questions. And he was right.
It’s those little questions that CompuSire online is designed to answer. I’m not going to tell you we’re selling subscriptions like hotcakes, after the current promotional style, but I will say it’s what the experts use. At only $295 for an annual subscription, why wouldn’t they?
Well, they wouldn’t if it weren’t the best product of its kind. The experts use it for whatever purpose suits them, but it’s really for anybody who understands the devil is in the details. I’m going to tell you a little secret about pedigree expertise, but first. . . .
CompuSire online is a stakes search facility. I’m not talking about the winners of the one-third of North American blacktype stakes that are restricted in some fashion–races that can be won by a horse that has one or two things going for it on a certain day. I’m talking about races whose winners are likely to embody speed, stamina, soundness, the will to win, etc.–the array of qualities that, ultimately, are functions of pedigree. After all, if it’s the details that matter–and it is–then you want to be relatively certain the details you’re looking at are actually relevant to the kind of performance you want from the horses you breed. Restricted stakes are important for a variety of reasons, but the winners of those races, as a population, don’t show you how to breed a racehorse.
When the pedigree consultants tell you at least 200 stakes winners have Halo and Prince John combined in their ancestries, how do you think they came up with that? Is it because they’re smarter than you or because they have better memories than you have? No. Chances are, they got it from CompuSire online.
But, that aside, what’s the meaning of those 200 stakes winners? If you have a mare that happens to have Prince John in her ancestry and she’s about ready to be bred, then you might think it a happy coincidence to be told about those 200 stakes winners. You might want to breed her to a stallion standing down the road that just happens to have Halo in his ancestry.
But, don’t you think it’s relevant, given the distribution of Prince John in the population, just how many times and to what extent that particular stallion has actually been successful with mares that had Prince John somewhere–anywhere–in their ancestries? And, don’t you think it might matter whether or not the quality of those stakes winners was comparable to the quality of that stallion’s overall stakes performance? And, maybe it might also be useful to note whether that stallion’s success with Prince John occurred through male strains of Prince John or female strains.
That’s the kind of detail CompuSire online is really designed to provide. Karl Popper would love it.
I’ve looked at too much good pedigree information to think there’s any such thing as a pedigree affinity, least of all in the sense suggested by those 200 stakes winners. All statistical blips are reducible to the function or dysfunction of certain traits within a very specific context of traits. Obviously, not all the experts agree with me on that, but here’s their little secret. The experts don’t understand pedigree any better than you or I do, especially when it comes to your mare. The difference is, they subscribe to CompuSire online.
PS: To subscribe, click the eCompuSire logo in the left-hand partition of any eNicks web page.