Pedigree Profile: Super Saver
by Roger Lyons
Super Saver is not the first runner his dam, Supercharger, has had by Maria’s Mon. There was a 2003 gelding named Hedge Fund that ran 48 times, won four races, was second 13 times, and was third four times. He won just over $144,000–a useful runner, effective only as a sprinter.
My point in mentioning Hedge Fund is this. My statistical profiles at this time of year take into account the dams of foals by a stallion through last year’s three-year-old crop (2006). I add the dams of current-year three-year-olds as a group around mid-year because by then many of the offspring have had a chance to race. However, Super Saver’s dam is included as the producer of a superior runner even though Super Saver is a current three-year-old. That’s because Supercharger is represented by a runner born prior to 2007.
Super Saver’s dam takes Maria’s Mon to a record of 2/4 with A.P. Indy mares. Forget about how many foals there were. It’s the number of mares that matters. No matter how many foals a mare produced by Maria’s Mon, the question is whether or not at least one of them was a superior runner, and Super Saver certainly is. The other A.P. Indy mare that produced a superior runner by Maria’s Mon is Flirtatious, dam of Wait a While, which won three G1 stakes and five G2 stakes. You could safely say it’s the nick.
You could say it’s linebreeding involving the genetic relationships organized by Raise a Native and Buckpasser, but not as safely. Maria’s Mon’s sire is by Wavering Monarch, bred on a Raise a Native-Buckpasser cross. Supercharger is inbred to Buckpasser and is out of a mare by Mr. Prospector. That’s definitely linebreeding, but the numbers say Maria’s Mon is only 5/66 with mares that cross Raise a Native and Buckpasser, and that is just average for Maria’s Mon.
Besides, Maria’s Mon’s numbers with both Raise a Native (16/256 through males) and Buckpasser (7/97 through females) lack lustre. He does much better with Northern Dancer through females, at 5/27, and Supercharger’s second dam is by Northern Dancer. That could be an important factor, but it doesn’t point to the linebreeding.
On that basis, Supercharger ranks at the 93rd percentile of mares that had foals by Maria’s Mon through his 2006 crop, as determined by a formula that evaluates strike rates with the individual mares’ ancestors. Indpendently of the Buckpasser thing, it’s a good profile. But there is also a blip in the numbers relating to the position of Buckpasser as the sire of her third dam, Numbered Account.
Maria’s Mon sired foals out of nine Buckpasser-line mares, and not a single one produced a superior runner. and the same goes for the 13 mares whose dams were from Buckpasser line. However, two of the ten mares whose second dams were by Buckpasser mares produced superior runners–that is, foals inbred to Buckpasser 4×4 through their third dams, including Latent Heat, winner of the Malibu S (G1). Then there is Supercharger herself, which is one of eight mares that produced foals inbred to Buckpasser 4×5 through their fourth dams, including Super Saver. These two positions of Buckpasser as a sire in the female line have a combined strike rate of 3/18 for Maria’s Mon, against a strike rate of 5/103 in all other positions combined (including the multiple occurrences through mares inbred to Buckpasser, as in the case of Supercharger).
For Maria’s Mon, no other placement of Buckpasser in the ancestry of his mates comes close to this, and overall Buckpasser has a strike rate at the low end of Maria’s Mon’s average. Nevertheless, the numbers suggest Buckpasser could be a highly favorable factor for Maria’s Mon as the sire of the third or fourth dam of a mare. In fact, both Super Saver and his dam are inbred to Buckpasser through their female line.
Sometimes it’s the nick. Often it’s an ancestor with no special genetic relation to the sire. Sometimes it’s a very discretely defined method of inbreeding. Sometimes it’s even linebreeding, but, frankly, not very often.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 9:24 am.
Pedigree Profile: Awesome Act
by Roger Lyons
In 1997 Crypto Star, winner of the Arkansas Derby (G2) at nine furlongs, was not the only runner by Cryptoclearance to have won a stakes at that distance. However, despite the perception of Cryptoclearance as a stamina influence, only one other of his offspring had won a stakes beyond 8.5 furlongs. That was Kingdom City, which happened to be entered in the undercard on Derby Day that same year. He had won the Round Table S. (G3) at nine furlongs two years before, but was not the same as a five-year-old. Neither of them fared very well on Derby Day 1997.
That distance barrier for Cryptoclearance remained intact only until the following year when Victory Gallop won the Belmont. The only other offspring of Cryptoclearance to win a stakes beyond nine furlongs was Volponi in the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Needless to say, Crypto Star didn’t take my money that Derby Day. Betting that a horse’s performance, especially in the Kentucky Derby, will be anomalous to its breeding is like drawing to an inside straight. No, I’m no fool, I found a much smarter way to lose my money.
One horse that won’t get my money this year is Awesome Act. I just can’t back a horse in the Derby with 4×2 inbreeding to Mr. Prospector, especially one that has not yet won a stakes at nine furlongs. Oh, and did I mention? The only runner by Awesome Again and inbred to Mr. Prospector to have won a stakes beyond 8.5 furlongs was Awesome Gem, which won the Hawthorne Gold Cup H. (G2), but that horse is inbred 4×4 and it was in the mud.
That analysis could easily go wrong for me because Awesome Act has already proven he’s exceptional in other ways. Through his 2006 crop Awesome Again has sired superior runners out of only six mares with Mr. Prospector in their ancestries, that from 103 opportunities. So, in that sense, what Awesome Act has done so far makes him a rarity.
One way in which Awesome Act is typical of his breeding is that his dam is out of Coup de Folie, by Halo, and that’s the kind of family that’s almost indifferent to the stallion that’s been selected for it. It’s a good thing, too, because Awesome Again has had a superior runner from only one of 26 of his mates that had Halo in their ancestries, and the eight additional mares that had Halo’s dam, Cosmah, descending in some other way all failed to fire.
No matter how Awesome Act might fare in the Derby, Awesome Again has already established his credentials as a versatile sire that can get classic-distance runners. Besides Awesome Gem, he’s sired Ghostzapper (Breeders’ Cup Classic–G1), Ginger Punch (Personal Ensign S.–G1), Rumor Has It (Kentucky Cup Turf S.–G3–and three other stakes beyond nine furlongs), and Hotstufanthensome (Mac Diarmida H.–G3); and nine furlongs is a piece of cake for many of his runners. However, if you check CompuSire online, you’ll see that the nearest inbreeding among the classic-distance stakes winners–outside of Awesome Gem–was 5×4 to Raise a Native in the ancestry of Hotstufanthensome. The rest, by today’s standards, were outcrosses.
Clearly, Awesome Act’s breeding does not fit the profile that is typical of the best offspring of his sire, especially those that won at classic distances. The question is, how exceptional can he be?
The one other thing that worries me is Volponi, that anomalous son of Cryptoclearance. Nobody was more shocked than I was when he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic because, you see, he’s inbred 3×4 to Mr. Prospector!
So, while I won’t be backing Awesome Act, I completely agree with Frank Mitchell when he says, “you just never know.”
Posted by Roger Lyons on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 12:09 pm.
What Linebreeding Really Is
by Roger Lyons
Most people think of inbreeding and linebreeding as two different things–inbreeding as a duplication of ancestors within four generations and linebreeding as a duplication of ancestors outside of that generational distance. Consequently, inbreeding is considered more intense than linebreeding because it involves less generational distance from the new individual.
What geneticists mean by linebreeding, however, has nothing to do with generational distance, and I know Blood-Horse pedigree columnist Les Brinsfield will back me up on this. It’s formed by the cross of two or more ancestors that share relatives on both sides of their ancestries. It’s what’s sometimes called crossing close genetic relatives. The generational distance of these ancestors from the new individual is irrelevant. The most intense form of linebreeding, in fact, consists in breeding a mare to her full brother. Clearly, linebreeding is a specialized form of inbreeding.
Well, then, if that’s what linebreeding really is, why is it that you can go to commercial breeding sites all over the internet and find it defined incorrectly–as a function of generational distance?
First, it’s important to understand that pedigree has no place in the science of inheritance. It has nothing whatever to do with genetics or its terminology. It was created out of whole cloth in the middle of the industrial revolution as part of an institutional structure for the new pure-breeding model. This was a time, don’t forget, when naturalists all over Europe, including Charles Darwin well into the 19th century, were preoccupied with exploring the biological frontiers of hybrid breeding–of crossing different varieties.
Besides wanting to see how weird a pigeon could look, they were interested in where to draw the lines between species. They had spirited debates in the Royal Academy about whether species difference should be inferred from the infertility of offspring, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, the inability of manifestly differing parents to reproduce at all. Hybrid breeding of English racehorses had been the dominant approach earlier in the 18th century, but the new pedigree breeding was at best tangential to prevailing, early 19th-century scientific interest.
At mid-century when Darwin was focused on how species adapt to their environments, the English Jockey Club had its hands full trying to adapt the racing environment to unanticipated changes in the population of pedigreed horses–and in such a way as to sustain the pretense that the horses were actually getting better in some absolute sense. Meanwhile, successive generations of horsemen since the first half of the 19th century have complained that the horses are not what they used to be, and they’ve been right all along.
Historically, the emergence of pedigree is understandable only from the standpoint of its commercial utility. Its form of development has been oriented, first and foremost, toward limiting the size and regulating the commercial value of living populations. The changing conditions of racing that at any given time reflect the thoroughbred population’s capacity for performance, the forms of genetic representation, typographical conventions, statistical formulations, cataloguing styles, pedigree analysis, and the terminology in which thoroughbred horses are discussed all comprise the system of signifying practices we call pedigree.
What does it all signify? It very convincingly signifies commercial value even if it’s not that good at predicting performance.
The new sense of pedigree, as represented by the English Stud Book, had much to do with the emerging industrial values of efficiency and scale, but it was also a form of commercial packaging. For the most part, science is welcomed to the party only at times when commerce has run so far afoul of biology that something needs to be fixed.
It’s not surprising, then, that linebreeding would be understood one way in a system of practices whose purpose is to represent its measurable effects and quite another way in a system whose purpose is to invest it with commercial value. Accordingly, linebreeding is a salient technique in the packaging of pedigree. Because inbreeding has a bad name in the world at large, commercial breeders, whether of dogs, cattle, whatever, don’t want to say the animals they’re selling are inbred. Instead, they say their animals are linebred, and they’re careful to make sure the breeding fits the definition that’s been especially adapted to the commercial interest in pedigree. It’s really just inbreeding packaged to sell.
To their credit, thoroughbred breeders are not so squeamish about inbreeding, but the commercial motives underlying pedigree so forcefully distort language and sense that the perception of linebreeding as a specialized–and often more intense–form of inbreeding has been almost hopelessly suppressed.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 11:00 am.
Odysseus/Devil May Care, Take Two
by Roger Lyons
In a recent post about the breeding of Odysseus and Devil May Care, I argued that Odysseus is not bred to win a major stakes beyond 8.5 furlongs, as Devil May Care had just done. So, you can imagine how eagerly I anticipated Odysseus’ start in the Bluegrass Stakes (G1). Or perhaps, instead, you imagine trepidation. Either way, I was looking forward to it.
I didn’t expect him to win, but didn’t expect him to run last, either. Then came the sad news of the bone chip, which might well have happened during the race. As so often happens in racing, some questions never find ultimate answers, but that misfortune pales by comparison with the bad luck for Padua Stables, and I’d rather have been proven wrong than have it turn out that way.
In any event, my quarrel with his pedigree has largely, but not exclusively, to do with his close inbreeding to Mr. Prospector (3×3), based on Malibu Moon’s past success and opportunity. Statistical information like that only tells you what to expect based on a norm. Strictly speaking, you can only hypothesize. You can say something like this: if Odysseus is able to win a major stakes at 10 furlongs, then he is not at all typical of his breeding. Any given horse can become an exception to its breeding, but most don’t.
In that same post I also argued that Devil May Care is much more likely than Odysseus to be exceptional relative to the past performance of Malibu Moon’s Mr. Prospector inbreds. First of all, her inbreeding to Mr. Prospector is at 3×4, which is a huge difference. Secondly, she comes from the Roberto sire line, with which Malibu Moon has had good success from opportunity.
Of Malibu Moon’s five SWs inbred to Mr. Prospector, Devil May Care’s breeding is exceptional, especially in regard to her pattern of inbreeding to Mr. Prospector, and readers of my last post (if there are any) might guess exactly how. Odysseus’ dam is by Conquistador Cielo, by Mr. Prospector, which means Mr. Prospector is returned by the sire line of the dam. Devil May Care, on the other hand, is out of a mare whose second dam is by Mr. Prospector. That is to say, Devil May Care is inbred to a sire in the female line–the pattern shared by Eskendereya (inbred 4×4 to Northern Dancer) and Real Quiet (inbred 4×3 to Raise a Native).
The numbers are important. Of all the foals Malibu Moon has sired out of mares in some descent of Mr. Prospector, only five mares had Mr. Prospector as a sire in the female line. Two of those mares had foals inbred at a distance of 3×3. Throw those out because it’s too close. The foals of only three of those five mares were inbred at the much more effective distance of 3×4, like Devil May Care. So, Devil May Care comes from precious little legitimate opportunity.
We don’t know what is typical for that kind of breeding. It’s a new thing for Malibu Moon. Devil May Care has already gone farther in a major stakes than any other of Malibu Moon’s Mr. Prospector inbreds when she won the nine-furlong Bonnie Miss S. (G2). She’s done enough already, but, if she wins the Oaks, her pedigree is the new take on how to get a very high-class Malibu Moon runner inbred to Mr. Prospector.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 11:30 am.
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Inbreeding to a Sire in the Female Line
by Roger Lyons
Sid Fernando recently posted on Eskendreya at his Sid Fernando + Observations blog, and he included a link to something he posted on Eskendereya at WTC’s Who’s Hot blog just after the Fountain of Youth, and I went back and read it again. In that earlier post Sid draws a parallel between the pedigrees of Eskendereya and Real Quiet. What do they have in common? Inbreeding to a sire in the female line.
That way of putting it is easier than saying “inbreeding to the sire of a mare in the female line,” which is more accurate. I recall that many years ago David Dink, in his broad study of inbreeding for the Thoroughbred Times, chose the simpler expression, so I’ll use it, too. David did a study so broad that it was almost guaranteed not to find any effects of inbreeding, but, as I recall, he did a special installment on inbreeding to a sire in the female line because it was the only pattern of inbreeding that actually did get results that exceeded opportunity.
Just before re-reading Sid’s post from late February, I had posted some comments on Eskendereya (my last post), among which was the observation that Giant’s Causeway really didn’t have a very good strike rate with Northern Dancer, that he liked Raise a Native a lot more, and that’s true. However, after re-reading Sid’s post, which was about inbreeding to Northern Dancer in the female line of Eskendereya, I checked the numbers for occurrences of Northern Dancer as a sire in the female line of mares that have produced foals by Giant’s Causeway. Sid is going to like what I found.
Giant’s Causeway had 12 mares whose dams were by Northern Dancer–inbred 4×3 to Northern Dancer. The only mare to produce a superior runner was the dam of Aragorn, a dual-G1 winner. The story is high quality, low frequency, but that’s not the end of it.
He sired foals out of 16 mares whose third dams were by Norther Dancer–inbred 4×4 to Northern Dancer. Two of those mares produced superior runners, including G1 winner Frost Giant and Model, a listed stakes winner. It seems fair to assess that provisionally as high quality, average frequency, especially since it’s Eskendereya’s pattern. He won’t be included in my tallies until after the classics.
Giant’s Causeway sired foals out of six mares whose fourth dams were by Northern Dancer–inbred 4×5 to Northern Dancer. Two of those mares produced G1 winners, including Red Giant and Internallyflawless. Unequivocally, that generational distance yielded high quality, high frequency.
Clearly, as far as Giant’s Causeway is concerned, there is something special about mares with Northern Dancer as a sire in the female line, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this approach does have broad effects for certain sires, as David Dink’s study found and as is suggested by Sid’s comparison. After all, Raise a Native is the key sire in Real Quiet’s female line. It’s not just a Northern Dancer thing, but generational distance could be a factor, especially in regard to frequency.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 3:19 pm.
Pedigree Profile: Eskendereya
by Roger Lyons
The norm in pedigree interpretation is to cite the case of an individual stakes winner and attribute its superiority as a racehorse to any pet theory one likes. One might cite the case of Footstepsinthesand (Giant’s Causeway–Glatisant, by Rainbow Quest), for example, and, in near isolation from other relevant cases, tag linebreeding through Storm Bird and close genetic relative Nijinsky II as a factor. However, that pedigree consultants happen to be selling linebreeding does not make it a reliable norm of pedigree interpretation.
In fact, Giant’s Causeway has sired foals out of 108 mares with Nijinsky II in their ancestries through his 2006 crop, and only six of those mares produced superior runners by him. Even when attempting to account for the superiority of a given runner, it’s important to know the ways in which the breeding of that runner is exceptional, relative to its broader pedigree context. I think it says as much about Giant’s Causeway as anything else I’ve ever seen that Footstepsinthesand’s third dam is by Grey Sovereign, of all things (that great quarter-horse sire line), with which, through females only, Giant’s Causeway has a strike rate of 5/16! And, it explains a lot about Footstepsinthesand, but stay away from the male strains (only 1/35).
It’s quite another thing, then, to cite an individual runner and to assess its breeding from the standpoint of its larger populational and pedigree context. True, that’s what I happen to be selling, but it’s hardly a circumstantial choice. The kind of statistical underpinning required by that approach is not as difficult as weaving a rope of sand, but, if it were easy to come by, everybody would be doing it.
The dam of Eskendereya (Giant’s Causeway–Aldebaran Light, by Seattle Slew) does not have Nijinsky II in her ancestry. If she did, there’s only about a 5% chance that Eskendereya would be one of Giant’s Causeway’s better runners, much less likely favorite for the 2010 Kentucky Derby. The breeding of his dam is, in fact, much more typical of the dams of Giant’s Causeway’s best runners, but not overwhelmingly so. From the standpoint of ancestors that have proven highly favorable to Giant’s Causeway, she ranks at the 48th percentile among the dams of all the foals he’s sired.
The ancestors with which Giant’s Causeway has had very good strike rates don’t tell the story in this case, however. Aldebaran Light is a mare whose profile with Giant’s Causeway is characterized by a cluster of ancestors with which he has had an average rate of stakes production. With Seattle Slew, sire of Aldebaran Light, Giant’s Causeway has a strike rate of 7/75. That’s about as close to his average as an ancestor can be without nailing it exactly.
It’s no secret that Giant’s Causeway prefers Raise a Native to Northern Dancer, but Alydar, sire of Eskendereya’s second dam, has not been a favorite. He much prefers Mr. Prospector. His strike rate with Alydar is 2/34 overall, somewhat below average, but that’s deceptive because both of those superior runners were out of mares to which Alydar descended through female strains, as in this case. Giant’s Causeway’s strike rate with Alydar through female strains is 2/24, right around his average.
Those two runners are indicative. The dam of Pointilliste, winner of multiple stakes in France, including the Prix de Barbeville (G3), is by Alydar and out of a Habitat mare. She won stakes at distances of 12 and 15 furlongs. However, the breeding of Flying Spur, second to Rachel Alexandra in last year’s Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) is more telling. Her dam, Lakeway, is bred on exactly the same sire-line cross as the dam of Eskendereya. She’s by Seattle Slew and out of an Alydar mare.
So, both logically and actually, a cluster of ancestors that yield average frequencies of superior runners for a stallion does not mean you should expect an average runner. Such a profile still means an average rate of production of superior runners. So, it’s hardly surprising that a horse like Eskendereya could result from that kind of profile even though one can’t point to some overwhelmingly favorable factor and say, with warrantable confidence, “That’s why.”
Posted by Roger Lyons on Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 1:37 pm.
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Pedigree Profile: Lookin at Lucky
by Roger Lyons
Lookin at Lucky (Smart Strike–Private Feeling, by Belong to Me) is out of a mare whose genealogical profile as a mate for Smart Strike currently ranks her at the 96th percentile among mares that have produced foals by him through his 2006 crop. This percentile rank is based on an aggregation of Smart Strike’s rate of production of superior runners from mares representing individual ancestors of the subject mare–in this case, Private Feeling. Basically, the purpose of the profile is to measure how well the ancestry of the subject mare matches up with Smart Strike based on the preferences he has shown. If a given ancestor has proven significantly favorable to Smart Strike relative to opportunity, it contributes positively to the aggregate profile and percentile rank. An ancestor that has proven significantly unfavorable negatively affects the profile and percentile rank.
No knowledgeable observer would be surprised that a stallion by Mr. Prospector would have a relatively low strike rate with mares contributing Raise a Native. The redeeming factor for Smart Strike is that his strike rate with mares contributing Northern Dancer has generally been slightly above average. It happens , though, that Smart Strike has an exceptionally favorable response to Private Feeling’s specific expression of these two important ancestors.
Her sire, Belong to Me, is bred from a Danzig (Northern Dancer)–Exclusive Native (Raise a Native) sire-line cross. Through his 2006 crop Smart Strike has sired foals out of four mares by Belong to Me, and two of those mares produced superior runners by him, including Papa Clem, winner of the Arkansas Derby (G2) and San Fernando S. (G2), and Striking Tomisue, winner of the Wayward Lass S. Lookin at Lucky’s dam is Smart Strike’s third mate by Belong to Me to produce a superior runner by him. In short, it’s a nick.
When Werk Thoroughbred Consultants first recommended this mating, however, the Smart Strike–Belong to Me nick was not yet established. Get that story here.
As is typical of a broodmare sire that crosses well with a particular stallion, Smart Strike’s numbers with ancestors in the background of Belong to Me are very solid. Through male strains of Danzig, he has a strike rate of 6/45 through 2006 and has three additional superior runners from his 2007 crop, including Lookin at Lucky, of course; On Verra, runner up in last year’s Prix Marcel Boussac (G1); and Zanzibari, winner of last year’s Prix de Cabourg. Smart Strike’s overall record with Danzig, including female strains, is reflected in his strike rate of 11/76 with Pas de Nom, notable predominantly as the dam of Danzig. He is 9/79 with Hail to Reason, sire of Belong to Me’s second dam, through female strains and has a strike rate of 3/12 with No Fiddling, Belong to Me’s third dam.
Smart Strike’s record with the ancestry of Lookin at Lucky’s second dam, Regal Feeling (Clever Trick–Sharp Belle, by Native Charger) is not nearly as conclusive, mainly for lack of opportunity. He’s had opportunity with only seven mares with Clever Trick through female strains and no superior runners to show for it, other than Lookin at Lucky. However, the background numbers suggest potential, given more opportunity. With Clever Trick’s sire, Icecapade, he’s 2/20 and with Native Charger 1/6, which is good enough.
One peculiarity of Private Feeling’s ancestry is that she’s inbred to Northern Dancer 3×4 through a male strain (Danzig) and a female strain (Sleek Dancer, Private Feeling’s third dam). Some pedigree analysts regard inbreeding through sex-opposite strains as an absolute pedigree value, but the numbers show that many stallions respond differently to male and female strains of certain ancestors, including Northern Dancer. It happens that Smart Strike has the fairly good strike rate of 4/24 with female strains, but only an average 46/384 with male strains. Accordingly, with mares inbred to Northern Dancer through mixed-sex strains his strike rate is only 1/17, not counting Lookin at Lucky or any of the opportunity in his 2007 crop. For Smart Strike, sex-opposite strains of Northern Dancer generally collide with one another, but not in this case.
He has a strike rate of 6/46 with mares inbred to Northern Dancer through all-male strains, but that’s deceptive because in all six cases Danzig was one of the strains. So, on the whole, Private Feeling’s Northern Dancer influence can be deemed highly favorable to Smart Strike only because of Northern Dancer’s descent through Danzig and a female strain. It’s not because they’re sex-opposite strains. It’s because, despite his preference for female strains, he just happens to like Danzig especially well.
Another issue is that Private Feeling has five strains of Native Dancer within six generations, two through males (Raise a Native and Native Charger) and three through females (Natalma, the dam of Northern Dancer in two cases and Shenanigans, the dam of Icecapade in one case). As in the case of Northern Dancer, Smart Strike responds differently to Native Dancer depending on the sex of the strains. With female strains of Native Dancer he has the significantly favorable response of 47/359, and, remember, Private Feeling has three female strains. This makes sense in that Northern Dancer confers a female strain of Native Dancer while Raise a Native confers a male strain. Accordingly, with male strains Smart Strike has a strike rate of only 7/128. Of course, in Private Feeling’s case this response is conditioned by Native Dancer’s descent through male strains to which Smark Strike has proven amenable. So, overall, Private Feeling’s Native Dancer load leans very heavily in Smart Strike’s favor.
I should add, too, that the breeding of Belong to Me’s dam, Belonging, broadly reflects Smart Strike’s Raise a Native–Turn-to sire-line cross and, therefore, constitutes a linebreeding pattern. Smart Strike’s strike rate with mares that return to him that pattern, including all its possible forms, is 5/65, just a bit below his average, not bad at all. There can be no doubt that linebreeding can serve to mediate type, but, among superior runners, the numbers only very rarely warrant a pedigree interpretation that casts it as a decisive factor. At best, linebreeding has only limited functional relevance in Lookin at Lucky’s pedigree context.
The linebreeding of Lookin at Lucky is one thing, but the linebreeding of his dam, with her build-up of Native Dancer, is quite another. Much of that is favorable to Smart Strike, but mainly because of the specific ancestors through which it is expressed. In no way could a build-up of Native Dancer in the ancestry of a mare otherwise be taken as an encouraging factor for Smart Strike. It all depends on how that build-up is expressed, and Smart Strike is extremely particular about that. Private Feeling’s distinctive expression happens to suit Smart Strike especially well, but there are lots of ways it would go wrong for most other stallions.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 9:06 am.
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