The Class Distribution
by Roger Lyons
Of the well over 15,000 winners of unrestricted North American stakes and blacktype-qualifying foreign stakes from 2001 through 2009, about 45% won a graded/group stakes during their careers. G1 stakes were won by about 13% of those stakes winners, and about 26% were G1 or G2 winners. Those three numbers–13%, 26%, and 45%–should be kept in mind when assessing breeding methods. That’s why the online eCompuSire facility, which is available by subscription at eNicks.com (after you sign in to eNicks), allows users to select lists of G1 winners, G1-2 winners, G1-3 winners, or all stakes winners when researching breeding methods. I don’t mind promoting mentioning that program because I designed it and benefit from subscriptions, just so you know.
Any stallion whose record of graded/group stakes production corresponds with those percentages is going to be very busy come breeding season. Stallions whose stakes production exceeds those numbers will bring in a lot more revenue for the effort while stallions that fall short will bring in less.
That’s obvious, but, just as these percentages indirectly determine the value of a stallion, they can and should be used directly in the assessment of breeding methods. I’ll go so far as to say that knowing how much opportunity a given breeding method has had pales by comparison with the importance of knowing the proportion of graded/group production among total stakes winners resulting from that method.
For example, the stallion Malibu Moon has had three-year-olds and older from 149 mares with Mr. Prospector in their ancestries, and only six of those mares produced SWs for him. It happens, though, that those SWs include three G1 winners–Declan’s Moon, Malibu Prayer, and Devil May Care–along with G3 winner Odysseus. That’s 50% G1 winners, 50% G1-2 winners, and 75% G1-3 winners. Class trumps opportunity every time.
Contrary to prevailing impressions, most methods of relatively close inbreeding yield graded/group distributions that fall well below the population norms of class. According to eCompuSire, 42 stakes winners to date have been inbred to Seattle Slew, including two G1 winners (Hollywood Starlet S. winner Turbulent Descent, by Congrats, the most recent), six G1-2 winners, and 12 G1-3 winners. That’s 4.8%, 14.0%, 28.6%–far below the 13%, 26%, 45% distribution in the stakes population as a whole. Does that mean inbreeding to Seattle Slew is a bad thing?
There are no absolutes. If you sort the list by “Pedigree” and look at individual sires, you’ll see that Tiznow accounts for four SWs inbred to Seattle Slew, two of them out of the same mare, including a G1 winner and two G2 winners. Hence, Tiznow’s class distribution is 25%, 75%, 75%. That’s very competitive with the 21%, 55%, 66% proportions for his overall stakes record, and Tiznow’s overall class distribution happens to be very close to that of Unbridled (29%, 46%, 61%), remembered as the consummate big-horse sire. That Tiznow can make a method of inbreeding look good doesn’t mean any stallion can.
Frankly, almost any breeding method you can think of will appear not very effective when assessed with indifference to the variety of pedigree contexts in which it has been applied; but, for almost all plausible breeding methods, conditions of possible effectiveness can be found. The norms of class I have described here provide a measure you can use, along with eCompuSire, to discover those conditions.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Monday, December 13, 2010 at 8:48 am.
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Is Fly Down Up to the Belmont?
by Roger Lyons
When Frank Mitchell wrote about the classic breeding of Devil May Care here, I thought I might be in big trouble. I had already taken the position here that, while you can never rule out the possibility that a runner might be exceptional to its breeding, Devil May Care is not really bred to get the Derby distance.
The main problem is that she’s inbred 3×4 to Mr. Prospector. That’s a reasonable generational distance, but it still tags a runner as specialized for best efforts at distances of less than nine furlongs. That’s a norm that, like all norms, admits of exceptions, depending on other pedigree factors, such as the sire, the family, etc., and Devil May Care had already won the Bonnie Miss S. (G2) at nine furlongs. Still, . . . .
It’s now clear that Frank has a different view of close inbreeding to Mr. Prospector than I do because he’s just written here about how Fly Down’s (Mineshaft-Queen Randi, by Fly So Free) breeding puts the Belmont S. “well within his range.” Frank, once again, I must beg to differ.
Mineshaft has had 12 stakes winners, including Fly Down, that count when assessing his capability as a sire in matters pedigree. Five of those stakes winners have been inbred 3×4 to Mr. Prospector. It’s true that Cool Coal Man won both the Fountain of Youth S. (G2) and the Albert the Great S. at nine furlongs, but none of the other four have broken the 8.5-furlong barrier, and three of them never won a stakes beyond a mile.
Fly Down is Mineshaft’s sixth Mr. Prospector-inbred stakes winner, but not at 3×4. He has the added disadvantage, at least with respect to distance limitations, of being inbred 3×3, which is a huge difference.
Inbreeding and linebreeding, depending on the intensity, mean specialization around the capacities inherited from those repeated ancestors and their descendents. The increasing specialization in the population since the middle of the 20th century has almost certainly been a result of the increasing accumulation of linebreeding. Yes, some of this specialization favors the classic horse, but most of it does not.
So, Frank, if Fly Down wins the Belmont, I’ll take my hat off to you, but I won’t eat it because I remember all too well watching Volponi, another Mr. Prospector inbred, run away with the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Friday, May 14, 2010 at 12:26 pm.
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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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