Officer’s Opportunity–How Real is it?
by Roger Lyons
It’s understood as a commonplace in using sire-line nicks that in the absence of information relating to a given broodmare sire, how a stallion has done with the sire line of the broodmare sire in question is the best predictor. That’s certainly true, but other important considerations apply.
Let’s take the case of Boys at Tosconova (Officer-Little Bonnet, by Coronado’s Quest). Through his 2007 crop, Officer has had only two opportunities with mares by Coronado’s Quest. Of course, I’m talking about nominal opportunity here, not real opportunity. We don’t know how much real opportunity Officer has had with Coronado’s Quest without examining it mare-by-mare.
It’s like the difference between nominal wages, which have increased in America since the 1970s, and real wages, which have substantially declined. Just as real wages are a function of inflation in the prices of consumable goods, relative to nominal wages, real opportunity is limited by the “marginal disutility” represented by certain mares that have been bred to a given stallion.
The difference between nominal wages and real wages is not subtle. Ask any American wage earner who’s been around for awhile. Then, consider how absurd it would be to shift that distinction from wages to salaries, which have been virtually unaffected by rising prices. I mention this only to suggest that a wage-earning stallion like Officer is far more subject to variations in the quality of his mates than a salaried stallion like, say, Distorted Humor. The point is that how closely the real opportunity of a given stallion corresponds with his nominal opportunity, like the question whether or not one is likely to benefit from prosperity in America, is largely determined by class.
Therefore, Officer’s nominal opportunity with Coronado’s Quest’s sire, Forty Niner, consisted of 11 mares through 2007, and from those mares he got U. S. Cavalry, winner of the listed Turfway Prevue S., and Cuff Me, winner of the Silent Turn S. It would seem that Forty Niner would have been a fairly reliable indication of Officer’s potential with Coronado’s Quest.
But the broader pedigree context tends to muddle this conclusion. Officer has a fair record with Coronado’s Quest’s own broodmare sire, Damascus, at three superior runners from 31 mares. Among those three were Officer Cherrie, winner of the Mazarine S. (G3), Alpine Lass, and that same Cuff Me, whose broodmare sire is Gold Fever, by Forty Niner and out of a granddaughter of Damascus. Thus, Gold Fever and Coronado’s Quest, broodmare sire of Boys at Tosconova, are similarly bred in that respect.
U. S. Cavalry is out of a mare by Distorted Humor, by Forty Niner, and it happens that with Danzig, which is Distorted Humor’s broodmare sire, Officer has a record of four superior runners from 25 mares.
Clearly, ancestors other than pertain to the sire line come into play as conditions for the possible effectiveness of crossing a given broodmare sire with a given stallion. For Officer, the effects of Danzig and Damascus can’t really be separated from the effects of Forty Niner.
Consider, for example, how much less likely it now appears that Officer might sire a stakes winner out of a mare by Forty Niner son, Tactical Advantage, whose broodmare sire is Roberto, with which Officer has a current strike rate of 0/18. He’s 0/2 so far with Tactical Advantage. That’s the same nominal opportunity Officer has had with Coronado’s Quest, but is it as real?
Real opportunity for pedigree crosses, especially in regard to a sire like Officer, varies not only with respect to the range of quality among his mates, but also in regard to important pedigree factors unrelated to the sire-line cross as such.
The economics of sire-line crosses says that nominal opportunity is a poor measure. Similarity between any given mare of certain breeding and the peculiarities of crosses that have actually been successful is far more important. That’s because those successful cases are more likely to reflect what should be counted as real opportunity.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 10:41 am.
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The Travails of Drosselmeyer
by Roger Lyons
Distorted Humor gets at least one superior runner out of about every seventh or eighth mare that produces at least one foal by him, counting winners of unrestricted stakes and horses that run at least second in a G1 or G2 race. In order to have a record like that, a stallion has to have a broad reach into the genealogical range of the broodmare population. Yet, inevitably, even the best stallions are challenged by certain otherwise important influences.
This brings up the interesting case of Drosselmeyer (Distorted Humor-Golden Ballet, by Moscow Ballet). He qualified as a superior runner in my system when he beat every horse except Fly Down in the Dwyer S. (G2), but anyone who’s watched the horse could see he has talent. Even so, he still hasn’t won a major stakes, nor was he able to meet the expectations represented by his challenging route to qualifying for the Kentucky Derby despite talent superior, arguably, to some of the horses that actually did qualify. For some reason, Drosselmeyer hasn’t been able to keep the promise. It’s a mystery.
It happens that Drosselmeyer’s dam, Golden Ballet, by Moscow Ballet, represents one of Distorted Humor’s most prickly issues with the broodmare population. Distorted Humor is out of a Danzig mare, and popular thinking about pedigree would suggest that Distorted Humor would work well with mares that resonate with Danzig, mares that have strains of Northern Dancer, the dams of which, like that of Danzig, trace to Teddy–maybe even mares that return Danzig himself.
Well, it isn’t so. The two most notable Northern Dancer strains whose dams trace to Teddy are Nijinsky II and Storm Bird. Of the 68 mates with Nijinsky II in their ancestries through Distorted Humor’s 2007 crop, only five have produced superior runners; and of the 56 mates with Storm Bird in their ancestries, only four have done so. What tells the tale, though, is that not even one of his 27 mates with Danzig in their ancestries has produced a superior runner.
The problem is that Distorted Humor wants strains of Northern Dancer whose dams contrast genealogically with his own strain, which is Danzig. After all, four of his seven mates with Sadler’s Wells in their ancestries have produced superior runners. Obviously, the problem is not Northern Dancer, with which Distorted Humor has an average strike rate overall in spite of his poor records with Nijinsky II, Storm Bird, and Danzig.
Drosselmeyer’s mysterious problem could be that he is out of a Nijinsky II-line mare whose second dam is by Storm Bird. Fortunately, on the other hand, his dam has a lot going for Distorted Humor.
Moscow Ballet, although by Nijinsky II, is out of a mare by Cornish Prince, with which Distorted Humor has a strike rate of 3/13. The big push, though, probably comes from Slew o’ Gold, sire of Drosselmeyer’s second dam, with which Distorted Humor has a strike rate of 2/6. That’s confirmed by his strike rates of 14/88 with Seattle Slew and 22/137 with Slew o’ Gold’s broodmare sire, Buckpasser.
How Drosselmeyer’s complex pedigree mix will resolve in his Belmont effort remains to be seen, but a horse’s pedigree is his fate, and fate gives no quarter.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Monday, May 24, 2010 at 9:00 am.
All the Horses are Linebred
by Roger Lyons
Now I’ve heard everything. I didn’t get this at some obscure website specializing in pedigree correctness (PC for short, please) that hardly anybody reads. No, it came from none other than a Blood-Horse pedigree column, a publication that–well, obviously, I still read it.
It goes like this. The reason why La Troienne is such an important influence is that her sire, Teddy, traces four generations back to Ormonde, and her second dam, Lady of Pedigree, is by a sire whose second dam is Ornament, a full sister to Ormonde. In other words, she’s linebred through full siblings. That’s around the twelfth generation of contemporary horses, and, when mares with La Troienne are crossed with stallions whose pedigrees contain these two ancestors, we’re told, the foals will light up the tote boards.
Yes, good horses all have linebreeding within 12 generations, but so do all of the bad horses. The reason they’re all linebred is that they are all products of pedigree. You carve out a population of horses, define a range of performance that favors those horses, close the book around their ancestries, and call it pedigree. Then, 200 years later all of the descendents of those horses are linebred, especially as defined in broad strokes by its advocates.
Besides its role in signifying commercial value, pedigree is a set of rules enforced by the Jockey Club, and ubiquitous linebreeding is an historical consequence of the enforcement of those rules. The advocates of linebreeding conclude that it facilitates the breeding of good horses, but that is generally not what rules are about. Rather, rules pose a challenge to the playing of the game.
Suppose there were no rule in the game of basketball that says you have to dribble the ball, that you can’t just tuck it under your arm and saunter down court. Basketball would be much more boring and tedious than it is. The rules are meant to challenge the players, to make the game harder to play and more interesting to watch.
That’s exactly what linebreeding is in today’s thoroughbred racing and breeding environment. Racing and breeding without linebreeding would be like golf without the rough, sand traps, and water hazards. It would be like tennis without a net, like basketball without dribbling. Linebreeding and those pedigree patterns that are trotted out ad nauseum are the rough, sand traps, and water hazards of thoroughbred breeding.
If those distant ancestors of La Troienne were the key to Distorted Humor’s response to certain of her strains, then he would have a similar response to any expression of La Troienne’s influence. As I showed in a previous post, however, that is not the case. It’s not about some distant blood affinity. It’s about the variety of ways in which different descendents of La Troienne express her influence in regard to specific traits. By way of generational variation, some of those descendents contribute La Troienne’s influence in ways that are favorable to foals by Distorted Humor. Others contribute it in ways that are unfavorable to his foals, and those same ancestors interact with other stallions differently.
Any specific method of linebreeding will have harmful effects in a lot of pedigree contexts. Those who look at the twelfth generation and assume that everything they find there has some absolute value never notice the problems that have sprung up along the way, such as the negative effect mares in descent of Better Self (by Bimelech, a son of La Troienne) have on Distorted Humor’s foals, which I pointed out previously. Above all, no method of linebreeding has value in and of itself. Whether a method is beneficial or harmful depends on its pedigree context.
Jack Werk’s clients valued his advice so highly because he understood what so many pedigree consultants don’t get–to the extent that rules are in force, the onus is on making moves in the game. The hard part is to hit the jump shot off the dribble, to come up with a Lookin at Lucky amid the hazards of linebreeding.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 11:56 am.