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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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.
Super Saver: a Minority Report
by Roger Lyons
In a recent post on the breeding behind Super Saver, Sid Fernando sets in relief three differing approaches to identifying pedigree factors that account for that horse’s ability to win the Kentucky Derby, including my own. Nobody does the historical color as well as Frank Mitchell, but, clearly, Alan Porter’s analysis, as endorsed by Andrew Caulfield in his TDN column of May 4, is at odds with my account in regard to the factors that it emphasizes.
I realize that Andrew’s analysis has the advantage of being the standard account. Its topical structure defines the prevailing pedigree analysis, including its center-stage placement of linebreeding as the main actor. Therefore, I offer my rebuttal as a minority report.
Linebreeding certainly does have a functional relation to performance, but I emphatically disagree with the presumption that its effects must be favorable, much less decisively so, just because it happens to be found in the ancestry of a Kentucky Derby winner. To take Super Saver’s performance as evidence of the benefits of linebreeding simply begs the question of its effects and, more broadly, of its functional relation to performance. Unless the standard account can establish a statistical relation between Super Saver’s linebreeding and his performance, then its analysis might as well be founded on a non sequitur, and I believe it is.
As Sid points out, Super Saver’s family began with “a simple nick between a La Troienne daughter (Baby League) and War Admiral.” The family continued to evolve on that same basis, each daughter having had her best production by the best stallion that afforded the best simple nick. The accumulating linebreeding, involving multiple strains of La Troienne, therefore, was a systematic consequence of that series of simple nicks. More broadly, linebreeding is a systematic consequence of the pedigree model of breeding. It’s not a formula for breeding great racehorses. Rather, it’s an inevitable consequence of the process.
So, is linebreeding a cause of superior performance or just an effect of pedigree breeding? The latter is evident from the genealogical record, but inferring a causal relation to performance requires populational evidence that not even the cheerleaders for linebreeding are able to provide.
Well, then, what can be inferred about it? We know what the effect of linebreeding is in a broad sense. Its purpose and effect is to establish a generational continuity between a new individual and its ancestry. The more linebreeding a pedigree has, the more likely is the individual representing that pedigree to express the traits conferred by ancestors to which it is linebred. But, if linebreeding is so effective at reproducing the traits that constitute a great racehorse, why is it that so many horses with linebreeding similar to that of Super Saver in distant generations are just no good?
I firmly believe that the prevailing pedigree analysis–the standard account of pedigree–misunderstands the way in which linebreeding is functionally related to performance. Let me explain by analogy.
A good melody consists of two fundamental elements that oppose one another at every musical level. In order to be recognizable as such, a melody must have continuity. It must have a certain repetitive rhythm. If sung, the words must rhyme. A refrain is very much a part of what we expect of a melody along this direction of its movement. However, the continuity of good melodies is subverted at every point and at every compositional level by the element of variation moving in the opposite direction. Each measure of a melody must be continuous with the last, but different from it. The lyrics rhyme by repeating the same sound, but enunciated in different words. The refrain interrupts and contrasts with the sequence of verses. A good melody arises from the tension between continuity and variation, the latter always playing a subversive role.
Breeding a good racehorse is just like that. Linebreeding mediates generational continuity. Its function is to specialize the new individual around qualities that are conferred by the ancestors to which it is linebred. At its best, it yields a physically coherent individual. However, the new individual must also be capable of a well-rounded performance. It must have the variety of typological possibility required by the prevailing conditions of racing. That’s the job of generational variation, which operates in opposition to linebreeding.
In the same way that musical variation subverts continuity in the making of a good melody, generational variation subverts the continuity established by linebreeding. This fundamental opposition between linebreeding and generational variation is what the advocates of linebreeding don’t get.
According to the numbers I have for Maria’s Mon as a sire (and other stallions as well), A.P. Indy, Supercharger’s sire, has just such a subversive relation to his own linebreeding to La Troienne. After all, Maria’s Mon hasn’t otherwise done that well with Buckpasser (10 superior runners from 156 mares through his 2007 crop, counting the three through A.P. Indy). If you take out the seven mares in descent of A.P. Indy, then Buckpasser’s strike rate falls to 7/149.
Nor has Maria’s Mon done all that well with mares in descent of Seattle Slew, another important source of La Troienne. If you take A.P. Indy out of Maria’s Mon’s strike rate of 5/46 with Seattle Slew, it drops to 2/39. In fact, all but one of those five superior runners were out of mares with Seattle Slew in tail-male descent. But, if you exclude A.P. Indy mares, the strike rate with Seattle Slew in tail-male descent is only 1/19. So, read very carefully how the standard account gets its numbers relating to the Maria’s Mon-Seattle Slew “nick,” including that restricted stakes winner thrown in for good measure, because there’s much at stake in it for the linebreeding hypothesis.
My numbers, by contrast, don’t suggest broadly favorable effects of linebreeing to La Troienne through the ancestors of A.P. Indy. What they suggest is that A.P. Indy’s influence very favorably disrupts effects of linebreeding that are otherwise not at all favorable to foals by Maria’s Mon. A.P. Indy provides a beneficial variation that combines with Maria’s Mon to yield a simple nick.
It’s quite possible, too, that Numbered Account, a key source of La Troienne also tends to subvert the La Troienne continuity. Maria’s Mon has a strike rate of 1/3 with daughters of Numbered Account through his 2007 crop, but her dam, Intriguing, otherwise has a strike rate of only 2/23. Maria’s Mon happens to work with Numbered Account, as far as can be determined, but not so much with her sire, Buckpasser, or with her dam.
As a matter of fact, the ancestors of Supercharger that have had the most favorable impact for Maria’s Mon through daughters have nothing whatever to do with La Troienne or with A.P. Indy. Maria’s Mon has a strike rate of 7/50 with daughters of Mr. Prospector, sire of Super Saver’s second dam. With daughters of Northern Dancer, sire of Super Saver’s third dam, Maria’s Mon has a strike rate of 5/34. These numbers, far from confirming that Super Saver’s performance is an effect of linebreeding, clearly suggest that it’s more likely an effect of generational variation. The influence of these important sires interdicts a linebreeding continuity that otherwise really hasn’t worked for Maria’s Mon.
In one pedigree after another, ranging across many different sires, the numbers say linebreeding is not the decisive factor. In fact, the numbers point to the ways in which atypical or variant strains subvert the effects of linebreeding. Such evidence trends toward the inference that Super Saver’s ability to win the Kentucky Derby is decisively affected, not by his linebreeding, but by the various directions in which his ancestry has deviated from its linebreeding to constitute a well-rounded individual–a horse with the speed, stamina, stoutness, and physical courage not only to withstand the rigors of training for that race, but also to win it.
We live in an era during which linebreeding has become ubiquitous in the population. All of the horses are linebred, and the functional relation of linebreeding to racing performance has already been taken too far. It’s too late to turn to the standard account for celebrations of linebreeding. In such an era, the successful breeder is the one who can identify useful variations with which to restore the residual aptitudes, the one who understands that linebreeding is the problem, not the solution.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Friday, May 7, 2010 at 12:21 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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