Stallion Selection Matters
by Roger Lyons
Bethany (Dayjur-Willamae, by Tentam), the dam of Met Mile (G1) winner Tizway, had good reasons for failing to produce a foal of any merit until her sixth season as a broodmare–I mean, besides her body refusing to cooperate in her fourth and fifth seasons. Or maybe she was trying to say she didn’t like the stallions she’d been bred to previously.
In retrospect, it’s clear she was bred beneath her station in 1998 when she conceived a foal by Benny the Dip. Seeking the Gold, sire of her 2000 and 2001 foals was her equal, more or less, but he lacked the commitment she required. Bethany is by Dayjur, whose broodmare sire is Mr. Prospector, and Seeking the Gold really didn’t want a foal inbred to his sire. Of the 24 mares he’d tried that with lifetime, only two produced stakes winners by him.
Finally, when bred to Capote, she had a chance with a sire that could have some affection for her. He didn’t like Danzig line much, but he was 3/8 with Tentam, sire of her dam, and 4/27 with Hoist the Flag, sire of her second dam. Not only did Bethany produce listed stakes winner Ticket to Seattle by Capote, but so did her half-sister, Ms. Teak Wood, the dam of Acceptable (G3). Bethany wasn’t the girl of his dreams, but Capote liked her well enough.
Tiznow, sire of Tizway, went downright goofy over her, and it was her speed. Her sire, Dayjur, was a Champion sprinter, and her broodmare sire Tentam was out of Tamerett, the second dam of Gone West. If a mare contributes the speed required to control or press the pace, then Tiznow will contribute the ability to carry that speed as far as it deserves to go. Tizway resulted from a match made in heaven.
Then Bethany went stone cold the next two years when bred to Gulch in 2005 and then to Aldebaran the next year. Lifetime, Gulch went 0/5 with Dayjur, 0/6 with Tentam, and only 1/48 with Mr. Prospector. Seeking the Gold, Gulch, Aldebaran–what difference could it possibly make? They’re all by Mr. Prospector!
Then, after a 2008 unraced foal by Vindication, she slipped in 2009, produced a 2010 foal by Elusive Quality, and that year went back to Tiznow. The good news, besides her second chance with Tiznow, is that Elusive Quality, by Gone West, by Mr. Prospector, is 3/10 with Dayjur–3/8 with daughters of Dayjur, including G1 winner Elusive City.
I’ve written in the past about how well daughters of Dayjur buffer inbreeding to Mr. Prospector, but every good thing has its limits. The lesson here is that, if the inbreeding notation on your pedigree printout says 2 x whatever, then just try something else.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 6:46 am.
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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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Pedigree Profile: American Lion
by Roger Lyons
American Lion doesn’t have linebreeding that is intense enough for full compliance with the rules of pedigree correctness (that’s PC for short), but what he has will no doubt satisfy the linebreeding pedigree consultants until the preferred kind comes along. Tiznow’s sire, Cee’s Tizzy, is bred In Reality over Northern Dancer, so, in the vernacular, he’s a “close genetic relative” of American Lion’s dam, Storm Tide. Yes, she has Northern Dancer on one side of her ancestry and In Reality on the other, but, really, it’s not that close. I mean, In Reality is the paternal great-grandsire of her second dam. That’s getting a bit fast and loose with the concept of linebreeding if you ask me.
Besides, Storm Tide’s breeding is a cross of two ancestors that contribute very favorably to Tiznow’s foals–no, not Northern Dancer and In Reality. His numbers with both those ancestors are really quite moderate, as are his numbers with Mr. Prospector. It’s understandable. Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector are both represented by a wide range of descendents. You don’t expect any stallion to work well enough with all of them that he would have a good strike rate on an aggregate basis.
What Tiznow likes in Storm Tide’s ancestry is her sire Storm Cat and her broodmare sire Carson City–and, even more to the point of what’s working for American Lion, the combination of the two. Largely by virtue of that cross, Storm Tide scores at the 99th percentile of mares that have produced foals by Tiznow through 2006, as to how well her ancestry matches what he likes in a mare. Never mind the linebreeding. That’s a red herring.
Through his 2006 crop Tiznow has sired superior runners out of four of his 18 mates with Storm Cat in their ancestries (not counting Storm Tide). Those include dual-G1 winner Folklore, dual-G2 winner Informed, G2 winner Tiz Wonderful, and listed stakes winner Tiz Now Tiz Then, the last of these being the only one whose dam did not have Storm Cat in direct male descent. This looks like a simple nick between Tiznow and Storm Cat.
He’s also sired superior runners out of two of five mates that had Carson City in their ancestries. Those two were G1 winner Bullsbay, out of a mare by Carson City’s son, Lord Carson, and listed stakes winner Lady Chace, out of a mare by Carson City. This looks like a simple nick between Tiznow and Carson City.
It’s not incidental, though, that these two simple nicks add up to some seriously potent speed. The numbers suggest, in fact, that Storm Tide’s cross might be an extreme expression of a broader pedigree context involving Storm Cat and other strains of Mr. Prospector. It happens that the dams of Folklore and Tiz Wonderful are both bred Storm Cat line over Mr. Prospector line, the same broad sire-line cross as the dam of American Lion. Tiz Now Tiz Then is out of a mare by Seeking the Gold, and his second dam is by Storm Cat. Thus, even though Tiznow’s numbers with Mr. Prospector generally are only average, from nine mates of Tiznow bred from crosses of Storm Cat and Mr. Prospector, three produced superior runners by him, not counting American Lion. Speed is the common denominator of that sire-line combination. Note, too that Tiz Wonderful is out of a mare by Hennessy, an especially speed-oriented strain of Storm Cat.
I’m not going to keep up the pretense that In Reality doesn’t figure in this at all. After all, Folklore’s third dam is by In Reality, which almost certainly contributes to the speed delivered by Folklore’s dam. That’s far from saying, though, that, as a function of linebreeding, it invokes an abstruse blood affinity. It’s just a very effective method of inbreeding that very effectively reinforces speed. This is further supported by G2 winners Bear Now and Tizfiz, two of Tiznow’s four superior runners with In Reality in their ancestries. Both are out of mares whose dams are by speed influence Crafty Prospector, whose broodmare sire is In Reality.
I have a theory about Tiznow, which might be wrong, and, if it is, somebody who knows better should correct me on it. The reason why so many of the Tiznows–American Lion, for example– like to be on the front, or close to it, is not that Tiznow is a natural sire of speed. If that were the case, he would get some sprinters. His value lies elsewhere. The key is that his big horses get their speed from their dams, and Tiznow’s job, which he does extremely well, is to carry that speed farther than you’d otherwise expect it to go. That’s why American Lion is one horse that’s not going to stop in deep stretch at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
Posted by Roger Lyons on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 7:18 am.
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