A DAY TO REMEMBER

Imperial Monarch - Classic Trial Stakes
(Photo : Sportinglife)

“A quarter of a century has passed,
and suddenly I encounter Snow Day again.”

Tony Morris - In the 1980s I had a couple of years trying to help Robert Sangster with his mating plans. It wasn’t an easy job, because he had mares in both hemispheres, and he had an awful lot of mares who, quite clearly, weren’t very good.

Well, maybe it wasn’t clear to him that he had a lot of not very good mares, and that perhaps some of them were in the wrong part of the world, but it struck me that things had got a bit out of hand. He had become involved with a lot of stallions and naturally liked to patronise them, so he had been buying up fillies and mares as their potential mates, without - it seemed to me - too much thought as to their suitability.

Maybe the numbers weren’t so far wrong. After all, the Aga Khan used to say that his successes were the result of large numbers, and while he never knew which of his substantial broodmare band was going to produce the next champion, he could almost expect something of real quality from every crop. Robert probably thought that what worked for the Aga could also work for him, but there were marked differences between their respective operations.

The Aga had many mares from exceptional backgrounds, derived from what he had inherited from his father and grandfather, what he had acquired in the Dupre and Boussac dispersals, and what he had developed from those prime sources. Sangster had acquired fillies and mares from numerous sources, often at a whim. And whereas the Aga, unconcerned with the commercial market, experimented constantly by using just about every stallion of note in Europe who was not a sprinter, Sangster was particularly keen to promote the stallions in whom he had an interest, and he was always going to send a sizeable proportion of his young stock to the sales.

Of course, the decisions on which of his home-breds would be retained for racing and which would go to market lay at some point in the future. When one devises a mating, it helps to know whether the product is destined for sale, as either foal or yearling. Of course, the market’s perception of any given stallion may change between conception and sale-time, but anyone with a bit of nous could have a fair stab at guessing what was likely to be commercial.

Left in the dark as to future intentions, how was one to set about the task? I thought that the only sensible policy was to recommend matings that promised to deliver racehorses rather than commercial commodities. Naturally, there was no harm in their being both. Sangster was always prepared to sell a good horse - and welcome the buyer’s success. His ethos was always to trade, and selling something that turned out to be a high-class runner was good for business. Anyone who chooses to race and sell needs to sell some good horses; the market will soon shy away from what are readily recognisable as rejects.

My spell as a Sangster adviser was not crowned with exceptional results. But I did not lose too much sleep over that. There were constraints over how I could operate, not least in never knowing the budget for nominations. I might spend a lot of time researching and deciding on something that seemed appropriate, only to learn that there was no intention to spend money on that particular mare, who was required to fill a nomination to one of the stallions in whom Sangster was a major shareholder.

After my fourth trip to the Isle of Man, armed with - as I thought - some well-argued recommendations Southern Hemisphere mares, it became clear that I had been wasting my time. I arrived to learn, rather late in the day, that the boss wanted all the Stakes-winning mares and Stakes-producing mares down under to go to Danzatore, then scheduled for his first season in New Zealand.

Of course, Danzatore was a Sangster horse, and it was understandable that he would want to support him. But he was also a horse in whom I had no faith, and it was depressing to learn that my recommendations that the best mares in the Southern Hemisphere should visit such well-credentialed horses as Sir Tristram and Vain were even going to be considered. There seemed to be no point in trying to continue after that.

I never kept records of what happened with the outcome of recommended matings that did actually take place, and only a handful found a place in my memory bank. There was a Caerleon colt who went to America and won over $1million there, but his name does not come to mind now. More memorable - at least to me - were a couple who turned out to be ‘nearly’ horses, ones who had brief moments in the limelight, but whose names will register with few people now.

One was Observation Post. I was rather chuffed that Shirley Heights should be accepted as the appropriate 1985 mate for Godzilla, whose only previous Pattern winner had been a daughter of Lyphard. As the stallion’s fee had just taken a huge hike from £15,000 to £60,000, that might have been considered an unjustifiable risk, although she was recognisably a good mare, and it’s possible that a reduction was obtained.

Observation Post won both of his races as a two-year-old, allowing me to believe that he would excel at three, when most sons of his sire tended to be better. In fact, he was to finish second in all three of his races in his second season, one of them as a hot favourite for the Gr.2 Dante Stakes at York, and later as Old Vic’s runner-up in the Gr.1 Irish Derby. Close, but no cigar. Second in a Classic, but without even a Gr.3 success to his name.

A particular favourite in the Sangster broodmare band of 1986 was Snow Day, a daughter of Reliance - he of the strange forelegs - who had won twice in Gr.3 company as a three-year-old. Sangster had bought her immediately after her victory in the Gr.3 Prix de Royaumont and less than a fortnight later she had carried his colours to a triumph in the Gr.3 Prix Fille de l’Air.

To my mind she was the best mare Sangster owned, although she had yet to prove her worth as a broodmare. Her dam was a half-sister to the Gr.3 winner A Thousand Stars (Hoist The Flag), and they were out of Heavenly Body (Dark Star), a winner of the Gr.1 Matron Stakes herself and full-sister to the Gr.1 Kentucky Oaks heroine Hidden Talent, who was the grandam of the great Exceller (Vaguely Noble). This family was as exciting as any at the time, promising to gain further distinction, as it duly did. Outstanding runners to follow shortly included Broad Brush (Ack Ack), Celestial Storm (Roberto), Capote (Seattle Slew), River Memories (Riverman) and Raise A Memory (Raise A Native).

I don’t suppose there were any quibbles over my choice of a mate for Snow Day that year. For me she had to go to Sadler’s Wells, a stud novice, but one whose potential was impossible to ignore, and that was a nomination that would cost the guv’nor not a bean. We duly got a Sadler’s Wells colt out of Snow Day, he went through the ring as a yearling, and was retrieved when the bidding stopped at 49,000gns. Sent into training with Barry Hills, who had also handled Observation Post, Blue Stag won over ten furlongs at Nottingham as a two-year-old, hinting at sterling deeds over middle distances at three.

His ‘nearly’ moment came at Epsom, where he finished second in Quest For Fame’s Gr.1 Derby. I hastened to congratulate/commiserate with his owner-breeder afterwards, and of course, he had quite forgotten that I had made any contribution toward the achievement. Perhaps I hadn’t anyway; maybe Snow Day was always going to Sadler’s Wells, whatever I had recommended.

Blue Stag just emulated Observation Post - a Derby second who never even won a Gr.3. They know his name in South America, where I believe he had some success as a sire, but he’s remembered here only by me and by Barry Hills, who never had the Derby winner he deserved.

As for Snow Day, perhaps Robert Sangster never had such a high opinion of her as I had. Blue Stag was just a foal when he let her go to George Strawbridge. She bred a Listed winner for him in Ionian Sea (Slip Anchor) and later went back to Sadler’s Wells to produce Oscar, another who was second in a Derby (at Chantilly) without ever achieving a Gr.3 score.

A quarter of a century has passed, and suddenly I encounter Snow Day again - as the grandam of Saturday’s Classic Trial Stakes hero Imperial Monarch. He is by Galileo, the best sire-son of Sadler’s Wells. It wasn’t such a bad idea, that mating of 1986. Could he be another Derby runner-up? Maybe he can go one better; he at least has his Gr.3 score.

Extract from European Bloodstock News

GENETICS : THE NEW REVOLUTION

Thoroughbred Genetics
(Image : UCSD / TBWP)

THOROUGHBRED BREEDING
“A NEW UNDERSTANDING”

Annet Becker Broodmare & Foal ManagerModern genetic theory as we know it, started with Gregor Johann Mendel, a German-Czech Augustinian monk and scientist, who studied the nature of inheritance in plants. The importance of Mendel’s work did not gain wide understanding until the 1890s, after his death, when other scientists, researching similar issues, re-discovered its value.

Currently, yields in the dairy and meat industries are being significantly enhanced through the application of molecular genetics in identifying breeding stock better able to pass on desired traits. It’s only logical then, that Thoroughbred breeders, so long plagued by confounding theories, should be looking in the same direction. Indeed, the most confounding thing is that it’s taken the racehorse community so long to “twig”, though it’s arguable we’ve chosen to be confused by a litany of outrageous (but romantically appealing) theories, as well as having little appreciation of the science behind genetics.

Very few articles on Thoroughbred breeding reveal an understanding of genetics. It remains the norm among readers of pedigrees, that the components are seen as names alone, and they’re only guessing at their importance. At the same time, many of us have been befuddled by the marketing impression generated by the page of a catalogue, into believing the female line is all-powerful, when it is in fact no more than a 50% contributor to the genetic composition of the animal.

In a recent publication on pedigree theories and genetics by one of the great turf writers of all time, Tony Morris and Dr. Matthew Binns (Thoroughbred Breeding - Pedigree Theories and the Science of Genetics), they provide a fresh insight into the correlation between genetics and pedigrees. “From a scientist’s perspective, genetics is really only another word for pedigree, but one that potentially provides more detailed and accurate information about the chances of producing the desired outcome than that of names on a page, the analyst’s usual stock-in-trade.”

In several scientific studies calculating the genetic contribution to race performance in Thoroughbreds, the results generally suggest that approximately one third is genetic, while the rest is attributable to an assortment of factors, labelled “environmental”, things such as horsemanship, nutrition, environmental management, veterinary care and training, amongst others. That’s encouraging for those of us who do not have piles of cash. The rich can always afford what they want genetically, but if you’re constrained by budgets, you have to rely upon your wits and energies in managing the remaining 67% better than most.

During the reproduction process, a shuffling of chromosomes takes place between the egg and the sperm cell, which creates a unique genetic entity. The possible combinations of chromosomes in identical matings are thus immense. The unrealistic expectations of most of us horse breeders are shown in the repetition of previously successful matings, whereas the average chromosomes shared between full siblings is at best only 50 per cent, but in reality closer to 25 per cent (1 in 4) in the practical scheme of things.

Breeders also seem to have a false idea of the exact contribution ancestors in a horse’s pedigree make to the actual individual; for example the names of famous horses in the fifth generation are often afforded reverential weight, simply because they’re famous.

CHROMOSOMAL AND GENETIC CONTRIBUTIONS
DOWN THE GENERATIONS

Generation	Ancestors in that Generation	Average % Contribution from each	Average Number of Chromosome transmitted per Ancestor
1	2	50.00*	32.00*
2	4	25.00	16.00
3	8	12.50	8.00
4	16	6.25	4.00
5	32	3.13	2.00
6	64	1.56	1.00
7	128	0.78	0.50
8	256	0.39	0.25
9	512	0.19	0.12

*Actual contribution

This table shows that at the parental generation, the number of chromosomes is fixed, but in the other generations the genetic contributions are based on average transmission. At the sixth generation, an individual has sixty-four ancestors, which on average will contribute just one chromosome to the individual. Studies have however, shown that at that level, some ancestors do not contribute any genetic material to an individual.

These studies reveal (for the first time really) the illogical nature of so many ‘breeding theories’ out there. In a sense, they expose the bare truth about the effectiveness (or relative lack of it,) which the deliberate coupling of ancestors several generations back, holds. That means inbreeding per se, can be pointless, unless it involves ancestors whose descendants are known to carry the factors we’re looking to reproduce; these nicks, if they exist at all, are far less common than many would like to believe.

This brings us back to the point that Thoroughbred breeding should be more about the matching of individuals, the parent stock, for rational reasons, than a game played with names on a page. Without wishing to be too smug about it, matching two individuals for the right reasons, with the aspiration of creating the best result from the two parents, has been Summerhill’s practice for years. The physical attributes, temperament, performance, soundness, speed, stamina, mental strength, physical durability, are the attributes that go into the making of a good horse; and oh! let’s not forget the instincts of the stockman, the one that’s closer to his animals, that understands their individuality and knows their idiosyncrasies, and how to bring them up. That’s all part of the other 67%!

www.summerhill.co.za

THE GREAT DEBATE : PART 2

(Photo : Horse Magazine/Thoroughbred Heritage)

THE RELEVANCE OF NICKS
by Alan Porter 

Alan Porter of TrueNicks responds to the Tony Morris article on nicking.

It would be fair to say that Tony Morris has been the doyen of British commentators on breeding since I was a school boy, a statement that is put into perspective by the fact that I’m now well on the way into my sixth decade.

Consequently, I would be second to none in my regard for his knowledge of breeding and racing history, but I do have to disagree with his recent column “The Debatable Importance Of The Nick”, where he refers to nicking as “a flawed concept” that has become “the new Figure System, a nonsense foisted on an industry whose gullibility remains much as it was when Bruce Lowe presented fiction as fact over a century ago”.

Before there is a chorus of “He would say that, wouldnʼt he?” I will make it clear that Iʼm not an unbiased observer.

Along with Byron Rogers, Iʼm co-designer of the , and with The Blood-Horse Publications in America, we are co-owners of the TrueNicks programme. With that bias now declared, it must be further stated that if there wasnʼt clear and compelling evidence for itʼs value, this nick rating system at least, would not have seen the light of day.

I havenʼt worked in the industry quite as long as Tony, but Iʼve been aware of nicks and the potential usefulness of an opportunity based nicking programme for many, many years.

As an eminent turf historian, it is no surprise to see Tony raise the crosses of Bend Or with Macaroni mares and Phalaris on Chaucer mares as examples of nicks, but it is surprising to see him then dismiss their significance as a product of propinquity (or to put it another way, the cross did well because it was tried a lot, and in these specific cases, tried a lot with high-class material). At this point, weʼd have to counter by saying that it takes a lot more than frequency, even with the best material, to make a successful nick.

If propinquity were the sole requirement, then the Buckpasser / Bold Ruler cross would have been a stellar combination, the mighty Buckpasser retiring to Claiborne Farm, where Bold Ruler held court as North Americaʼs dominant sire. Well, Buckpasser did sire 1,000 Guineas heroine Quick as Lightning out of a mare by Bold Ruler, but it took 33 foals on the cross to get her, one other Stakes winner and a bunch of complete nonentities.

Evaluating the cross from a statistical viewpoint, it was a profound “anti-nick” with Buckpasser siring 16% Stakes winners to starters out of all other mares and Bold Ruler mares producing 10% Stakes winners to all other stallions, while the Buckpasser / Bold Ruler cross resulted in 8% Stakes winners to starters. In fact, the cross produced 0.42 (or less than half) as many Stakes winners as one would have expected on the basis of what the main protagonists did when covered by other sires and broodmare sires.

It is impossible to conduct the same precise analysis on the Bend Or / Macaroni or Phalaris / Chaucer crosses, but it is still easy enough to form a conclusion as to whether or not a true affinity existed. The book Racehorse Breeding Theories suggests that Bend Or sired about 25% of his foals out of mares by Macaroni.

Using Great Thoroughbred Sires of the World as a guide, Bend Or sired 19 horses that would now be the equivalent of Stakes winners. Nine of these (48%) were out of mares by Macaroni, including seven of the top ten. Remove the horses that Bend Or sired out of Macaroni mares from his record and there would be no Ormonde who, as Tony says, was greatest runner of the 19th century, nor Bona Vista, the male line ancestor of Phalaris. With a strike-rate getting on for twice that of opportunity and the quality of the best foals bred on the cross, there is not much doubt that Bend Or / Macaroni qualifies as a genuine positive nick.

Moving on to Bona Vistaʼs great-grandson, Phalaris, Racehorse Breeding Theories suggests that around 15% of his offspring were out of Chaucer mares. Yet the cross produced eleven of the 36 Phalaris offspring that would be regarded equivalent to Stakes winners, which is 30%, or twice as many as might have been expected.

Granted, he did get Derby and 2,000 Guineas victor Manna, and the Oaks heroine Chatelaine, out of non-Chaucer mares, but take out Fairway, Pharos, Fair Isle, Colorado, Caerleon, Sickle, and Pharamond II (all out of Chaucer mares), youʼd be left with Plantago, Warden of the Marshes and Museum – good horses in their day, but scarcely names that echo down the corridors of time – as the best of the rest of his get. In fact, if you remove the horses he sired out of mares by Chaucer, you might even conclude that the influence of Phalaris on the breed would be negligible.

In the case of the modern nick of Sadlerʼs Wells / Darshaan, it is possible to be very precise. Taking the percentage of Stakes winners sired by

Sadlerʼs Wells out of all other mares and the percentage of Stakes winners produced by the Darshaan mares with offspring by Sadlerʼs Wells when bred to all other stallions, we find that the Sadlerʼs Wells / Darshaan cross produced 4.5 times the percentage of Stakes winners as the individuals concerned did when bred to all other mates.

While the trio of crosses mentioned above are some of the best-known nicks, there are in fact any number of sire / broodmare crosses that have demonstrably outperformed opportunity, producing a considerably higher proportion of Stakes winners, than have the same sires and broodmare sires when bred to all other sires and broodmare sires.

That is not a theory, just a plain statement of fact.

Tony also casts doubt on the genetic basis for nicks, stating that, “No parent transmits the same set of genes at every mating”. While that is undoubtedly true, it is also clear that for example, a son or daughter of Sadlerʼs Wells out of a mare by Darshaan will have a potential gene pool, which in the immediate generations is a minimum of 75% identical to that owned by High Chaparral, Ebadiyla, Yesterday, Islington, et al, and therefore much more likely to inherit similar beneficial gene-groupings than the offspring of Sadlerʼs Wells, with, for example, Habitat or Alleged. Given the various forms of genetic interaction potentially caused by epistasis, polymorphisms, ex-expression and other factors that do not correspond to a simpleMendelianmodel, it would take very few genes (or more probably genegroups) to be passed on relatively consistently from the sire and broodmare sire for positive factors for athletic performance to inherited with considerable frequency (and when we consider that the Sadlerʼs Wells / Darshaan cross has produced better than 24% Stakes winners to runners from no less than 110 starters, it is a pretty logical supposition). With regard to crosses involving sirelines and broodmare sirelines, it is clear that the specific genetic contribution from the initial ancestor is likely to decrease with every generation removed.

However, one of the most surprising things we discovered when calibrating TrueNicks on a population of over 100,000 horses, is the correlation between Stakes success and a high-nick rating does not significantly decrease with distance removed.

It is likely what is reflected is not individual genetic contribution, but the tendency for sire lines to have similar affinities. This might be best expressed by a simple analogy with algebra.

If sire A does well with mares by both B and C, there are good chances that B and C might well have shared affinities, thus a stallion bred on a cross of A and B, might do well with mares by C, and a stallion bred on a cross of A and C might do well with mares by B. Therefore if we look at the strike-rate of all Sadlerʼs Wells sons with mares by Darshaan we find that the strike-rate is still well in excess of 10% Stakes winners to starters, even though it involves some less than stellar Sadlerʼs Wells sons, such as King of Kings and Entrepreneur (in fact, the cross has done more than five times as well as would have been expected, taking into account frequency and class).

Moving from nicks to nick ratings : Tony calls the concept of a nick (and presumably, by association, a broader sire line/broodmare sire line affinity) a theory. In fact an opportunity-based nick rating is no more a theory than is a ruler. It is simply a measure of what has happened when a sire or sireline has been crossed by mares by a broodmare sire or from broodmare sireline.

Tony concludes by urging breeders to “concentrate on the practical rather than the theoretical if they are serious about producing high-quality racehorses”.

Tony and I are not without some common ground. Where we concur is that the problems start when people begin to try and breed nick ratings rather than racehorses.

The nick, which itself should be subject to intelligent interpretation regarding the quality and type of Stakes winners produced, is but one component of a successful mating. From a pedigree standpoint, along with consideration of potentially beneficial inbreeding and line breeding (which again can be now often statistically evaluated), it helps create a short-list of potential sires, but there are a myriad of other factors that enter the equation, among them potential aptitude, conformation, temperament and, more often than not, commercial factors. There are times when one compelling element, or a number of elements lead us to chose a cross that is not necessarily particularly highly-rated, but at least that decision can be made with full possession of the relevant information.

That some sires and sirelines cross more successfully with certain broodmare sires and broodmare sirelines – and vice versa – is not a theory, but a simple and easily demonstrated fact. An opportunity-based nick rating simply acknowledges that fact, and reflects the degree of success relative to frequency of attempts and class of material used.

Extract from European Bloodstock News

THE GREAT DEBATE : PART 1

(Photo : Thoroughbred Heritage / Famous Racehorses)

THE DEBATABLE IMPORTANCE OF THE NICK
By Tony Morris 

A few months ago there were lively exchanges on the internet involving different parties who professed to have the best data on nicks. And as these were commercial operations, seeking to sell their data, it was not so surprising that the arguments became heated; vitriol was being tossed around in the manner lately so tediously dispensed by Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg.

The political party leaders have struggled to sell their philosophies and policies to an understandably cynical public who have become no more enlightened as they have sought to rubbish one another’s ideas. The electorate made up its mind earlier this month by going for the apparently least worst option.

Just who won the argument between the nicks merchants is unclear, but to this observer it hardly mattered. Am I supposed to care about whose version of a flawed concept acquired the most adherents? Nicks have become the new Figure System,  nonsense foisted on an industry whose gullibility remains much as it was when Bruce Lowe presented fiction as fact over a century ago.

The trouble is that in the uncertain world of Thoroughbred breeding everyone wants to be able to believe in something. People don’t want to accept the random nature of genetic inheritance and are susceptible to any theory that a smart salesman can make seem plausible. There are those who still adhere to Lowe’s ludicrous ideas; dosage continues to exercise a pernicious influence on some; advocates of deep linebreeding still have their followers; and the notion of nicks has been so strongly promoted as reality that new converts readily buy into it on a daily basis.

What is a nick? It is generally understood to be an affinity between two unrelated individuals – most often, but not exclusively, a sire and broodmare sire – recognized through a higher rate of success than expectancy. There are a couple of examples from history, which always tend to be cited as proofs of the phenomenon, one each from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The earlier of those examples concerned a pair of Derby winners, the 1880 hero Bend Or and Macaroni, successful in 1863. Examine the records, and it is hard to deny that they did terribly well together, the former as sire, the latter as broodmare sire.

Between them they delivered the best horse of the nineteenth century in unbeaten Ormonde, a son of Bend Or out of Macaroni’s daughter Lily Agnes, and he was one of a number of high-class performers bred to the same pattern.

In the 1920’s there came another prominent instance, involving Phalaris and Chaucer, again as respectively sire and broodmare sire. Among those who advertised that cross as a powerful nick were the brothers Pharos and Fairway, both important sires as well as superior runners, Classic winners Colorado and Fair Isle, Pharamond and Sickle, not quite top-notchers on the racecourse but important as sires in North America, and the Eclipse Stakes winner Caerleon. The alliance proclaimed itself as a sure-fire recipe for success.

And of course, in our own time nobody can have failed to notice how well Sadler’s Wells seemed to have been matched with daughters of Darshaan, and indeed with daughters of Darshaan’s sire, Shirley Heights. The combination clicked early, was soon picked up as a formula for producing a high-class runner, and breeders were not slow to make it a highly fashionable cross. It worked on a regular basis, and by doing so it proved significant in promoting the idea of nicks as a viable plan for delivering success.

People will believe what they want to believe, especially if they feel in need of a belief system, and it can certainly be argued that the examples cited above tend to suggest that nicks do occur. It is not a theory that may be as readily dismissed as Bruce Lowe’s family numbers, for instance.

But it still has its own element of hocus-pocus. I recall a discussion on nicks – specifically those involving Bend Or and Macaroni and Phalaris and Chaucer – with one of my early mentors, Humphrey Finney, an eminent stud manager with a profound knowledge of pedigrees, who wound up as boss of Fasig-Tipton, and whose memory is now preserved in the name of the sales pavilion at Saratoga. Finney pooh poohed the idea of nicks and had one word to account for the success of those crosses – propinquity.

It was a fair point in both cases. The first Duke of Westminster was the owner of Bend Or, and his broodmare band included some of the best-bred daughters of Macaroni; evidence for the supposed nick came exclusively from products of the Duke’s Eaton Stud. But would the Duke have recognised a special affinity there, something to be exploited for all it was worth? Hardly.

Macaroni was, rather like Primera, renowned chiefly for his daughters. He did get a winner of the Gr1 2,000 Guineas in Macgregor, but that one was an exception to the rule that defined him as principally a sire of notable fillies. Unsurprisingly, many breeders fancied that Macaroni would excel as a broodmare sire, and he duly did. It was understandable that the Duke would elect to put his Macaroni mares to Bend Or when the latter went to stud; what better notion could he have for enhancing the prospects of his young stallion?

Examine the record and a few pertinent facts emerge.

Yes, Bend Or’s record as a sire did seem to deteriorate as the supply of Macaroni mares dried up, but one of his best sons, as runner and sire, came late in Radium, who had no Macaroni connection. It is also apparent that Macaroni’s reputation as a broodmare sire by no means depended on links with Bend Or; he clicked with sires from a wide variety of backgrounds.

It was a similar story with Phalaris and Chaucer, both products of the Derby family’s Stanley Stud. Yes, it is an undoubted fact that they thrived in combination, as the examples mentioned above clearly demonstrate. But it was not as though Phalaris owed all of his success at stud to daughters of Chaucer; he had plenty of high-class representatives with no Chaucer connection.

As for Chaucer’s record as a broodmare sire, his own best daughter – on the racecourse as well as at stud – was Selene, who delivered Pharamond and Sickle to matings with Phalaris, but whose undying fame was assured by the great Hyperion, her son by Gainsborough.

Coming right up to date, who can doubt that Sadler’s Wells has been a great sire, with or without his products from daughters of Darshaan? And is not Darshaan an outstanding broodmare sire per se? It is not just what his daughters have produced in combination with Sadler’s Wells that have made him a success in that role.

My point is that, even in cases such as these, which have resulted in numerous successes, the notion of the nick is not a concept warranting confidence in its reality. No parent transmits the same set of genes at every mating, and on that basis alone there are plenty of reasons for doubting the theory.

While research is ongoing and there is still much to learn, geneticists are currently among the doubters on the subject of nicks. All they will say at present is that if nicks exist, they are far less common than is widely credited.

And that makes all the recent rowing – between parties who take no account of how genes behave – over a phenomenon of dubious existence, nothing but an unseemly and futile exercise.

Nicks are not the be-all and end-all of breeding, as some with data to sell would have us believe. Not content with trying to persuade us of effective links between sire and broodmare sire, they suggest affinities between certain sire lines, and every big winner supposedly emerges as the outcome of a pattern discernible in its pedigree and therefore suggestive of emulation.

While I can see plenty of reasons why a breeder might want to drill for oil where oil has previously been found, it is wise to remember that every horse is an individual rather than a conformist to a theory that some salesmen choose to peddle. Good horses, like bad horses and indifferent horses, spring from all manner of backgrounds, and genetics – which you may translate as pedigree – contributes no more than about 35 per cent to performance in any case.

Breeders are well advised to concentrate on the practical rather than the theoretical if they are serious about producing high-quality racehorses.

Part 2 follows later in the week.

Extract from European Bloodstock News

Pedigree Focus by Tony Morris

“FEMALE OF THE SPECIES IN THE SPOTLIGHT”
European Bloodstock News

When, some four and a half years ago, I chose the title for this feature, I was extremely conscious of its ambiguity; in fact, it was my deliberate intention that it should be open to two interpretations.

This was to be a slot where emphasis was generally placed on the distaff side of pedigrees – a weekly dissertation on some aspects of a female family that had become topical by virtue of a recent result in a major race.

But I did not mean to promote the view that pedigrees should be interpreted solely in terms of female lines. It stands to reason that a proper reading of any pedigree should give due weight to all its component parts; when science tells us that, at every mating, each parent contributes equally to the genetic make-up of their product, we are on dodgy ground if we choose to believe in direct lines as crucial to the inheritance of characteristics.

Indeed, we do not even need the evidence supplied by Mendel, and the many eminent authorities who have supplemented the knowledge that he imparted. Any amateur student of the Thoroughbred has long been able to recognise, by dint of minimal research, that male lines tend to flourish for a while, then fall into decline. It is not necessary to go back into ancient history to establish that fact; it suffices just to know how potent the lines descending from such as Hyperion and Tourbillon were 30 or 40 years ago, and to realise what is now left of them.

Similarly, it is common knowledge that female lines tend not to thrive consistently over long periods; their fortunes fluctuate, and frequently deteriorate when access to successful sires is denied them.

Furthermore, in a breeding regime which generally permits only a tiny percentage of males – those who are proven successful athletes – to procreate, but which provides that opportunity to almost all females, regardless of their performance on the racecourse, we kid ourselves when we claim that the Thoroughbred of today is the product of three centuries of selective breeding. We have selected the males for logical reasons, with performance as the chief criterion; the females have never been selected on that basis.

In truth, when we use the term ‘family matters’ in its other sense, suggesting that it has genuine importance, it is most often applicable only in terms of the commercial market. The convention of displaying catalogue pedigrees as we do has evolved precisely because the bottom line in any pedigree tends to be its weakest area. All the mares in other positions are there by reason of success in production, through descendants who have earned a right to breed; that is not necessarily the case in the direct female line, hence the need for catalogues to attempt to show just cause for those mares to feature in the breeding population.

And nobody need doubt that catalogue entries have tremendous influence on the perceptions of buyers. The amount of black type displayed on the page may make a huge difference to the value of any animal. Without question, in that sense, family matters.

In order to acquire a firm conviction that family truly matters to events on the racecourse, we probably need more weekends like the one just gone, when several big race results lent substance to the belief.

There was a Group 3 winner out of a mare who won the Oaks. Another was the third individual Pattern winner for her dam. A Group 2 winner was the second from his dam to have won at Pattern level this year.

Another successful at that level became the sixth major winner out of his dam, herself a victress of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. No less wondrous was the fact that the two Group 1 winners at Ascot were closely related in the female line – and only in the female line – the dam of one being full sister to the grand-dam of the other.

So, let’s hear it for the females of the species! Oaks heroine Love Devine’s St Leger-winning son Sixties Icon (Galileo) notched the sixth Pattern victory of a stellar career in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes. Sadima, already with Group 1-winning colts in Youmzain (Sinndar) and Creachadoir (King’s Best) to her credit, was responsible for her third notable scorer in as many years when her daughter Shreyas (Dalakhani) won the Denny Cordell Lavarack & Lanwades Stud Fillies Stakes at Gowran Park.

Mare aux Fees , who produced this year’s Prix Vanteaux winner in Belle Allure (Numerous), doubled her Pattern score for 2008 when Jukebox Jury (Montjeu) took the Royal Lodge Stakes, both having arrived in her late teenage years. And the celebrated

Urban Sea, last of her sex to have recorded a “triomphe” in the Arc, added to her outstanding record as a broodmare – exemplified by Urban Ocean (Bering), Galileo, Black Sam Bellamy, All Too Beautiful (all by Sadler’s Wells) and My Typhoon (Giant’s Causeway) – when Sea the Stars (Cape Cross) staked a claim for consideration for 2009’s Classics with his victory in the Beresford Stakes on the Curragh.

But it was surely no less remarkable that Raven’s Pass (Elusive Quality), now rated Europe’s champion miler after his dismissal of Henrythenavigator and Tamayuz in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and Rainbow View (Dynaformer), Britain’s undefeated and undisputed champion juvenile filly after her triumph in the Fillies’ Mile, should share such a close connection in the female line.

The honours in the case of the Gosden-trained duo belong to sisters Words of War and Ascutney, respectively the 1989 and 1994 products of matings involving Lord At War (a male line grandson of the great Brigadier Gerard) and Right Word, a daughter of Verbatim from a family previously renowned for Grade 1 winners such as Danzig Connection and Pine Circle.

Right Word, who died in 2005 at the age of 23, was no great shakes as a runner herself, managing only one second place from six starts, but Words of War was a tough stakes-winner, placed twice at Grade 3 level, and Ascutney had a Grade 3 win in the Miesque Stakes to her credit. Words of War made her name as a broodmare swiftly, as her first-born was No Matter What (Nureyev), successful in the Del Mar Oaks, and next came E Dubai (Mr Prospector), a Grade 2 winner, Grade 1-placed in the Travers and Super Derby, and already a noted sire.

Ascutney already had a Grade 3 winner in Gigawatt (Wild Again) under her name before Raven’s Pass came along, while No Matter What had just one minor scorer on her CV before the emergence of the exciting Rainbow View.