TRUENICKS.....

[karenkarenn]

Hello Mr. Brogers.
I did get two True Nicks from your company and I am more frustrated now then ever.
My mare Deaconess- out of Magic Fable by Wild Deputy( Wild again and Hear the Bells) I tried your product on our stallion Captains Rebel out of Parasol Princess and Captain Sunburst and I didnt recieve and Nick
Then I did Deaconess again with Stormy Jack and I didn't recieve a rating too. I feel that I wasted 40 dollars.
Karen

[brogers]

A classification of No Rating signifies that, after going back to the third generation in the sire line and the fourth generation in the broodmare sire line, the program has not found enough statistically significant evidence to calculate a rating.

This actually tells you that the mating that you are trying has never been tried before in significant numbers in the thoroughbred population which you can take a couple of ways! Although there is insufficient information to calculate a valid TrueNicks rating, the TrueNicks report will where possible list the best five horses bred on the selected cross, and occasionally one will find although there is insufficient data to calculate a rating, the immediate cross has indeed produced a stakes winner.

Stallions from Lane's End, Journeyman Stud, Millennium Farms, WinStar, Gainesway and Ashford Stud and Hartley/DeRenzo's The Green Monkey have all signed up their stallions as free subscribed stallions bringing the total to just over 60 new stallions in the past month that are now available free for your use on www.truenicks.com

[brogers]

TrueNicks now has some 300 subscribed stallions and we are adding in more stallions to the free subscription service each day. It has however not been without some controversy. I think you might all appreciate the following

http://truenicks.com/blogs/truenicks/ar ... tings.aspx

[dray33]

Love 'em or hate 'em, I think Truenicks is an exceptional marketing tool for stallion owners. And a hell of a lot of fun for us breeders. Just one instrument in a toolshed of many. I think nicking, with focused consideration of the physicals, some gut instinct and a lot of luck... are a great start to any breeding program. Best of luck to you.

[merse]

brogers - has the advent of TrueNicks changed your or Alan's previous opinions about certain "rules of thumb" in breeding patterns? For example, some pedigree analysts say "inbreeding tail-mail in the sire and dam is never as good as in other positions," etc.. Do you find TrueNicks results are changing any of these stereotype beliefs?

[brogers]

brogers - has the advent of TrueNicks changed your or Alan's previous opinions about certain "rules of thumb" in breeding patterns? For example, some pedigree analysts say "inbreeding tail-mail in the sire and dam is never as good as in other positions," etc.. Do you find TrueNicks results are changing any of these stereotype beliefs?

I couldn't speak for Alan, but there have been some things that have surprised me that is for sure. One of the more interesting aspects is breeding back into the broodmare sire of the sire. For example, Australian stallion Flying Spur is out of a mare by Mr Prospector. For some reason the marketplace seems to be hesitant to breed Mr Prospector line mares to him but he has had great success when it has been tried with horses like Mentality, Primus, Oomph, etc. In a similar vein, I think that Claiborne have pretty much avoided Mr Prospector line mares with Pulpit, but then when you look at horses like Tapit it makes you wonder why. Certainly the figures we see on stallions like him and others we wouldn't be afraid to breed back a Mr Prospector line mare to him.

[AlexZ]

I've seen Truenicks use the following facts as evidence of their system's effectiveness several times:

"1. While only 13% of the entire Thoroughbred population earn “A” rankings (A to A++), 37% of the stakes winners rate as “A’s.”

2. Horses rated “B” or better (B to A++) represent just 30% of the entire population, yet 3 out of 4 (77%) stakes winners rank “B” or better.

3. Almost half of Thoroughbreds in general–44%–are on the low end of the scale (rated “C” through “F”), yet only two in 25 stakes winners (8%) have these lower rankings."

If I'm understanding what you're doing here, this is 'cheating'. You're essentially predicting the past - you've based your ratings on already happened, and then using that as evidence of their effectiveness. A more honest and accurate assessment of your system would be possible.

If TrueNicks is completely 'formula' based with no subjective component, then calculate what the Truenicks ratings for a group of several hundred (or more) horses at some time in the past. Then look at the performance of those horses over the next few years.

If TrueNicks isn't completely formula based, it's a little trickier, but you could still study their effectiveness. You'd just have to use NOW as the point in time where you look at the ratings, and gather performance data over the next few years to see how their predictive power is.

[AlexZ]

I just realized that because of the sponsored stallions, the data is freely available to do a study of Truenicks preditive power. I've written a post at my blog (see my signature for address) discussing it.

[brogers]

Alex,

How about you set this study up and publish the results? I for one would be interested. Take the crop of stallions whose first runners are about to turn two (entered stud 2006). There is no way of knowing for certain if they are going to be anything or not and it would certainly push the predictive power of any program. Run a full crop report on them and then go in and get the free ratings that the farms pay for. Even better still, pick the stallions that have both TrueNicks and ENicks and run both systems. You can then see exactly what is going on with both systems and make your observations off that.

Here is a list of the stallions that retired in 2009 that are subscribed to both services.

Afleet Alex
Bwana Charlie
Closing Argument
Congressionalhonor
Consolidator
Dance with Ravens
Fantasticat
Freefourinternet
Gators N Bears
Ghostzapper
Grand Reward
Leroidesanimaux
North Light
Offlee Wild
Pollard's Vision
Powerscourt
Purge
Rock Hard Ten
Roman Ruler
St Averil
Unforgettable Max
Value Plus
Woke Up Dreamin

That should be enough to do a pretty comprehensive study. I for one would be interested in the results!

[merse]

Byron,

I just received my 2009 BloodHorse Stallion Register and this year, they list all of the A, A+, and A++ matings under the "X Stallion has sired" column. Although I haven't had a chance to really do an extensive comparison, I have noticed that some stallions of equal stud fee to others have differing amounts of A through A++ runners listed. For example, it seems Sky Classic has most of his top runners in these categories. It leads me to believe that an A and above hypothetical mating with Sky Classic might have more of a "degree of confidence" (I believe that is what statisticians call it) than an A rating with another similarly priced stallion who has fewer A ratings showing up under his top runners.

merse