TRUENICKS.....

[Jazette]

Byron, very logical and well thought out. It only makes sense if there is a large enough sample to pull from the sire himself. However, if there is not a large enough sample would Truenicks go the the sire's sire? Could this be why Dray33's Storm Cat X Brushed Bayou hypofoal changed from an A to a D?

I love my hypofoal with Running Stag with and A+ or a B ... and who knows we may end up with a miracle - Sexi seems to be having a false pregnancy. We had her ultrasounded and maybe they missed something Sand Ridge and Sexi is a B+ on the Werk. With either one of the stallions and Sexi I think that we could have a nice foal that can atleast run here in the state of Texas lol..

Thanks Again for your info and insight.
Jazette

[dray33]

I was discussing this offline with another, but here is one of the ways I judge suitability using this very site for research. I'll use the BRUSHED BAYOU x STORM CAT example (not that I am biased mind you ) This is not very scientific...

First, I consider the Dam's family, that being BRUSHED BAYOU's family. Her sire, and broodmare sire, and also top line sire counts as an "influence". The closer influence counts more. So here is how it looks:

BRUSHED BAYOU:

Top influence:
Sire: BROAD BRUSH

Second Influence:
Broodmare Sire: WILD AGAIN
Sire Sire: ACK ACK

Third influence:
Second Dams Sire: PRIVATE ACCOUNT

Last if available:
Sires of top line and back:
BATTLE JOINED
HOIST THE FLAG
ICECAPADE

Knowing that information, I just use the database to give me past kindred matings by:

Typing in the subject Stallion: like STORM CAT, or COZEENE, et al.
Click on progeny.
Click on BM Sire to sort alphebetically.

That's it. Now I try and find any influence from the list of influences in the list, like BROAD BRUSH, ACK ACK, WILD AGAIN... and see how the offspring fared.

The other method is to look at the female family and see who the breeding matches were, and how they worked out, of course.

Doesn't that bring me close to what they do at Werk or TruNicks?

[llbean]

Hi Byron,

First off, thanks for the compliment you gave to Goldmine in your most recent post.

In another part of your post, though, I wonder if you should have emphasized how impressive it is that TrueNicks was subjected to such large sample size based testing without adding any caveats related to possible methodological concerns.

Yes it passed the test of a big sample size quite well, but what does that mean?

I personally give credibility to the notion that if Stakes Winners can make their own TrueNick rating higher, then it follows that Stakes Winners will have higher TrueNick ratings to some extent just based on that.

Therefore how can we, scientifically speaking, say what the your study actually means? It might be that it was mostly Cause A behind the result and very little of Cause B; but how do you really know the proportions involved with any degree of confidence?

-llbean

[brogers]

Hi Byron,

First off, thanks for the compliment you gave to Goldmine in your most recent post.

Not a problem. It is a good product so it should get a share of compliments.

I personally give credibility to the notion that if Stakes Winners can make their own TrueNick rating higher, then it follows that Stakes Winners will have higher TrueNick ratings to some extent just based on that.

Are you suggesting that when we developed the product we included the stakes winner themselves in their own calculation? For what it is worth we have done a lot of testing subsequent to the initial development test over 100,000 horses and the rating bands that we are giving on horses that are yet to win a stakes race are still following the initial ratings that we created.

I posted a story on an example of this on the web site a week or so ago
http://truenick.com/blog/2008/01/07/int ... al-appeal/

Byron

[brogers]

Byron, very logical and well thought out. It only makes sense if there is a large enough sample to pull from the sire himself. However, if there is not a large enough sample would Truenicks go the the sire's sire? Could this be why Dray33's Storm Cat X Brushed Bayou hypofoal changed from an A to a D?

Not exactly. It would look at the sire of the sire and only his sons that have been mated to mares by the broodmare sire line.

I can't speak for Werk as to why they rated Dray's Storm Cat/Brushed Bayou an A. Storm Cat over Broad Brush line mares has been tried an awful lot and the best runner is a Listed winner named Hear Us Roar (by Lion Hearted). TrueNicks rates it a D because Storm Cat has done a lot better with all other mares not by Broad Brush and Broad Brush mares have done a lot better with stallions outside of Storm Cat.

[llbean]

Are you suggesting that when we developed the product we included the stakes winner themselves in their own calculation?
Byron

So what you're saying here is that the results of your study where horses rated B and above got 77% of the SWs from only 30% of the Population were based on TrueNick Ratings where all the Stakes Winners were thrown out of their own ratings.

That's good to hear.

I actually thought you probably threw them out but to be honest I wasn't sure given how you never brought up whether you threw the SWs out or not.

For what it is worth we have done a lot of testing subsequent to the initial development test over 100,000 horses

Why I’m not sure if you just rehashed the techniques of the first study given that the sample there was large enough that you'd be assured of getting roughly the same result in further tests anyway.

I suppose looking at different Time Periods and Countries might be interesting because at least in theory there could be significant variation from the original study there.

What I'd rather see though is something that equalized for the possible effect of pedigree quality more than the original study did. For instance, it might not be a bad idea to look at the complete get of a stallion and then seeing to what extent the As got a higher strike rate of SWs than the Bs, etc.

And actually, you could take (for instance) 10 stallions and calculate impact values (the % of Stallion #1's SWs with a particular rating over the % of Stallion #1's Foals with a particular rating) for each of the 10 Stallions and then weighted averaging out the Impact Values across the 10 Stallions. This would increase the sample size involved while maintaining the greater adjustment for pedigree quality found in this sort of study relative to a full foal crop study.

-llbean

[brogers]

Is the current stallion list published anywhere? Has it been offered to farms as of yet? For 2008 I do not see how it can be a competitive product based on what you have indicated so far.

Here is the list of stallions that we have already subscribed to the service

http://truenick.com/blog/products/subsc ... betically/

[zinn21]

Are the number of failed runners a cross produces (i.e. horses with below AEI) a factor in the nick equation or are failed crosses dismissed and only successful crosses the determining factor.

[brogers]

In recent days we have added stallions from Vinery (inc Vinery FL), Richland Hills, Crestwood and Hurricane Hall to the list of subscribed stallions.

[brogers]

http://truenick.com/blog/2008/03/04/tru ... pire-stud/

[Crystal]

well thats a little unfair.. We wanted to be the first to enroll in NY, but our emails went unanswered.. Bummer

[brogers]

http://truenick.com/blog/2008/03/04/pen ... truenicks/

[soundfast]

For $20. equineline.com will supply somebody with all the crosses for a horse as a sire or with a mares name all the crosses for a horse as a broodmare sire. I got one of each of these reports free this year. Why should somebody pay $20. for one sire/broodmare sire cross when they can get all of them for $20. or when they have a monthly special get one free? The broodmare sire report not only lists all sires but also lists them together by their sire. It lists all sons of say Deputy Mionister + near the end it lists all offspring of sons of Deputy Minister together. I get the number of mares,number of foals,number of runners,number of winners,number of stakes winners,earnings,etc. I do not think that alone is all the info one should have planning a mating but it is helpful,more helpful than A or B,etc.

[brogers]

We have just added all the stallions at Lane's End onto the subscribed stallions service.....

http://truenick.com/blog/products/subscribed-stallions/subscribed-stallions-by-farm/

Another major KY farm should be signed up by the end of the week/early next week also.

[Worksoplad]

Half of the time I click on to a stallion name with one of my mares I get the response "Oops, we can't find the website you're looking for!"