Biomechanical Types

[Patuxet]

In his useful "Racehorse Breeding Theories" Frank Mitchell's persuasive chapter, "Biomechanics and Mating", contains lists of stallions categorized by the five biomechanical types. The lists were by no means all-inclusive and now, four years after publication, newer stallions undoubtedly deserve to be added.

Does anyone know where such information can be found? Does Mitchell maintain an updated site like Steve Roman's excellent chef-de-race.com? Or perhaps this is considered proprietary information and is available only for a price?

I'm particularly interested in the classifications for Affirmed, Wild Again, Diesis and/or his son, Elmaamul.

Thank you.
Archer

[Strategic Maneuver]

I used to get a newsletter or something like that from a company called Equix Biomechanics (or something like that) and they had measured many stallions and classified them. Not sure if they are still in business and I think Cecil Seaman may do something like that. You might try to Google either one and see if it is what you are looking for. Good luck.

[Tonno100]

I have no answers for you.

In the trade Elmaamul is known as "I'm a mule"!

[Roguelet]

http://www.cecilseaman.com/

[Patuxet]

Thank you for all your suggestions. I've privately been provided with the following satisfactory explanation:
The primary reason that there hasn't been more information about biomechanics widely distributed on the internet is that producing the stallion and mare evaluations is relatively expensive and is proprietary to the companies that own the biomechanical analysis programs. Frank Mitchell is a consultant with DataTrack which allowed him to include the stallion data in his chapter on biomechanics.

[xfactor fan]

http://www.equixbio.com./knowledge.htm

This is the link to equixbio, which the breeder of Big Brown liked so well that he purchased the company.

[Patuxet]

Thanks, xfactor. I used that link and on the site I learned that "EQUIX has a long-standing policy of not publicly disclosing the Phenotype of an individual horse during its lifetime."

[Bedouwia]

Unfortunately, these services are not inexpensive, but I personally believe that they are on to something. Both of my mares were bred by Cecil Seaman, and I respect his approach. If a person has a valuable mare, it would probably be worth the investment to get a recommendation from one of these services to use as one more tool.

However, at the moment of truth, when you have to make the actual decision, sometimes your own intuition and experience will prevail over all of the systems, be it Werk ratings, or some biomechanics score. You need a good eye for the the physical match between your mare and the stallion, and then lots of luck.

Just my opinion.

Bedouwia

[Patuxet]

I assemble possible nicks from True Nicks, E-Nicks and personal research and then I analyze them in terms of biomechanics When a pattern or cluster of phenotypes occurs I look for the same in any potential mate for the mare. Sometimes I discern a definite shift away from the phenotype of the stallions in the mare's pedigree toward its opposite or compensatory type. While conventional wisdom is to breed type to type occasionally Mother Nature seems to need to tweak or balance that.