Understanding Nick reports

[wgc517]

Can someone give me a brief tutorial on reading a nick report.

What does the percentage on top of the nicks mean next to the stallions name? Higher the better? Would about the A+ what is acceptable/

How do I interpret the Werk Quality rating of Q7?
How do I interpret the dosage points, qualtiy points and total points? Whick is better or do I just want a high total and if so ho high?

thanks

[mikec]

I would suggest you visit www.werkhorse.com and go to the FAQ tab on top. This is broken up into 5 sub categories that ought to help some. Good luck ! Another option is www.truenicks.com

[wgc517]

MikeC,
Thank you, ,that is very helpful.

[mikec]

My pleasure !

[kimberley mine]

Something to consider--

ALL nick reports, be they truenicks or werk nicks or what have you, are statistical evaluations. They are thus limited by the size of the population and by the presence of confounding influences.

For example, look at the Truenicks rating for Storm Cat over Seeking the Gold. (hypo here: http://tinyurl.com/yg4ru43)

Truenicks gives this rating a B+, meaning it will get some stakes winners but it's not the best of the best. To determine whether this is a pretty good statistic and NOT likely due to random occurrence or a confounding factor, first go to Equineline or G1 Goldmine or somewhere else and look at how many foals there are on that cross. I found 15 stakes winners with Storm Cat over Seeking the Gold, which is reasonable. If you find only 1 or 2, the statistic is highly suspect. A good example of small sample size problems is Grey Classic: there was only one stakes winner of note by Grey Dawn out of a Nodouble mare. Was that an emerging nick, or was No Class just one hell of a producer? My vote is the latter.

Moving on, if you look at the truenicks hypomating, you will see that 4 out of the 5 top runners bred on that cross are by Giant's Causeway, not Storm Cat himself. Giant's Causeway over Seeking the Gold has about a 17% strike rate for producing stakes winners. This is a confounding factor: the son is throwing to something different than the father, and other sons may throw to different things still. Other examples of confounding factors include the effect of the female line, specific genetic clicks (e.g. Mt. Livermore with Rough'n'Tumble in any form), specific inbreeding not related to sirelines (think Tiznow and Storm Cat, linebreeding to the mare *Papila), and really good phenotype matches (e.g. Point Given with Seattle Slew, both large horses).

They're useful tools, but keep the bigger picture in mind when you use them.

[brogers]

Something to consider--

ALL nick reports, be they truenicks or werk nicks or what have you, are statistical evaluations. They are thus limited by the size of the population and by the presence of confounding influences.

KMine,

TrueNicks uses all foals, runners, and stakes winners in the population. eNicks does not use and has never used all foals, starters and stakes winners in creating their rating. They use a population of stakes winners and create a hypothetical result, not a result based on what as actually happened.

For example, look at the Truenicks rating for Storm Cat over Seeking the Gold. (hypo here: http://tinyurl.com/yg4ru43)

Truenicks gives this rating a B+, meaning it will get some stakes winners but it's not the best of the best. To determine whether this is a pretty good statistic and NOT likely due to random occurrence or a confounding factor, first go to Equineline or G1 Goldmine or somewhere else and look at how many foals there are on that cross.

As of today, you don't have to go anywhere to get the stats on how many foals, runners, winners, stakes winners are on the cross as the TrueNicks Enhanced Report now supplies all of this and more (breakdown by sex, racing surface, auction results, etc). Truenicks is the only service offering this at this time. This is great information for the thoroughbred breeder as it gives real context to the mating giving you more evaluative tools to use.

Moving on, if you look at the truenicks hypomating, you will see that 4 out of the 5 top runners bred on that cross are by Giant's Causeway, not Storm Cat himself. Giant's Causeway over Seeking the Gold has about a 17% strike rate for producing stakes winners. This is a confounding factor: the son is throwing to something different than the father, and other sons may throw to different things still. Other examples of confounding factors include the effect of the female line, specific genetic clicks (e.g. Mt. Livermore with Rough'n'Tumble in any form), specific inbreeding not related to sirelines (think Tiznow and Storm Cat, linebreeding to the mare *Papila), and really good phenotype matches (e.g. Point Given with Seattle Slew, both large horses).

That is sometimes true. Invariably new stallions act like their sires - think Fappiano with In Reality and you can see it goes all the way through to sons of Unbridled's Song - but sometimes they will move away from their sireline, or only act like them under specific circumstances. This is where having live data like TrueNicks has is important as as soon as the son makes his mark and has enough runners, a rating can be created specifically for him. It would be a waste of resources for stallion owners and broodmare owners alike if a sire was rated as acting like his sireline, when it is clear that he is not.

They're useful tools, but keep the bigger picture in mind when you use them.

Never a truer word written on this subject. Paper doesnt run very fast so while getting the genetics right in the first place are important, it is just as important on how the foal is raised, what trainer it goes to, etc.

[kimberley mine]

Hi Byron,

Thanks for the clarification--however, my point still stands. Whether it's from a nose count or extrapolated from a pool of stakes winners, it's still a population analysis.

TrueNicks, IMO, is better. TrueNicks population analyses combined with the VGS score from G1 Goldmine are all you need to do a Poisson test--that right there is enough to make me say brilliant, give me more.

That is sometimes true. Invariably new stallions act like their sires - think Fappiano with In Reality and you can see it goes all the way through to sons of Unbridled's Song - but sometimes they will move away from their sireline, or only act like them under specific circumstances. This is where having live data like TrueNicks has is important as as soon as the son makes his mark and has enough runners, a rating can be created specifically for him. It would be a waste of resources for stallion owners and broodmare owners alike if a sire was rated as acting like his sireline, when it is clear that he is not.

Your new tool for analyzing particular mating pattern will go a long way to teasing out the confounding variables. I'm looking forward to playing with it.

[Bohemia]

I realize this is slightly off-topic, but what is a good sire cross for an A.P. Indy-line mare? I read an article recently that stated Distorted Humor over A.P. Indy-line mares was a great cross, but wondered if anyone knew of others.

[brogers]

TrueNicks, IMO, is better. TrueNicks population analyses combined with the VGS score from G1 Goldmine are all you need to do a Poisson test--that right there is enough to make me say brilliant, give me more.

KMine,

interesting. Why would you use the VGS Score? Again, it is no different to eNicks in that it is using hypothetical chance rather than real occurrence.

[brogers]

I realize this is slightly off-topic, but what is a good sire cross for an A.P. Indy-line mare? I read an article recently that stated Distorted Humor over A.P. Indy-line mares was a great cross, but wondered if anyone knew of others.

Distorted Humor is probably the best but you could also look at Touch Gold or a son of Carson City or Unbridled.

[LB]

I love the added information in the new, enhanced TrueNicks system. But my skepticism is definitely engaged by the fact that a cross I was considering was rated a D two days ago under the old system and is now an A++ today under the new one. Hard to believe that the statistics have changed that much in just 48 hours.

As others have said, it's a good tool but keep an eye on the big picture.

[kimberley mine]

KMine,

interesting. Why would you use the VGS Score? Again, it is no different to eNicks in that it is using hypothetical chance rather than real occurrence.

The biggest reason is that up until recently, TrueNicks only compared sirelines with broodmare sirelines. I haven't had a chance to play with the new widgets yet. If I were looking at a deeper cross, or ones where a particular sireline is either gone or poorly represented (e.g Nodouble) but still showed up regularly as a 2nd broodmare sire, or broodmare sire of the sire, I could get into that.

[brogers]

The biggest reason is that up until recently, TrueNicks only compared sirelines with broodmare sirelines. I haven't had a chance to play with the new widgets yet. If I were looking at a deeper cross, or ones where a particular sireline is either gone or poorly represented (e.g Nodouble) but still showed up regularly as a 2nd broodmare sire, or broodmare sire of the sire, I could get into that.

The TrueNicks algorithm (as opposed to eNicks) looks at three things.

1) how the sireline/broodmare sireline in question has performed

2) how the sireline has performed with all other broodmare sirelines it has been bred to other than the broodmare sireline of the nick in question

3) how the broodmare sireline has performed with all other sires that it has been bred to other than the sireline of the nick in question.

Just as important as the cross itself, is the comparative, how has the sire and broodmare sire done with the other opportunities that it has been given. We use these three figures to create the TrueNicks rating.

This mathematical function has been the same since we launched the product back in December of 2007, we just didn't show it on the page.

[brogers]

I love the added information in the new, enhanced TrueNicks system. But my skepticism is definitely engaged by the fact that a cross I was considering was rated a D two days ago under the old system and is now an A++ today under the new one. Hard to believe that the statistics have changed that much in just 48 hours.

As others have said, it's a good tool but keep an eye on the big picture.

LB,

"The system" hasn't changed, it is still the same system....the data, and the rule that the TrueNicks rating was calculated on, is what has made the rating change.

[hpkingjr]

I sometimes find it difficult to understand what you may truly receive from the system. As I was playing on the system (and I do enjoy the fact there are sponsors), I did a hypo with Devil His Due and A Loose Kisser (Kissin Kris) Big D rating.

But when I looked at the enhanced version the cross had 75% starters and average earnings of 87K per starter. Pretty darn good. When I looked at the top 15 horses, there were 7 from the USA, six by Devil His Due, the other from a Kissin Kris mare. The other 8 were mostly from Japan.

Question? Can the TN also split out the numbers for USA horses and horses from say Japan? Just looking at the results makes me think Devil His Due and a Roberto line mare would have a great chance of success. If you just looked at the Nick (D), you may hesitate to try him with a Roberto line mare.

Can the system show Devil His Due by himself with Roberto line mares?