Mating Advice-Mistymoon Lake

[lytpracing]

I am new to the breeding side of racing and would like to get thoughts on a possible cross. She is currently in foal to Drinkwiththedevil and I would like to use a IA/MN/IL sire unless something from KY comes up in the state auctions. I am looking for a horse that can be competitive on the IA/MN circuit with possible trips to Hawthorne.

Here is the link to equineline:
http://www.equineline.com/Free-5X-Pedig ... Y&x=35&y=1

On eNicks it was rated an A+ 1098%.

Thanks for taking a look.

[Joltman]

I am new to the breeding side of racing and would like to get thoughts on a possible cross. She is currently in foal to Drinkwiththedevil and I would like to use a IA/MN/IL sire unless something from KY comes up in the state auctions. I am looking for a horse that can be competitive on the IA/MN circuit with possible trips to Hawthorne.

Here is the link to equineline:
http://www.equineline.com/Free-5X-Pedig ... Y&x=35&y=1

On eNicks it was rated an A+ 1098%.

Thanks for taking a look.

Welcome aboard. There are a some really knowledgeable and experienced folks here - and then the rest of us who are learners for life. It looks like the mare has some of the usual suspects sire wise (Storm Cat, SSlew) but could add from Mr. Prospector and AP Indy so I would look there first. I personally like the Fappiano line sons. I would definitely look to Ky as there are lower cost stallions even at top places that have the look, pedigree and race record to improve your odds. Regional stallions (historically) have been there for a reason and if proven, go to Ky. That's changing a bit in NY, but you can pick up low cost, NG seasons in the stallion season auctions for even less, to solid stallions - some even proven. I'm not a fan of close inbreeding to Storm Cat.

my dos centavos

jm

[Tappiano]

You can get to proven stallions in KY incredibly inexpensive.

What does the mare look like? To me the physical match is a very important part of the equation unless you know for sure that the mare is always going to throw to the stallion or vice versa. If the mare has only had one foal you probably can't tell.

[kimberley mine]

First up, where exactly are you? Illinois has incentives for mares who are bred to Illinois stallions and who foal out in Illinois. Other states may not have those. If you're trying to work into a particular statebred program, that's important to know.

Also concur that it's important to know what your mare's physical type is like.

And what exactly is your budget? There are actually a LOT of good stallions in KY for people like you, breeding to race the foal, who are priced to be affordable and whose fees may be negotiable.

Something important for you to look at is the equineline statistical summary for a stallion has the average and median earnings for that stallion. The median earnings is the key for you: 50% of his runners will earn more than the median and 50% will earn less. That, along with his percentage of foals to runners and runners to winners, are your most reliable benchmark for the kind of horses in your budget. (Big-name top-end stallions are a little different.)

Here's an example of horses who stood for $3500 in 2013.

Here's K One King's stats: http://www.equineline.com/extendedconte ... ID=1443262

He is getting about 68% runners and 48% winners from foals, which is pretty typical. His median earnings is $14,346.

Here is the now-pensioned Devil His Due:
http://www.equineline.com/extendedconte ... ID=1443262

He got 80% runners and 62% winners from foals--BIG DIFFERENCE. If they don't run, you don't make money, and if they don't win, they don't make money. More to the point, his median earnings is $27,106.....nearly twice that of K One King.

You are 40% more likely to get a winner with Devil His Due, and a Devil His Due foal is likely to make twice as much money. This is what you should be looking for.....nicks are nice but performance is more important.

[kimberley mine]

Moving on--

Here are some well-proven Kentucky stallions in the $5000 to $10000 published fee range that may suit your mare both pedigree-wise and physically.

Ready's Image. 54% runners, 33% winners (his first crop is only 3, so these will improve as more of his 2yos grow up), PME $20,090 His sire has done quite well with AP Indy-line mares, and he was very, very fast.

Northern Afleet. 75% runners, 58% winners, PME $30,852.

Roman Ruler: 69% runners, 51% winners, PME $29,710

Successful Appeal: 73% runners, 59% winners, PME $42,278 (Good stats, he's SOUND, and I like the pedigree match)

Smoke Glacken: 81% runners, 65% winners, PME $38,654.

Ready's Image is standing for $5000, and of the group he's probably the best target to negotiate into your price range. His median earnings is much lower than the others, but keep in mind that his first crop is only 3 years old, and for horses who are only just starting to race, that's actually pretty good. Most of his runners will still be racing this year and into next year, which will push that up over time.

I wouldn't discount any of the others, though, especially not if you can get a season to them. If you can get a season to Successful Appeal, do it and do not look back. Smoke Glacken, who is about as solid and proven a sire as you ever will find, and is priced VERY fairly, in third.

[lytpracing]

Thanks to all for responding. I am located in Iowa and would be racing at Prairie Meadows and Cantebury. She is a medium sized mare who did have trouble getting in foal as this was her first time.

I know that IL has the incentive program but right now they seem to be very questionable as to how they will be proceeding in the future.

I would say my budget would be $7500 and would be looking at the local stallion auctions to see if I could get a good stallion for a good price. I have sent out emails to a few stables and I am just waiting to hear back.

[kimberley mine]

I thought a bit more....

Add Run Away and Hide to the list. He has been going lights out so his fee may increase, but if he stays at $5000 I'd move him to the top of the list. Prospector line speed, Runaway Groom soundness, outcross, producing quality so far.

And Smoke Glacken, as good a sire as he is, has had crops numbering only in the mid-30s for the last few years. If he's not serving anything close to a full book, you may have better luck negotiating a price on him that suits your budget. $10k is more than you want to spend, but his listed fee may go down, and if you can get a season, he's a lot of horse and well worth the effort.

[madelyn]

A word of caution about the season auctions - most are for a no guarantee season so you pay either way. If the mare has had ANY trouble getting in foal you could be out of pocket with no baby. In the past, some KY farms have offered discounts on seasons to breeders foaling in other states' regional programs. In this case that might be a way to go. I know for a fact that Darby Dan at one time offered 50% off their stud fees to breeders outside KY. If you could get that deal with a live foal guarantee you might be better off.

pm me if you would like any kind of help negotiating that kind of deal.

[Jeff]

http://www.pedigreequery.com/index.php? ... lor=000000

Lytpracing, the Live From Appollo X Mistymoon Lake is a great looking pedigree, and if the price and location are right, you should go with it. You did a great job choosing a stallion, your advisors here would be so lucky to get as nice a foal as you'r likely to get. Also be advised that anyone referring you to a Kentucky stallion is likely getting a referral fee from the stud farm for persuading somebody to breed to one of their stallions.

Here's a nice write up on Live From Appollo:
http://www.ridgewoodstables.com/sireprofileslive.html


Here are some things I like about the pedigree of your proposed foal.

First I like LFA's dam Marquee Attraction; daughter of Storm Cat out of the 2 year old champion filly and daughter of Mr.P; Golden Attraction. His 3rd Dam Seaside Attraction by Seattle Slew , besides being a G-1 stakes winner herself, she produced 5 foals, 4 of which were stakes winners. 80% stakes winners to foals produced, what a powerful punch for a stallion to have in his female family. There's not another such incredulous producer that I can think of right off, and 80% stakes producer.

Live From Appollo was a durable horse with 47 starts, if he breeds on that durability, all the better, a great choice for your mare Mistymoon Lake. Misty Lake returns to LFA's female family, her AP Indy compliments the Seaside Attraction in LFA's pedigree. His pedigree has Secretariat over Seattle Slew, she returns that in AP Indy with Seattle Slew over Secretariat. She also returns his Storm
Cat through fanstasic G-1 winning November Snow.

She also contributes addition nicks to the greates Nick around, the Nearco line nick over the Princequillo line nick. The nick that keeps on giving. She has an additional Secretariat through Party Goer, but look at Party Goer's pedigree, she's power packed with another Nearco/Princequillo nick: Nearctic son of Nearco X Cequillo daugher of Princeqillo; a powerful punch in the pedigree, Party Goer is the dam of G-1 millionaire Dare And Go, who defeated Cigar in the 1996 Pacific Classic, ending Cigar's 16 win streak.

Hooking that Nearco/Princequillo nick doesn't end there, Mistymoon Lake's 2nd dam is a Nearco/Princequillo nick, her 3rd dam Social Circle hooks another Nearco/Princequillo nick in her sire Circle: Round Table by a daughter of Nasrullah.

Lytpracing, You did a great job of picking a stud for your mare! You should get him for a great price too, before his foals are old enough to start winning and the price goes up.

[madelyn]

Jeff, you are always seeking some sinister motives. I have always, in the past, been able to negotiate BETTER PRICES for my clients by booking more than one mare at that farm at a time. The CLIENT chooses the stallion, not me.

[Jeff]

Madelyn,
I see nothing sinister in your offer.

Considering Lytpracing made such an excellent choice of stallions, (live From Appollo) I think he/she should get some clients of their own though.

[kimberley mine]

For the record, I am not affiliated with any of the farms standing the stallions I listed, nor am I receiving any kind of financial compensation from them.

The information I posted comes from publicly-available, free sources (BH stallion register, Equineline, and Equibase).

For Lyptracing:

Nicks are a statistical tool and just like any other statistical tool, you've got lies, darn lies, and statistics.

In order to have any kind of meaning, you have to have a large enough sample size....so if you're looking at a stallion with no foals or few foals, the statistical sample will be for that horse's sire, and other stallion sons of that sire. That can help you, but it leaves out some really important pieces of information: it does not tell you a thing about how that individual stallion will perform as a sire, it doesn't tell you anything about the racing performance of the stallion and mare to be bred, it lumps in the exceptional stallions with the exceptionally bad and does not distinguish between them, and it entirely omits the influence of the mares in a pedigree.

Case in point: Claiborne Farm used to stand Horse Chestnut (SAf), a champion son of Fort Wood (a son of Sadlers Wells) bred in South Africa. Say you had an Arch mare and wanted to breed her to Horse Chestnut in his first season. Well, the number of mares in the USA by Fort Wood was tiny, the number of mares by Arch in South Africa was tiny, and so the closest cross with a large enough pool to be statistically meaningful would be for Sadlers Wells and his other sons over mares by Roberto and his other sons. Sadlers Wells was an exceptional stallion, of course, as is his son Galileo, but his son Perfect Soul is a dud....and while his son Scenic did a reasonable job siring sprinters in Australia, his other son Yeats is a 2-mile specialist. How on earth are you supposed to make a meaningful comparison there? It's muddy water.

Case in point part 2: As it turned out, Horse Chestnut threw to his damline. The dams of his best foals tended to have Ribot in their bloodlines. While Sadlers Wells with, say, Alleged, isn't totally hopeless, it's not as red-hot as Sadlers Wells over Darshaan. If you go by TrueNicks, Sadlers Wells over Ribot is reasonable....but it still ignores the individual horse (Horse Chestnut) and the influence of his dam.

The short version of all that is, go for the proven performance of the individual horses with statistics as AN aid to making your decision-making process, but not THE aid. I would be VERY wary of making a decision based on nicking alone, especially with an unproven stallion.

[Joltman]

As KM says, the nicks stats can point someone in a certain direction but fact that it represents earlier generations is a significant weaknesses until enough foals are present to make a given cross significant statistically. With low sample numbers, one big winner can suddenly change the rating of the cross. This is a given actually as few crosses have so many chances that a big winner wouldn't effect it.

But another factor is that many actual crosses are never tried. These are ones that don't have the buzz or popularity or are ruled out because of other breeding theories. Perhaps early success with a single big winner makes everyone think - " here's a powerful cross", so everybody and his brother tries it - but in reality it was an outlier in the data, and the nick rating will drift lower over time. I wonder if Secretariat was less than a stellar success as a sire because he simply wasn't bred to the mares he needed to be bred to?

Unless someone 'gives it a try' and not even once but over and over again, we never really have any idea. And even trying one mare isn't enough as there may be something else with her that elsewhere in the pedigree that creates a negative influence to thwart the effort.

jm

[Jeff]

http://www.pedigreequery.com/live+from+appollo

Added a photo of Live From Appollo on the pedigree database. I'v added thousands of pedigrees and hundreds if not thousands of images of horses here on the pedigree database in the past 18 or 19 years, and I've got to say, was quite surprised that Live From Appollo is such a striking, handsome looking horse, where in the world did he get those 4 white socks?

Lytpracing; beware of the statistics, statistics of horses running at Kentucky tracks or California tracks with high purses are going to absolutely different from horses running in Oregon or Nebraska or Washington state.

The statistics don't tell you if billionaire Sheik Maktoum was running the get of a particular stallion or if Ma and Pa average Joe was running the horse.

If you'r rich, go and breed to one of the most expensive stallion's in Kentucky or elsewhere that are extremely prepotent stallions, your odds will be a bit higher.

Other than that, using this pedigreequery, you've done very well choosing Live From Appollo. He's a good looking, probably good dispositioned horse, he has lots of starts that prove he is durable, and has a good chance of producing some durable horses, and your mating line breeds and duplicates some of the very best in ancestors; the very best. Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Storm Cat; and through exceptional individuals. I don't think you can go wrong.

Use every tool to choose a good stallion; use statistics, use nicking patterns, and use line breeding to superior ancestors. Don't discount any one and don't rely wholly one any one.

My next year's foal comes up as a D nick on the nickster sites, but my own investigation of statistics, nicking patterns and linebreeding patterns have lead me to feel very comfortable with my decision , regardless of the nick rating. I'd have felt a little better with and A rating, but nicking patterns don't tell the whole story.

[kimberley mine]

Lytpracing; beware of the statistics, statistics of horses running at Kentucky tracks or California tracks with high purses are going to absolutely different from horses running in Oregon or Nebraska or Washington state.

Jeff:

Well, yeah. Of course they are. IN GENERAL, the places with higher purses attract the more-talented horses. Even in CA, KY, and NY there are gradiations of quality in the purse structure....aka if you have a horse who is competitive in the claiming ranks at Finger Lakes, it's unlikely that the same horse will be competitive at Belmont. Conversely, if you have a Princess of Sylmar in your barn, you're not going to stay at Philly Park, you're going to try your luck further afield, where you can potentially make more money and have a lot of fun doing it.

Some statebred programs do skew that generalisation (Woodbine a few years ago was a case in point) but the overall point still stands.

The statistics don't tell you if billionaire Sheik Maktoum was running the get of a particular stallion or if Ma and Pa average Joe was running the horse.

Sure they do. Look up the AEI/CI, and see the quality of mares bred to a horse (gives you a starting point). Then do a bit of homework and see who the owners are. It's in every Equibase win chart, every Bloodhorse article, and frequently every stud farm website. Then crunch your own statistics. It's time-consuming and tedious, but you can get useful answers out of that. I do that a lot. The information is free. You just need to take the time.

If you'r rich, go and breed to one of the most expensive stallion's in Kentucky or elsewhere that are extremely prepotent stallions, your odds will be a bit higher.

Except that that's not true, and that's the point Joltman, Madelyn, and I have been making. GOOD-quality, sound, useful sires of racehorses DO stand in Kentucky for prices that let a small breeder make a profit, even. That was my point about the difference between K One King and Devil His Due.

Barring random mutation, which does not happen often, a horse will only inherit the genes its parents possesses. Colour is the obvious one--if a foal's immediate parents aren't grey, then it doesn't matter if the grandparents are ALL grey, because the parents don't have the grey gene to pass on. The genetic variants related to performance are the same. It's not reasonable to breed two sprinters and expect to get a 14f horse, and it's not reasonable to expect that a purely turf-bred horse bred to another turf horse will produce a dirt specialist. Two stakes winners are much more likely to breed a stakes winner than two mid-level claimers. Nonwinners whose immediate family is stacked with stakes and allowance winners are much more likely to throw good talent than nonwinners whose families are full of nonwinners, sired by low-level winners.

So you either go to a stallion like Devil His Due or Stroll or the late Pioneering (who would have been excellent for this mare), for whom the racing talent of their offspring is well-known, OR if going unproven, go for the best racing quality you can AND whose sire and dam are also high-quality and producing quality.

LYPTRACING:

Live From Appollo was a useful claiming horse whose average win purse was on the order of $20,000. He did reasonably well in allowance company (not great, not terrible) but was soundly defeated every time he ventured into stakes company. The one stake where he finished second, he was beaten 5 lengths by the winner in a not-especially-exciting time.

As for his parents, Maria's Mon was a GOOD stallion, but so far hasn't produced any eye-popping stallion sons. Monarchos had Claiborne behind him and didn't pan out, turns out he needs a very specific type of mare: one with a lot of Ribot or linebreeding to Dixieland Band or both, which Mistymoon Lake doesn't have. High Limit was sterile, gelded, and is now foxhunting. Latent Heat failed to impress and was sent to Oklahoma when his first foals were 3. Super Saver is too young to have foals running. The only evidence on MM's ability to be a sire of sires is Monarchos, and one swallow does not make a summer.

On the dam side, the 3rd dam IS a champion, but despite her superior breeding and ability she did not come anywhere close to replicating her talent in the breeding shed and neither have her daughters. Golden Attraction produced one minor stakes winner, and her producing daughters so far have two minor stakes placed horses between them. The rest are all claimers and nonwinners. (For this, there IS enough data to make reasonable analyses.)

Based on his own performance on the track and that of his parents, I would place it highly likely that Live From Appollo will pass on at best mid-level claiming and occasional allowance talent.

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that--but at the same time, you have to be honest about what is in front of you.