Pedigree Query

Because I have limited experience I'm sure to miss the mark, but tell me the top failed sires. Ones that were advertised by the barn but just didn't make the cut. Ones that were bred to a lot of mares.

And not to offend anybody but the two off the top of my head are
Langfurh
Raison d'Etat

My second associate said he had a Raison d'Etat colt. It looked great. He couldn't get it to gallop

Why would you include Langfuhr in that list? He has somewhere north of 78% lifetime winners from starters. He sired 95 stakes winners and if you wanted to knock him it was that he had a reputation for siring small foals and that didn't translate to good sales numbers. At age 26 he actually covered some mares and was recently pensioned.

What's your criteria for "failure"?

I actually repeated that after the drubbing I took when I recommended breeding to a Langfuhr son; and I'd probably like to take it back after tonight at the barn.

What I found out tonight is that it is more of a regional bias than a fact.

The story is a well respected owner Tom Dorris
http://www.equibase.com/profiles/Result ... ID=1372545
took a few of the best mares in Illinois to him when he first stood at stud and it didn't work out.

And boom out of a small sample size, it probably cost Langfuhr all of the mares from the state of Illinois. All the guys from Fairmount, Arlington and Hawthorne know and talk to each other. If one of the more respected owners didn't have any luck with some of the best mares those guys ran against a bad reputation was born.

So for repeating erroneous regional folklore, I am sorry.

Saying breed to a son versus the stallion himself is very different. There were far more sons of Danzig who were failures than were successes as seemed to be the case for other Northern Dancer sons The Minstrel and Nijinsky. I can't even think of the last time I saw the Minstrel in a pedigree and I always thought he was the best looking of all the ND sons.

All that aside, any stallion who can spend their entire career in Kentucky has to be doing something right and definitely doesn't miss out on the support of breeders in Illinois. There are plenty of trainers who say they won't claim a horse sired by x because they always break down or they are bleeders or because they are head cases but I would bet anything that for the right price they'd be right there at the claiming box or the back ring of the sale if the price was right.

There are plenty of resources available for you to do your own research where the facts can speak for themselves.

I think you are off the mark with Langfuhr, perry. But I would be curious which son of Langfuhr they used and which mares. You can breed $500 mares to Tapit and get nothing... just saying.

I've often wondered about this --- and usually the commercial marketplace is very cruel to anything but the sexiest lookers bred from top pedigrees. I wonder if some stallion owners actually overprice their stallions at first to get buzz and a few high prices at early sales. I saw yesterday a colt who brought more than $2mil out of a new sire whose price had plummeted - and he was running in a $12.5 claimer. On the other hand, if you can get lots of mares, at a much lower price, you have a chance for a couple of big winners and viability. Even that doesn't work - to wit - Birdstone with 3 major GSW (including 2 classic winners) in early crops, and getting no love among mare owners or in the sales ring. That you could get a Birdstone breeding today for so little -5k advertised, some might call him 'failed' but siring classic winners! And he has some more mileage in him.

I wonder how many failed sires were doomed early, not only for the kind of human behaviors you describe, but other 'rumors' and innuendos or even just one or two classic 'busts'. How many are simply breeders making bad decisions - choosing stallions based on the wrong criteria, breeding the wrong mares to the wrong stallions. I think a study of 'failed sires' would be quite illuminating - like what 'The Minstrel' was bred to and why. Who would somebody like Tesio have bred to The Minstrel?

I would put Smarty Jones in the 'failed' category, yet his name vibe and popularity would never allow for broad use of the term with him. There's always The Green Monkey to kick around some more in the 'failed' category. $16mil colt and I don't think he's thrown a stakes winner. I wonder if his progeny look as wonderful as he does. With Hartley et al standing him, perhaps they'll try to get some good lookers in the 2yo sales to breeze fast and make some money.

Just a few thoughts

jm

I would label these as outright failures:

Gentlemen (ARG)
Buddha (and how!)
Powerscourt
Perfect Soul -- he's where he is because of who his owner is, not because of any success at stud
Domestic Dispute
Vindication and his son Maimonides
Arguably First Defence, given who owned him and the mares he was bred to


Smarty Jones started off at WAY too high a fee for his breeding and with expectations that were WAY too high. If he had started out at $20k instead of $200k, he would be seen as "fair to middling regional sire" rather than "really expensive flop." Three Chimneys were much more realistic with Silver Charm, and although SC was also a poor stallion, he wasn't the very expensive lesson in betting on new stallions that Smarty was.

Birdstone is under-rated because his sire Grindstone stands/ stood in bum Egypt Oregon. Can't get no respect in blue grass country if daddy is in exile. Same reason California Chrome will be avoided like the plague by some good blue blooded Kentuckians, because of his humble beginnings.
Also, if memory serves me, everybody has heard Grindstones get bone chips in their knees and ankles, that's why he got exiled to the waste lands. The stigma follows his son, deservedly or not.

.

Joltman wrote:There's always The Green Monkey to kick around some more in the 'failed' category. $16mil colt and I don't think he's thrown a stakes winner. I wonder if his progeny look as wonderful as he does. With Hartley et al standing him, perhaps they'll try to get some good lookers in the 2yo sales to breeze fast and make some money.

Just a few thoughts

jm

The Green Monkey was euthanized last year after a very long battle with laminitis. As a sire, he had a stakes winner in Panama, and I think two black type winners in North America. Per Bloodhorse, he bred 40 mares his first year at stud, and very few after that.

Cree, it wasn't a son. It was straight Langfuhr that the guy sent his IL mares to that busted. And at the time they were supposed to be some of the best IL mares in the state.

I actually am thinking to breed to one of his sons out of an AP Indy mare to an AP son's mare. 3/3

Chances are I'll get a mare for free because all that my associates run are RATS.

Head to head, I have made decent money betting against them. In a 6 horse race I bet 40 that it wouldn't come in 1 2 or 3. 3/15 it came in dead last.

The guy drove 5 hrs one way to race one horse, M/L put it as the long shot, and it performed as expected. Dead Last.

It is really kind of a surreal situation I am in. A banker that just likes to run horses, a partner of his that just wants a picture if he is the listed owner, and their exercise rider who really is an expert at breaking about 150 horses a year (but also an owner/trainer)

None of them make money racing horses. They say farmers are a different breed, the horsemen I associate with make them look normal.

Sorry to hear about TGM. Golly he was a lot of fun. RIP

I had hoped he would do something, but he's the quintessential poster boy for auction sales temporary insanity. Also for that touch of insanity that any of us semi-serious about this stuff must have genetically.

jm

The Minstrel was hardly a stud failure; according to The Jockey Club, he sired 58 stakes winners from 503 named foals, including champions L'Emigrant (a winner of the classic Poule d'Essai des Poulains/French Two Thousand Guineas), Minstrella, and Bakharoff as well as 1988 Kildangan Irish Oaks and Oak d'Italia winner Melodist, 1989 General Accident One Thousand Guineas winner Musical Bliss, and 1991 Breeders' Cup Mile winner Opening Verse. What he did fail to do was get any notable sire sons in the Northern Hemisphere, although I think he had one or two that did fairly well in Brazil. The sterility of his grandson Cigar pretty much ended any hopes of his establishing his own branch of the Northern Dancer male line.

Mahubah wrote:The Minstrel was hardly a stud failure; according to The Jockey Club, he sired 58 stakes winners from 503 named foals, including champions L'Emigrant (a winner of the classic Poule d'Essai des Poulains/French Two Thousand Guineas), Minstrella, and Bakharoff as well as 1988 Kildangan Irish Oaks and Oak d'Italia winner Melodist, 1989 General Accident One Thousand Guineas winner Musical Bliss, and 1991 Breeders' Cup Mile winner Opening Verse. What he did fail to do was get any notable sire sons in the Northern Hemisphere, although I think he had one or two that did fairly well in Brazil. The sterility of his grandson Cigar pretty much ended any hopes of his establishing his own branch of the Northern Dancer male line.

Hence my comment "I can't remember the last time I saw his name in a pedigree".

Given how quickly they retire horses in Europe there just aren't many who have The Minstrel within five generations, period.

As great a "sire" as Alydar was he would probably have to be considered a failure in some ways as there are very few with his name in the pedigree as well....

The most common place I've seen The Minstrel's name is through Minstrella; she was an important producer in Thomas Evans' breeding program. Alydar sired the second dam of Quality Road and also sired Turkoman, the broodmare sire of Hard Spun. In addition, he sired the full sisters Althea (second dam of the late Arch among other accomplishments) and Aquilegia (second dam of BC Classic winner Bayern, whose first foals come to the races this year).

I'd agree that both sires haven't had quite the long-term success one might expect, but they were hardly stud failures in their day. Then again, with the vast majority of even successful sires, by the time half a century or so has gone by since their deaths, their names are usually seen only through a relative handful of offspring. The St. Simons, Hyperions, Nasrullahs, and Northern Dancers are rare birds indeed.

I acquired a cool, original BW photo of Assault in the Kentucky Derby post parade, taken by Bert Morgan, in Saratoga last year. I looked Assault up and turns out he was a total dud stud for a Triple Crown winner... minus that he somehow sired two Quarter Horse foals on King Ranch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_(horse)