Has anyone checked out the breeder of Big Brown? His name is Dr. Gary Knapp. He is a retired Ph.D in economics among other accomplishments. He lives in Lexington at Monticule Farms. Actually just Northeast of Lexington. He stands no stallions and has about 20 broodmares. He has a program that tests the potential stallion and mare for biomechanical compatability and other factors. Google Dr. Gary Knapp or Monticule Farm in Lexington. It is pretty interesting stuff. Maybe Big Brown is a freak [b]or[/b the horse of the future.
Check out www.equixbio.com.
Big Brown's breeder
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Big Brown's breeder
Last edited by jagger on Mon May 12, 2008 6:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hagginwood
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louis finochio
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Knapp
X-factor
The name of the company is equixbio. Try www.equixbio.com. This is really good stuff. I think you, especially, will like it. It may revolutionize the TB breeding philosophy. I found it in his, Dr. Knapp's, Breeders Cup
Bio. I can't wait to visit Monticule, his farm, the next time I go to Lexington. Hopefully, around Belmont weekend to see Big Brown end the 30 year drought.
Tell me what you think about the web site.
The name of the company is equixbio. Try www.equixbio.com. This is really good stuff. I think you, especially, will like it. It may revolutionize the TB breeding philosophy. I found it in his, Dr. Knapp's, Breeders Cup
Bio. I can't wait to visit Monticule, his farm, the next time I go to Lexington. Hopefully, around Belmont weekend to see Big Brown end the 30 year drought.
Tell me what you think about the web site.-
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Article on breeder
Dr. Gary Knapp
Accomplishment: Knapp’s Monticule
Farm bred and consigned GI Kentucky
Derby hero Big Brown (Boundary) to the
2006 Fasig-Tipton October Sale, where
Eddie Woods bought him for $60,000.
Birthdate: Oct. 24, 1943
Birthplace: Fergus Falls, MN
Current Residence: Austin, TX
Family: Wife Emily Knapp, daughter
Jessica Knapp-Ziegler
Primary Occupation: Commercial breeder
Do you have any memories of Big Brown as a youngster? My most
poignant memory of Big Brown is that of a yearling, and that was the
day we sold him at Fasig-Tipton. The farm manager and I were
standing at the back. They had just hammered him down, and then I
saw this horse just go streaking down the walk path without his
handler. He came out of the sale ring and said, ‘I'm outta here.'
Apparently he was not having fun (laughs). He sprinted to the back
part, stopped at a fence and waited for someone to get him. He came
out of that ring running and he hasn't stopped yet.
Favorite vacation spot? My wife and I have a home in Palm Beach,
Florida, where we spend the winters, and it's marvelous. We love it
there.
How did you acquire Big Brown's dam Mien? I got Mien (Nureyev)
when she was being carried by Miasma (Lear Fan), who I bought at
auction (for $350,000 in 1992). So we foaled her at the farm, raced
her, and then brought her back to the broodmare band. Big Brown is
her second foal.
Who did she produce this year and who is she going back to? She
produced a Belong to Me filly and she will be bred back to Stormy
Atlantic.
Favorite meal? That's a tough one--I like practically everything!
Drink of choice? Well, I drink an awful lot of Diet Coke.
What's on your CD player right now? Well, it could be some good
Country and Western, it could be some good Classical, or it could be
some good oldie rock. I'm pretty versatile. I picked up some of the
country from Texas (laughs); George Straight, Patsy Cline.
What's your idea of a perfect day? Getting up early, having some
coffee, walking across the farm in the very early morning. Probably
there's some dew on the grass. Walking through the pastures and
looking at the yearlings and the mares and their babies. I can do that
‘til noon if I have time to do it. Frequently after that I'll have a workout,
then get on some of my old polo ponies and ride around the farm.
Interview cont. p11
Dr. Gary Knapp cont.
What made you send Mien, Big Brown's dam, to Boundary? When I
determine the breedings for my mares, I go through about a three-step
process. The first step is to use the results of the Equix mating process.
They have a biometric model they use to match up your mare's physical
characteristics to a group of stallions that she fits best with. For me, that
generates the set of stallions I consider breeding to. Then I take the mare
and each of the stallions and create a hypothetical pedigree and then take
a look at that pedigree.
What you'll see with Big Brown is a cross of Northern Dancer, a cross of
Damascus, and a cross of Round Table. If you look at the principal runners
Boundary produced, some of those runners will have Northern Dancer
crosses--3x3, 3x4, stuff like that. Some other of his runners have
Damascus 3x4, 4x4. Others had Round Table. I looked at Big Brown, and I
said, my gosh, all three of those crosses are in this pedigree (Northern
Dancer 3x3, Damascus 3x4, Round Table 4x5), so I thought it was a good
shot.
Plus, a few years ago, I did a brief study of all the winners of American
Classic races, those being the Kentucky Oaks, the Coaching Club of
America Oaks, and the Triple Crown races. Some 85 percent of those
winners from 1914 to 2002 had one or more crosses in their pedigree of
significant female families, as judged by the Bruce Lowe system. The
pedigree of Big Brown has for crosses of a mare named Selene in it, and
that's the third step--I make sure there's crosses to those mares in the
pedigree. And that's how I got to Boundary. It's a bit mathematical.
How much did Boundary stand for at the time? He was $10,000. And
that was probably one of the things that was nagging at me the most.
Monticule is a commercial breeder. When you look at a $10,000 stud fee,
you ask ‘What is Mr. Market going to say about that?' You can't be real
optimistic. You say, ‘Man, I hope this foal turns out beautiful, because the
market's going to really crucify me if it doesn't.' So that bothered me, but
the other stuff I looked at and said, ‘That's pretty cool; that's good stuff.'
You've done well with Danzig and Danzig-line horses--having sold the
Danzig sons Prussian and the $9.2-million Plavius. Is he a big favorite
of yours? Breeding to Danzig was not a hard decision. If you had a mare
that fit him physically and the pedigree fits, it's not hard. The guy was
producing 18, 19 percent stakes winners to foals, and what's not to like
about that? The fact that Boundary was by Danzig I didn't particularly look
at, I was just looking at the fact that one of the crosses that was prominent
in Boundary runners was that Northern Dancer cross. And you got that
cross through Danzig.
How did you first get into racing? I've loved horses ever since I was a
small child. The first time I ever rode a pony I was three years old and I
thought that was the biggest deal of my life. I continued my romance with
horses until my mid-teens. Then I had a short interlude with motorcycles,
and I found those to be even more dangerous than horses (laughs). And
so I've been riding horses ever since.
Then in 1973, I came to the University of Kentucky to work on a
doctorate degree. In June of ‘73, when I came here, Secretariat's picture
was on the front of Sports Illustrated and being a horse lover and seeing
that and seeing all the farms around here, I said, boy, I'd sure like to do
this someday. It was a pretty easy sell. I bought the first part of Monticule
in 1990, but at that point I was pretty busy with a business career. In ‘97, I
started buying broodmares and continued buying a few each year. I've got
21 now, which is a good number to work with. I'd say four or five now are
daughters of members of the broodmare band itself.
You live in Texas. Have you considered opening a farm there,
too? When it comes to breeding and racing Thoroughbreds, it's very
difficult to compete with the infrastructure Central Kentucky has.
There are so many good horse people here, whether you're talking
grooms or farriers or farm managers. If you tried to do a good solid
breeding operation in some other places in the country, you'd be
compromised by that lack of infrastructure.
If you were made commissioner of racing and you had broad
powers, what changes would you make to racing? I don't know
about specific changes, but I think all of us in this sport have to
continually remind ourselves that the only reason we get to do this is
because we
have fans that
love to be
entertained by a
good horse race.
And anytime we
do things in the
industry that
don't add to, or
take away, the
fact that people
come to the track
to be
entertained, that
we're not doing
the industry good. Many people forget that's the final product. That's
where we have to excel.
What did you do to celebrate the Derby? Went home and relaxed
(laughs). We were at Churchill well after the last race went off. We
had plenty of friends and family up in the Jockey Club suites, and I'm
sure the service personnel were beginning to wonder when we'd
leave.
There has been a lot of talk, both within the industry and out,
about the breakdown of Eight Belles. What do you make of the
situation? It's absolutely devastating thing to happen to a horse. I
don't know anyone in the industry who isn't absolutely beside
themselves when they see something like that happen, including
myself, and I'm surprised I can talk about it right now without getting
emotional, because it bothers the hell out of me. But unfortunately,
that's the only injury that millions of millions of people see, and it's on
TV and people connect it with ‘Racing hurts horses.'
What they don't see is that, out in some farm's pasture, there could
be 10 or 15 yearlings running through the pasture, and one gets hurt
running, just because they love to run. They don't see the fact that,
maybe somewhere in Central Kentucky today, a few horses are
arguing over who's the dominant horse and they kick each other and
they get hurt. People don't see that. A year ago, I had a beautiful
Silver Deputy colt and he was running along in the pasture and
slipped and went under a fence and broke a bone. We tried for
weeks, but we couldn't save him. Horses exert themselves, horses
have really got a heart, they really have a determination, and
sometimes they push themselves too far and they hurt. It rarely
happens, but it happens. But when it's on TV, people connect it with
racing and make assumptions that sometimes aren't very valid.
Another thing that people don't realize is that the quality of that
horse--the quality of Eight Belles--is that she said, ‘I'm not going to let
that horse run away from me; I'm going to chase him down.' That's
the epitome of an athlete. If you look at any sport--hockey, baseball,
football--and when athletes press themselves to the extreme, when
they try like the devil to do the best they can, sometimes they hurt
themselves. When they do, it's drastic and horrible and we hate
Accomplishment: Knapp’s Monticule
Farm bred and consigned GI Kentucky
Derby hero Big Brown (Boundary) to the
2006 Fasig-Tipton October Sale, where
Eddie Woods bought him for $60,000.
Birthdate: Oct. 24, 1943
Birthplace: Fergus Falls, MN
Current Residence: Austin, TX
Family: Wife Emily Knapp, daughter
Jessica Knapp-Ziegler
Primary Occupation: Commercial breeder
Do you have any memories of Big Brown as a youngster? My most
poignant memory of Big Brown is that of a yearling, and that was the
day we sold him at Fasig-Tipton. The farm manager and I were
standing at the back. They had just hammered him down, and then I
saw this horse just go streaking down the walk path without his
handler. He came out of the sale ring and said, ‘I'm outta here.'
Apparently he was not having fun (laughs). He sprinted to the back
part, stopped at a fence and waited for someone to get him. He came
out of that ring running and he hasn't stopped yet.
Favorite vacation spot? My wife and I have a home in Palm Beach,
Florida, where we spend the winters, and it's marvelous. We love it
there.
How did you acquire Big Brown's dam Mien? I got Mien (Nureyev)
when she was being carried by Miasma (Lear Fan), who I bought at
auction (for $350,000 in 1992). So we foaled her at the farm, raced
her, and then brought her back to the broodmare band. Big Brown is
her second foal.
Who did she produce this year and who is she going back to? She
produced a Belong to Me filly and she will be bred back to Stormy
Atlantic.
Favorite meal? That's a tough one--I like practically everything!
Drink of choice? Well, I drink an awful lot of Diet Coke.
What's on your CD player right now? Well, it could be some good
Country and Western, it could be some good Classical, or it could be
some good oldie rock. I'm pretty versatile. I picked up some of the
country from Texas (laughs); George Straight, Patsy Cline.
What's your idea of a perfect day? Getting up early, having some
coffee, walking across the farm in the very early morning. Probably
there's some dew on the grass. Walking through the pastures and
looking at the yearlings and the mares and their babies. I can do that
‘til noon if I have time to do it. Frequently after that I'll have a workout,
then get on some of my old polo ponies and ride around the farm.
Interview cont. p11
Dr. Gary Knapp cont.
What made you send Mien, Big Brown's dam, to Boundary? When I
determine the breedings for my mares, I go through about a three-step
process. The first step is to use the results of the Equix mating process.
They have a biometric model they use to match up your mare's physical
characteristics to a group of stallions that she fits best with. For me, that
generates the set of stallions I consider breeding to. Then I take the mare
and each of the stallions and create a hypothetical pedigree and then take
a look at that pedigree.
What you'll see with Big Brown is a cross of Northern Dancer, a cross of
Damascus, and a cross of Round Table. If you look at the principal runners
Boundary produced, some of those runners will have Northern Dancer
crosses--3x3, 3x4, stuff like that. Some other of his runners have
Damascus 3x4, 4x4. Others had Round Table. I looked at Big Brown, and I
said, my gosh, all three of those crosses are in this pedigree (Northern
Dancer 3x3, Damascus 3x4, Round Table 4x5), so I thought it was a good
shot.
Plus, a few years ago, I did a brief study of all the winners of American
Classic races, those being the Kentucky Oaks, the Coaching Club of
America Oaks, and the Triple Crown races. Some 85 percent of those
winners from 1914 to 2002 had one or more crosses in their pedigree of
significant female families, as judged by the Bruce Lowe system. The
pedigree of Big Brown has for crosses of a mare named Selene in it, and
that's the third step--I make sure there's crosses to those mares in the
pedigree. And that's how I got to Boundary. It's a bit mathematical.
How much did Boundary stand for at the time? He was $10,000. And
that was probably one of the things that was nagging at me the most.
Monticule is a commercial breeder. When you look at a $10,000 stud fee,
you ask ‘What is Mr. Market going to say about that?' You can't be real
optimistic. You say, ‘Man, I hope this foal turns out beautiful, because the
market's going to really crucify me if it doesn't.' So that bothered me, but
the other stuff I looked at and said, ‘That's pretty cool; that's good stuff.'
You've done well with Danzig and Danzig-line horses--having sold the
Danzig sons Prussian and the $9.2-million Plavius. Is he a big favorite
of yours? Breeding to Danzig was not a hard decision. If you had a mare
that fit him physically and the pedigree fits, it's not hard. The guy was
producing 18, 19 percent stakes winners to foals, and what's not to like
about that? The fact that Boundary was by Danzig I didn't particularly look
at, I was just looking at the fact that one of the crosses that was prominent
in Boundary runners was that Northern Dancer cross. And you got that
cross through Danzig.
How did you first get into racing? I've loved horses ever since I was a
small child. The first time I ever rode a pony I was three years old and I
thought that was the biggest deal of my life. I continued my romance with
horses until my mid-teens. Then I had a short interlude with motorcycles,
and I found those to be even more dangerous than horses (laughs). And
so I've been riding horses ever since.
Then in 1973, I came to the University of Kentucky to work on a
doctorate degree. In June of ‘73, when I came here, Secretariat's picture
was on the front of Sports Illustrated and being a horse lover and seeing
that and seeing all the farms around here, I said, boy, I'd sure like to do
this someday. It was a pretty easy sell. I bought the first part of Monticule
in 1990, but at that point I was pretty busy with a business career. In ‘97, I
started buying broodmares and continued buying a few each year. I've got
21 now, which is a good number to work with. I'd say four or five now are
daughters of members of the broodmare band itself.
You live in Texas. Have you considered opening a farm there,
too? When it comes to breeding and racing Thoroughbreds, it's very
difficult to compete with the infrastructure Central Kentucky has.
There are so many good horse people here, whether you're talking
grooms or farriers or farm managers. If you tried to do a good solid
breeding operation in some other places in the country, you'd be
compromised by that lack of infrastructure.
If you were made commissioner of racing and you had broad
powers, what changes would you make to racing? I don't know
about specific changes, but I think all of us in this sport have to
continually remind ourselves that the only reason we get to do this is
because we
have fans that
love to be
entertained by a
good horse race.
And anytime we
do things in the
industry that
don't add to, or
take away, the
fact that people
come to the track
to be
entertained, that
we're not doing
the industry good. Many people forget that's the final product. That's
where we have to excel.
What did you do to celebrate the Derby? Went home and relaxed
(laughs). We were at Churchill well after the last race went off. We
had plenty of friends and family up in the Jockey Club suites, and I'm
sure the service personnel were beginning to wonder when we'd
leave.
There has been a lot of talk, both within the industry and out,
about the breakdown of Eight Belles. What do you make of the
situation? It's absolutely devastating thing to happen to a horse. I
don't know anyone in the industry who isn't absolutely beside
themselves when they see something like that happen, including
myself, and I'm surprised I can talk about it right now without getting
emotional, because it bothers the hell out of me. But unfortunately,
that's the only injury that millions of millions of people see, and it's on
TV and people connect it with ‘Racing hurts horses.'
What they don't see is that, out in some farm's pasture, there could
be 10 or 15 yearlings running through the pasture, and one gets hurt
running, just because they love to run. They don't see the fact that,
maybe somewhere in Central Kentucky today, a few horses are
arguing over who's the dominant horse and they kick each other and
they get hurt. People don't see that. A year ago, I had a beautiful
Silver Deputy colt and he was running along in the pasture and
slipped and went under a fence and broke a bone. We tried for
weeks, but we couldn't save him. Horses exert themselves, horses
have really got a heart, they really have a determination, and
sometimes they push themselves too far and they hurt. It rarely
happens, but it happens. But when it's on TV, people connect it with
racing and make assumptions that sometimes aren't very valid.
Another thing that people don't realize is that the quality of that
horse--the quality of Eight Belles--is that she said, ‘I'm not going to let
that horse run away from me; I'm going to chase him down.' That's
the epitome of an athlete. If you look at any sport--hockey, baseball,
football--and when athletes press themselves to the extreme, when
they try like the devil to do the best they can, sometimes they hurt
themselves. When they do, it's drastic and horrible and we hate
-
louis finochio
- Darley line
- Posts: 9181
- Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 5:21 am
- Location: Alhambra-Calif.
- Contact:
Danzig has an outcross pedigree with no duplication of inbreeding. I call all those fashion matings that are 4 X 4 Mr. P.---4 X 5 Native Dancer---4 X 4 Bold Ruler---5 X 5 Nasrullah, which descend from the sire line of Ph.
Every Tb breeder has his own formula of a fashion bred mating, & thats my thoughts.
Every Tb breeder has his own formula of a fashion bred mating, & thats my thoughts.
Those without sin cast the first stone.
Louis Finochio
Louis Finochio
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xfactor fan
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sound
Great question. Implied questions would be: Is it genetic? Would it be passed on to progeny? How big a problem is it? Can it be worked around? Will the new shoes make it a non issue? How about glue?
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louis finochio
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- Contact:
BB has benn running & training with glue on shoes, as thats why he only had 3 starts before the Derby. They had to work around his foot problems. Bee Pollen along with supplements will strengthen the walls of his feet where they will not hold those nails when shod.
BB has not missed a beat, as its far better to under train than over train. I would think it is inheritable, his foot condition can be passed on, the key is to select mares that have a healthy & stout foot with no history of family foot problems.
BB has not missed a beat, as its far better to under train than over train. I would think it is inheritable, his foot condition can be passed on, the key is to select mares that have a healthy & stout foot with no history of family foot problems.
Those without sin cast the first stone.
Louis Finochio
Louis Finochio