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I’m sorry can’t agree with this, you obviously get exceptions but generally the better bred horses are better.
I think the article or research has only looked at one half of the equation, that is the stallion, and I would accept that there probably isn’t a great deal of difference between a stallion costing £5K and one costing £75K. There will have both undoubtedly been outstanding racehorses in their time.
But it is the Dam which is the important factor, and the better bred and therefore more expensive racehorses are out of exceptional dams.
If you go to a yearling sale all the yearlings will probably have a group winner as a father. But some will have a group winning mother as well, whilst others will have a 40 rated horse who has never won a race as its mother. That is the difference!!
From a quick read, it seems like this is a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ piece of research.
They conclude that the most expensive stallions do have the most successful offspring, but also find that this is in part because more money is spent on training and caring for them.
However, more money is usually spent on the more expensively bred horses – they get sent to better trainers and so on – because they have conformation and potential that maybe some of the less well-bred horses don’t. It’s not just on the name – the best bred horse in the world won’t sell well if it’s gone in the wind and with wonky legs.
In addition, the researchers don’t seem to realise that it doesn’t matter how much money you chuck at a horse in the end – if it’s a slow old boat genetically, then it will stay a slow old boat, whether trained by Vincent O’Brien and fed corn organically grown by virgins in Sicily or not.
Having said that, I do agree with probably the kernel of their research – that there are a fair few underrated, cheaper stallions out there who could probably get much better results if only given the opportunities that some of the bigger names get.
whether trained by Vincent O’Brien and fed corn organically grown by virgins in Sicily or not.
How do you know if they are relaly virgins or not? That may be the key
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I can’t even be bothered to read the article, as it sounds like a one sided piece of crap.
Would Paul Nicholls still be champion if he had a yard full of Thowra’sThe problem with these types of news articles is not usually the research itself (normally they will be basically scientifically sound) but with the way the media then reports the findings.
This research is being widely reported with headlines like ‘Stud fees are waste of money’, when the actual research findings sound like they should really have the headline of ‘Paying big stud fees not guaranteed to get decent racehorse’ – which frankly isn’t that earth-shattering.
Annoyingly, I’m off sick at the moment, so can’t get hold of a copy of the actual research – I’d quite like to know which stallions they have used.
Sal,
There was article in the Guardian this morning – apologies, if it is exactly the same report as the BBC – I haven’t got much time this afternoon to check.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ … orseracing
Regards- Matron
I briefly read this stuff too and my initial impression was that it was economically illiterate with little understanding of how the market forces work in this arena
It is also a dismally simplistic conclusion to suggest that "10% is down to breeding". In fact it is thick and confirms why these "academics" are doing what they are doing rather than working for a living
Its blindingly obvious that there is a threshold in the quality of breeding where a top class horse cannot be produced
Having said that, I do agree with probably the kernel of their research – that there are a fair few underrated, cheaper stallions out there who could probably get much better results if only given the opportunities that some of the bigger names get.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on which stallions you believe are underrated and overlooked currently Sal?
You could ask a dozen different people that question and hit a dozen different answers – it depends on your expectations, I suppose.
Tony Morris always had a thing about how overrated Machiavellian was. He didn’t argue that he wasn’t a good sire, who had produced some very smart horses, but quibbled that his price (around when it went up to £70,000 I think) reflected his reputation rather than his achievements. Machiavellian had been given such strong marketing and opportunities, he argued that other stallions standing for lesser fees could have performed equally as well with access to a similar strength broodmare band.
I would probably argue something similar about Danehill Dancer, as a current sire – he’s a terrific sire, but very expensive given he’s only produced one real champion and has an enormous number of progeny running for him.
As for underrated, that could stretch from Royal Applause (great value in his price bracket), Peintre Celebre (who does well and isn’t cheap, but kind of gets forgotten amongst the pushing of SW/Danehill lines), or even Montjeu, now Galileo has come along. My stock example answer to this question always used to be Indian Ridge (again he wasn’t the cheapest, but he was never a glamour stallion), but I suppose I can’t use him anymore.
are we talking about dams that are unfashionably bred but do well on the racetrack or dams that are themselves well bred…..or both…
Yep, totally unconvincing bit of research!
And in any event, even if it is only 10%, that is more than enough to make the difference between a turkey and a champion.
A horse that can run 5 furlongs in 60 seconds will be an awful lot more use than one who can run it in 66 seconds…
Here is the Abstract for the research paper:
"Horse racing is a multi-million pound industry, in which genetic information is increasingly used to optimize breeding programmes. To maximize the probability of producing a successful offspring, the owner of a mare should mate her with a high-quality stallion. However, stallions with big reputations command higher stud fees and paying these is only a sensible strategy if, (i) there is a genetic variation for success on the racecourse and (ii) stud fees are an honest signal of a stallion’s genetic quality. Using data on thoroughbred racehorses, and lifetime earnings from prize money (LE) as a measure of success, we performed quantitative genetic analyses within an animal model framework to test these two conditions. Although LE is heritable (VA=0.299±0.108, Pr=0.002), there is no genetic variance for stud fee and the genetic correlation between traits is therefore zero. This result is supported by an absence of any relationship between stud fees for currently active stallions and the predicted LE for their (hypothetical) offspring. Thus, while there are good genes to be bought, a stallion’s fees are not an honest signal of his genetic quality and are a poor predictor of a foal’s prize winning potential."
I guess it is saying that paying big bucks for a foal doesn’t guarantee that it will perform well on the racecourse, not many will disagree with that. The word ‘hypothetical’ towards the end is a tad worrying because it suggests they have used a theoretical model for future earnings!
The offspring of expensive stallions owe their success more to how they are reared, trained and ridden than good genes….
BBC news 19/12/07
Good news for stud and stable staff, and the majority of jockeys. Perhaps their pay and conditions might improve if those with millions to spare worry more about how their expensive purchases/produces have been looked after from birth to the races.
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