Stud Fees

[Sal]

Tracky – One Cool Cat had a heart problem at Newmarket and was never the same again.  I feel very strongly against colts with that sort of problem (particularly if it had never been resolved) being retired to stud.  Mind, if I had my way, horses that race on Bute and Lasix would be barred too…

Bulwark – I really don’t agree.  Northern Dancer line is running rampant like bindweed, it is not surprising that is produces alot of winners, but there is also alot of wastage.  If Seattle Slew has been done to death, then what of Mr P, Sadler’s Wells and Danehill?  Their continuing dominance in Europe can only be bad for the breed, and the variety provided by other lines and mixing crosses is invaluable.  If every Mr P line mare was sent to ND line stallions, then what for the next generation?

On the claim of inconsistency, as I said in my previous post, the strike rates are very similar and often better, when certain Mr P lines are crossed with other than ND.  

For instance, Miswaki mares have a 25% Group winner to foals ratio with Shirley Heights sired stallions.  With Northern Dancer sired stallions it is only 11%.  

For BT winners (sorry, only stats I have for the US) Seeking The Gold mares with Seattle Slew is 25%, with Storm Cat it is 21%.

An interesting, current example of a Seattle Slew/Mr P cross is Bernardini.

Matching the mare to the right stallion should not just be a case of going with the easy, cheap option.  Which Shirley Heights sire is expensive, btw?

[Bulwark]

For me betting (not so much in group1s), breeding is the first thing i look at, then form, jockeys etc. in the hope of getting a value horse to beat the ratings. To me it is one of the most important guides as to how good a horse is likely to be.

I have watched all the different lines, not stats (as stats can be misleading) and northern dancer eclipses everything by some way (with colts i generally dont touch his fillies, despite alexandra and ouija board im not really a fan), i would find it very hard to beleive that shirley heights even comes close to matching northern dancer on strike rate/prize money etc. because almost everything ive seen of his is total rubbish. You will occasionally get a horse like Sir Percy who is good but when i look at anything by darshaan, slip anchor, mark of esteem, josr algahoud etc. i bet against them every time and it almost always works.  Obviously with fillies its different i do actually prefer fillies that are Markofesteem/darshaan etc, and i actually tipped puggy on here because of her MOE/Machiavellian breeding and clear ability. I realise that the presence of coolmore on european breeding (putting almost all the best mares against their first crops and other sires) has an impact on why northern dancer is so good but ive not seen anything else as impressive.

I agree that we need these lesser sires as you dont want everything to be northern dancer/mr prospector. And i wouldnt like to see a whole field of nd/mr p crosses, what im saying is that these are my favorites to go on and if i was to buy a horse that is what i would go for. From what ive seen of the shirley heights line i wouldnt advise anyone to touch it, at the price a horse costs it has at least a 90% chance of being money down the drain.

I am not saying that Shirley Heights are mega bucks, they arent (and with good reason), but if you were to compare the price of Darshaan or markofesteem to the likes of Jo’hannesburg or van nistlerooy, id go for jo’burg or van nistlerooy everytime.

It will be interesting what sir percys stud value is but i dont reckon it will be great as i think hes a horse with a good attitude more so than breeding.

Do you by any chance work for the sales team at the agha khan stud sal? lol

[Sal]

The problem with just looking at the races and not looking at the underlying stats is that you don’t see the large percentage of these horses that never even make the racecourse.

The Shirley Heights cross I was talking about earlier actually has a 75% rate of foals to runners.  With ND it is only 56%.  Foals to winners is 50% vs 41%.

This is obviously on this particularly Miswaki cross, and there probably are other SH/Mr P crosses that are not as successful.  I wouldn’t ever just back SH line horses blind.  But this is my point – looking a little deeper can be much more informative than just first impressions.  If all breeders selected their mates with more care, then there would be much less wastage.

In addition, I wouldn’t know about betting strike rates – but I’d guess that the SH line winners are paying a much better SP than the ND line hotpots.  

<br>This has actually got me started on another train of thought.  Is it that Coolmore stallion-sired horses are very good – or is it that the best ones are cherrypicked and sent to the very best trainers?  Do many other trainers apart from the Coolmore-patronised trainers (O’Brien, Fabre, Stoute) have great success with Coolmore sires?  This is just a passing thought, not a researched theory.

[Bulwark]

Well mark johnston and Bin suroor had a lot of success with shamardal, Noseda has had success with Sixties icon and araafa, meehan has had success with red rocks, bolger with teofilo and galatee(to a lesser extent),Michael bell with motivator, Barry Hills with Maids Causeway, Dermot Weld with Nightime, Royer Dupre with Pride etc,etc,etc.  Coolmore dont always buy up the best horses that they’ve bred from their stock (eg. they have not brought out one johannesburg colt so far yet they have had alot of RoG flops), wheras ive always found that the agha khan for example is a self contained unit, the only people that really appear to have real success with agha khan sires is the agha khan (because he has some really strong broodmares), smaller buyers dont usually have access to such strong mares.

You would think that the SH horses would have big odds attached but they seldom do and when they do they usually have them for a reason, a lot of the time they are agha khan horses in the oxx/stoute yards etc and i’ll usually go against them. I must admit that there hasnt been as many of them about this year as previous years with smaller stables. You would be surprised by the betting prices you can get on northern dancer sires (especially first croppers), had guilia at 50-1 to beat a godolphin kings best colt last year, easy. Had Johannesburg Jack to win a rather weak maiden this year at 50-1, also had Ishi Adiva, a close second at 100-1 in the supersprint. Thats why i love ND.<br>

[Sal]

The main one I was thinking of was Pam Sly!

I was just wondering the ancient nature vs nuture debate and that maybe some of those which O’Brien had got to win Group 1s might not have been as successful with other trainers.  

I counted Fabre as he obviously has their stamp of approval – should have listed David Wachman and Neville Callaghan too!

I’m not actually in the pay of the Aga Khan right now (!) (I did do some work for him about 9 years ago) and although I admire his breeding empire I don’t really follow it closely.  However, a similar point to earlier, he has quite strict guidelines on the number of mares covered by his stallions – around forty or fifty less per year than the average Coolmore stallion.  As most of these nominations are taken up by his own mares, then yes, outside breeders will have less success as there is less opportunity with them.  

I prefer this to the scattergun, flood the market, approach of some other big breeders – quality not quantity.

[jackane24]

Excellent thread. I’m learning loads, and lots of interesting ideas. Thank you to all those contributing.

[Author]

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