Dams & Sires

wb

I must admit I don't know a lot about breeding. In fact, I have never checked who is the dam or sire while reading form. I want to remedy this.

I was watching the racing today, and heard the commentator say something about all horses sired by Saddlers Wells being really sucessful.

I want to know:

1. Where I can find out about the basics of breeding?

2. Who are the significant dams & sires?

3. Is it worth looking into a horses lineage before betting?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Wayne

masterK

You can get the basic info in the racing post when you select a horse in a race a window with it's form will appear. At the top of this window is it's sire and dam, you can click on either of these.

You will get some information on them, like any runs they've ever had themselves and a list of their other offspring, it doesn't go into too much depth but it's decent enough.

I find it quite useful for 2 and 3 year old races when you're not sure if a horse will handle certain conditions (going, distance) you can have a look at the sire and dam and other offspring stats to give you an indication.

There is also a bloodstock section on the RP site where you can get details of horse sales, it's quite obvious who the top sires are by looking at who's offspring fetch the highest prices.

For more detailed information Wetherby's is the best source, however I think you need to subscribe to their website.

wb

Good Stuff, I'll look into this some more. Thanks masterK

fits

Get a Coolmore brochure! Its something else to look at...

Anyway I know feck all about breeding so heres my 2 cents.

I'm not sure if breeding knowledge helps out on the betting side of things... maybe you'll be better able to tell strengths and weaknesses of 2 year olds by looking at their pedigree, but it isnt that easy.
In national hunt racing its a lot more about the attitude of the horse than raw ability, so its more difficult in my opinion.
If you're buying a horse, its good to look at the dams record and see if she was successful as a racer as well as looking at her breeding.

Sadlers Wells is one of the most successful sires ever, along with Northern Dancer, Nijinsky etc..

Robin1982

wbailey wrote:

...
1. Where I can find out about the basics of breeding?
...

I'm assuming you are familiar with the birds and the bees :rolleyes:

The suggestions so far have been good but let me add my two cents worth. For horse racing, there are generally three participants that are listed; the sire (father), the dam (mother) and the dam-sire (father of the dam).

Most of the emphasis in on the sire since stallions can sire up to 300 foals a year and therefore are easier to compare, while a dam can only produce one foal a year (twins are a rarity, often one being much stronger than the other who dies - either way, this further splitting of the genes doesn't result in a fast racehorse). But, like any living organism, the foal (child) inherits half his/her genes from the father, half from the mother. Obviously, the parent that passes the "run fast" genes is of more interest to us.

Dam-sires are interesting because some sires tend to produce better, from a racing career perspective, female offspring than male (Unfuwain) and others tend to produce successful dams to breed from rather than stallions (Secretariat).

Also be aware of the different breeding seasons with regards to Northern and Southern Hemispheres - something Coolmore was the first to take advantage of (they sent their stallions down to Australia during the off-breeding season) to generate year-round revenue. In the North, foals are born ~Jan-May, the the South, ~Aug-Dec.

wbailey wrote:

...
2. Who are the significant dams & sires?
...

The breeding industry is huge and following all the participants can be difficult. However, there are 2 initial places to look.

The first is the list of top sires during a season, either be money earned by their progeny, or number of individual winners, or percentage of "black-type" (basically Pattern class) performers. The best horses generally tend to have better breeding. Look at these tables over the years and you will get to see which sires are the best. Some sires tend to produce sprinters, some have stayers, some produce progeny who prefer soft ground, others firm ground, and of course turf versus dirt.

The other place is the sales ring. This year Coolmore bought a yearling for a world record $16 million - The Green Monkey is his name. Whether he will be any good is anyone's guess. Check out previous high priced sale horses to see just how (un)successful the breeding game can be.

Following dams is more difficult since they obviously have much fewer results to work from. The great stud farms are generally based around foundation mares (mares that have a history of producing great offspring who then do so in turn). The Aga Khan's success has basically been down to Mumtaz Mahal. Lately, Juddemonte's mare Hasili produced G1 performers Dansili (m), Banks Hill (f), Intercontinental (f), Heat Haze (f) and Cacique (m) as well as the promising Champs Elysees.

Its not just the Flat; Katday produced Best Mate, Cornish Rebel and Inca Trail - though its rarer to have multiple champion brothers/sisters over the jumps.

It can be split too, Secreto won the Derby, his 3/4 brother Istabraq won three Champion Hurdles.

Btw, full brothers/sisters are those with the same sire and dam; half-brothers/sisters are those with the same dam; three-quarters brothers/sisters are those with the same dam and whose sires were related i.e. Secreto was by Northern Dancer out of Betty's Secret, Istabraq was by Sadler's Wells (Northern Dancer's son) out of the same mare.

wbailey wrote:

...
3. Is it worth looking into a horses lineage before betting?
...

Always, although clearly if the horse has plenty of racing form available you can infer less from his/her breeding i.e. if he's useless, he's useless, regardless if he's the brother of a champion.

2yos and 3yos are the most obvious candidates to get clues from breeding for. If you knew that a sire produced offspring that had 4 times a better win strike rate on soft ground rather than fast ground - would that affect your betting during a hot summer month? You bet it would.

wb

That is an extremely helpful and informative post. Thanks a million Robin.

fits

Well put Robin... good post.

Bartonprince

It's difficult to use breeding as an indicator. But you can pretty much guarentee that if you have a foal from a "better" sire/dam combination, it has a better chance of being successeful.

But it's not always the way. Good dams are ones that produce "Mostly" winners. Like Urban sea. She is 1 of only a few dams that were amazing themselves, and then produced amazing foals (Galileo, Black Sam Bellamy, and All To Beautiful?) yet Giants Causeways dam (Giants causeway having being slated as the horse of the world in his last year racing) only produced rubish after him (Tumblebrutus, Wordsworth and some other yoke) From the same sire.

Same goes for Rock Of Gibraltar.... World Record holder for most Grade1 wins in a row.. (7) yet is siblings Rock Of Cashel and some others are all tripe.

Thats kind of all i know really about it, but the only thing i do know is that if the Sire is better... (won more big races) then he will get "Better" mares sent to him, thus supposedly increasing the foals chances of being good.

kincsem

You would need to invest a lot of time reading about breeding and then all you will have is a bunch of theories and some statistics that apply to the horse population in general but might not stretch to a winning bet.

You will hear pedigree comments when a horse has passed the post. Its a great area for flowing prose and generalisations.

If someone could tell you before a foal is born its likely favoured distance and going, will it win, and at what level, then you have a bet.

I have spent fifteen years on this, read hundreds of books, written a few computer pedigree analysis programs, and I'm still working on a few theories.

I was told once that a commentator said many winners of the English Derby had Nothern Dancer in their pedigree. The family member who told me this, expected me to be delighted with this undiscovered gem. My comment was that all but two of that year's Derby field had Northern Dancer in their pedigree, and in addition, all of the Epsom Oaks field had Northern Dancer in their pedigrees.

Robin1982

Thanks for the kind remarks.

Bartonprince wrote:

...Like Urban sea. She is 1 of only a few dams that were amazing themselves, and then produced amazing foals...

Good example; Urban Sea won the Arc, then foaled Group-race performer Urban Ocean (m), dual Derby winner Galileo (m), dual Oaks placed Melikah (f), dual G1 winner (albeit, a very bad G1s) Black Sam Bellamy (m), Oaks placed All Too Beautiful (f) and finally US G2 winner My Typhoon (f).

Just to show how good some families are, Urban Sea herself had a half-sister - Allez Le Trois (G3 winner) who foaled French Derby winner Anaaba Blue - and a half-brother, brilliant 2000 Guineas winner King's Best, a promising sire himself.

As you can imagine, buying into such bloodlines is extremely expensive - if you could find anyone foolish enough to sell.

Bartonprince wrote:

...but the only thing i do know is that if the sire is better ... then he will get "better" mares sent to him, thus supposedly increasing the foals chances of being good...

Generally true, and a decent amount of recent work has stated that it is the mare that is more responsible for stamina (don't think stayers, think the ability to run faster for longer) and maturity.

Sometimes, however, a stallion will appear that just dominates over his local opposition, even though he may have been just another above-average stakes performer. The American stallion Kris S comes to mind - can't think of any others for the moment.

The old adage "breed the best to the best, and hope for the best" is often bandied about, but with good reason. It doesn't always work like that (in fact, the majority of time it doesn't) - but sometimes it does...

Kingmambo's father was Mr Prospector, a brilliant horse and superb stallion. His dam, Miesque, was one of the greatest fillies of all time. Kingmambo was a high-class G1 miler, and is/was one of the most expensive stallions in the world, producing champion after champion.

Finally, a couple of other pointers;

a "nick" describes a lineage pairing that oftens produces high-class horses - for instance, Sadler's Wells with a Darshaan mare (i.e. a mare sired by Darshaan) is often associated with success at the Derby distance (1m 4f; 2200m) - High Chapparal being the last top-class success I can think of.

Unlike human society where its deeply frowned upon, save for a few small towns in Kerry , inbreeding is natural part of thoroughbred breeding - not where the sire/dam are very closely related, but if you went back through a horse's family tree from both sire and dam perspective, you will probably find some name that resides on both sides i.e. if you saw that a horse's great-grandfather (through the sire) and grandfather (through the dam) were in fact the same horse i.e. Raise A Native, this would be described as a 4 x 3 ("four by three") cross.

My advice is to simply track the champions each year and take note of their sire and dam-sire - after a while the names will become familiar. Only after a few years will dam's become familiar, generally because the top racemares rarely become top broodmares too.

If there's anyone wondering why I seem to be focussing on the Flat rather than National Hunt, well champions over the jumps are almost always geldings (castrated horses - champion hurdlers Alderbrook and Monkstown being the last champion entires I can recall - I don't think there has ever been a champion chase entire) and therefore can't breed. Also, it takes up to 10 years for NH horses to reach their peak - perhaps long after their sire has passed away.

Finally, if anyone has any questions, just ask. If people are still interested, I might put up some more posts on more advanced things I've learned about thoroughbred breeding (also called husbandry by the way) - dosage, conformity etc...

Robin1982

kincsem wrote:

...I was told once that a commentator said many winners of the English Derby had Nothern Dancer in their pedigree. The family member who told me this, expected me to be delighted with this undiscovered gem. My comment was that all but two of that year's Derby field had Northern Dancer in their pedigree, and in addition, all of the Epsom Oaks field had Northern Dancer in their pedigrees...

lol, I can imagine his/her face dropping to your wry response.

Its true though that selective breeding will tend to favour a particular strain - there were 3 foundation stallions that all thoroughbreds are decended from; the Godolphin stallion, the Darley stallion and the Byerley Turk stallion.

Today, according to research from our friends in Trinity College, 95%+ of all male racehorses are decended from the Darley stallion.

wb

Robin1982 wrote:

Finally, if anyone has any questions, just ask. If people are still interested, I might put up some more posts on more advanced things I've learned about thoroughbred breeding (also called husbandry by the way) - dosage, conformity etc...

I would definitely be interested in more posts on the topic. Perhaps a thread in the style of my 'Betfair Explained' sticky would be helpful, if you had time of course. Well done. Very informative.

Wayne

Bartonprince

Robin1982 wrote:

Thanks for the kind remarks.



Good example; Urban Sea won the Arc, then foaled Group-race performer Urban Ocean (m), dual Derby winner Galileo (m), dual Oaks placed Melikah (f), dual G1 winner (albeit, a very bad G1s) Black Sam Bellamy (m), Oaks placed All Too Beautiful (f) and finally US G2 winner My Typhoon (f).

Just to show how good some families are, Urban Sea herself had a half-sister - Allez Le Trois (G3 winner) who foaled French Derby winner Anaaba Blue - and a half-brother, brilliant 2000 Guineas winner King's Best, a promising sire himself.

As you can imagine, buying into such bloodlines is extremely expensive - if you could find anyone foolish enough to sell.



Generally true, and a decent amount of recent work has stated that it is the mare that is more responsible for stamina (don't think stayers, think the ability to run faster for longer) and maturity.

Sometimes, however, a stallion will appear that just dominates over his local opposition, even though he may have been just another above-average stakes performer. The American stallion Kris S comes to mind - can't think of any others for the moment.

The old adage "breed the best to the best, and hope for the best" is often bandied about, but with good reason. It doesn't always work like that (in fact, the majority of time it doesn't) - but sometimes it does...

Kingmambo's father was Mr Prospector, a brilliant horse and superb stallion. His dam, Miesque, was one of the greatest fillies of all time. Kingmambo was a high-class G1 miler, and is/was one of the most expensive stallions in the world, producing champion after champion.

Finally, a couple of other pointers;

a "nick" describes a lineage pairing that oftens produces high-class horses - for instance, Sadler's Wells with a Darshaan mare (i.e. a mare sired by Darshaan) is often associated with success at the Derby distance (1m 4f; 2200m) - High Chapparal being the last top-class success I can think of.

Unlike human society where its deeply frowned upon, save for a few small towns in Kerry , inbreeding is natural part of thoroughbred breeding - not where the sire/dam are very closely related, but if you went back through a horse's family tree from both sire and dam perspective, you will probably find some name that resides on both sides i.e. if you saw that a horse's great-grandfather (through the sire) and grandfather (through the dam) were in fact the same horse i.e. Raise A Native, this would be described as a 4 x 3 ("four by three") cross.

My advice is to simply track the champions each year and take note of their sire and dam-sire - after a while the names will become familiar. Only after a few years will dam's become familiar, generally because the top racemares rarely become top broodmares too.

If there's anyone wondering why I seem to be focussing on the Flat rather than National Hunt, well champions over the jumps are almost always geldings (castrated horses - champion hurdlers Alderbrook and Monkstown being the last champion entires I can recall - I don't think there has ever been a champion chase entire) and therefore can't breed. Also, it takes up to 10 years for NH horses to reach their peak - perhaps long after their sire has passed away.

Finally, if anyone has any questions, just ask. If people are still interested, I might put up some more posts on more advanced things I've learned about thoroughbred breeding (also called husbandry by the way) - dosage, conformity etc...

I only watch flat racing, and i only bet on it, and i do strictly look at bloodlines before betting. Apart from a few exceptions, it's VERY hard to pick a non fashinably bred winner of a big race...

There are a few however who basically break the mold, and then the price if the breeding to the sire goes up, and then people are paying premium prices for breedings to a sire who probably won't produce anything else.

Elfisio?..The sire of Attraction. Everyone through she was a machine. She probably was, a sprinter to the last. But the owners got greedy and stepped her up to a mile. Happens with all of the bigger trainers. Attraction was brought down by a horse with pure stamina (speed and the ability to keep speed over a longer distance then a sprinter). Soviet Song.

hmm let me think of some others.

I suppose you could call Ouija Board a bit of a freak. Breeding wasn't the may west, nothing that would indicate a champion breeders cup winner though.

There are lots of others as well. La Cucaracha was one. She has the speed of a horse bred from 2 champions.

Same with Airwave. But she weakened as she got a bit older (She beat Russian Rhythm hands down in a speed contest).

It's very easy to get hooked up in the coolmore stallions, Storm Cat, Monjeu etc.. But they all have flaws. Such as Storm Cat having one of the highest fee's ion the world, and then hardly ever having a horse thats able to run past it's 2nd season.

If you want to follow a future stallion, maybe look for foals by One Cool Cat.

Redlancer

Well I personally cant wait to see Rakti's & Azamour's offspring. Rakti for prue speed and hopefully none of his mood swings and Azamour as he could do a variety of trips plus out of my favourite sire Night Shift who has produced both flat & NH horse's with Well Chief springing to mind

Bartonprince

Redlancer wrote:

Well I personally cant wait to see Rakti's & Azamour's offspring. Rakti for prue speed and hopefully none of his mood swings and Azamour as he could do a variety of trips plus out of my favourite sire Night Shift who has produced both flat & NH horse's with Well Chief springing to mind

Night shift is not particularly well thought of in the breeding market. 1 in a million big winners.