Irish National Stud

Osblog Issue 4 'the breeders are more guilty of narrow thinking when it came to sires than the yearling purchasers'

Osblog 4

Richard Griffiths in the Racing Post has risen to the challenge to try to discover the missing measure for success which we are currently overlooking or undervaluing. At the Irish National Stud we stand a statistician’s dream horse Big Bad Bob, recently highly praised (again) by Bill Oppenheim, one of the first to discover his outperformance. It is fair to say that Ger Lyons was the very first, though there are a few others who will claim that prize.

I have heard it said that the “sample size” is too small to be accurate in the assessment of Big Bad Bob. Three crops, consistently successful in the proportions achieved by the small first crop but the absolute numbers are small. By the way, he is chock-full for 2012 so I am not on a selling mission here, just thinking out loud.

If the sample size is so critical, why then do we collectively REDUCE it all the time by focussing only on the annual results? The stallion tables are nearly always by calendar year. Every horse created by either a sire or a dam gives us a clue to the merits or otherwise of the genetic package and amount of it which is transmitted to the offspring. For that reason the entire sample should be retained in the analysis as career stats are built up.

The reasons we do it differently include the need for a degree of obsolescence – it is as if we need the middle-aged horses to shuffle off and make room for the “NEW, IMPROVED” model being launched. But another reason is the “broodmare effect”. There is a degree of intuition in assessing the success of the sire relative to the type of mares which the sire receives at the various stages of his career. By packaging the results of the stallion by crop, we can guess whether the results are attributable to the sire or reflective of the mares. All stallions careers are influenced enormously by the shape and quality of the mares they serve.

Early last year, Jocelyn de Moubray wrote a piece identifying the difference in behaviour by breeders relative to yearling purchasers. He postulated that the breeders are more guilty of narrow thinking when it came to sires than the yearling purchasers. This was borne out at the October Two Sale where the top hundred or so yearlings were sired by 28 stallions, only five of whom were represented by more than two yearlings. In other words, a well conformed yearling from a reasonable family could command a decent price almost irrespective of sire. Stand outside the stable of a yearling by a “cold” sire and you will disagree with that, but  look at the results and you see that the breeders are in more control of the outcome than they think. The mare matters, too!

3 Comments

1. 1 Larry Stratton
   February 13, 2012
   11:25 am

   Figure in the absence of email address with your name attached, this is the best way to contact you. Enjoying the Osblogs, though I seem to have missed number 3 somehow.
   
   One point that comes to mind in regard to your point about stallion assessment today. And as a stallion master now you will have to assume your share of the responsibility. In the old days (ow!) we knew where we were pretty much thanks to small (not that we thought they were small then) and regular foal crops for each sire. There were about 40 foals each year, a very good sire got 50% winners to foals, and the top sires got 10% SW to foals - and 10% didn't get you into the champion ranks - Northern Dancer was something like 16% and Danzig, Mr Prospector etc were in the 13 to 15% bracket I think. Cumulative statistics were easily obtainable and sires weren't difficult to assess. I remember Mr Leader got 60% winners to foals, every crop more or less, and that lasted for more than 20 crops. That was the benchmark.
   
   Now it is all change. Huge books mean huge foal crops, lots of extra dross (what we can be very sure about now is that big crops mean higher percentage of bad horses and lower percentage of good ones) and the old figures are worthless because they are now unattainable. Studs make a big noise about, and breeders 'buy', the fact that a stallion gets 50 % winners to runners!! I have no idea what percentage of SW relative to foals a top sire gets or even what a half decent sire gets, and that goes for winners to foals too. I reckon Galileo is on only about 7% SW to foals, but that is a guess - we never see the figures published or quoted any more. There must be stats out there to tell us what a good winners to foals percentage is for a sire who has over 120 foals in every crop, but I have never seen them. And that's almost certainly because they are so poor it is not in the interests of the stallion masters to publish them.
   
   
   Kind regards
   
   Larry
   
   P.S. Three small crops is quite a big enough sample to prove that Big Bad Bob is a decent sire - what more do people want?

    
2. 2 David Redvers
   February 13, 2012
   11:26 am

   Like it!

    
3. 3 Jennifer Edwards
   February 13, 2012
   11:27 am

   I agree. Breeders are the one who perpetuate the pooorly conformed front legs and, in North America, breed to sires known to have bled. Lasix is the hot issue in North America now and whilst this drug is used in Europe and elsewhere for training as well as North America, I for one, beleive it to be party genetically inherited. But as long as horses win big races - ie graded or Group - this will continue. Of more interest to know - for breeders - is how often is Lasix administered. Sound should be sound in wind and limb in an ideal world.
   
   Small time breeders and some big ones know the importance of the brood mare. These breeders constantly seek to upgrade their mares. So its up to breeders to be more selective in their choice of a stallion.
   
   Jen Edwards
   Bonny Breeze Acres
   (Very Small Breeder - smile)