Chapter ELEVEN-(2013 series of articles)

NOTES for Breeders Cup, New Zealand Yearling Sales, Champion Sires

 

ASSESSMENTS FOR 2013 FESTIVAL SALE YEARLINGS

1….What tools do intending buyers have for assessing the POTENTIAL RACING ABILITY of these 439 yearlings?

2……An important one is the CATALOGUE that the Auctioneers have published showing:

lot numbers, colour, sex, stud, vendor and box number so the intending buyers can identify each yearling.

3….Very importantly, a catalogue page is devoted to giving brief details of the SIRE, his colour, year of foaling, his parentage, race record and success at stud.

4….The majority of the page is devoted to highlighting the race and breeding records of the first 3 dams in regard to number of foals produced, number raced, number that won races and especially written in bold type are the names of STAKES PERFORMERS, which gives an idea just how well

the first three dams have been in producing high class & very successful racehorses.

5….The yearlings can be inspected at the vendor’s property prior to sale day. This is important to sort out the yearlings that interest you, to give time to get clients on board, and to re-inspect on further occasions. Important that they are available for further viewing and checking and comparing with your other selections at the selling complex before and during the sale.

6….Trainers and conformation judges can inspect them, check their action by seeing them walk, can check their limbs for accuracy and also look for dozens of indicators that suggest speed, stamina, soundness, temperament, constitution.

This can be essential to making a really good decision & purchase.

7…Inspection can be an additive or elimination process depending on what the inspection reveals in ways of superior traits or negative traits which could eliminate that bottom quarter of these catalogued yearlings that for one reason or another are never going to get to the races.

8…Remember, just about every horse that races really well has

FAULTS of one kind or another. Really good experience and knowledge can quite often make a good judgement on whether

a fault could be within tolerable limits, and be unlikely to affect

the potential racing ability of the horse in question.

9…We’ve been surprised on many occasions where good judges

have bought horses with obvious faults, & a follow up has shown many times the horse showed limited racing ability in line with the combined pedigree and physical conformation expectation.

10..When talking to many, many people it is amazing how many just do not see obvious faults on the horse that they inspected, or bought and on occasions on the yearling in front of them.

11……What was the spread when the 439 yearlings were analyzed?

We’ve sorted them into those whose pedigree and crosses suggest they would probably not win a race, or have enough

indicators to win 1 race or two or three etc. up to STAKES WINNERS.

0wins, 0-1w,0-2w,0-3w,0-4w----------137 yearlings……31.20%

1win,1-2w,1-3w,1-4w-------------------110 yearlings……25.05%

2wins, 2-3w,2-4w------------------------82 yearlings……..18.67%

3wins,3-4w,3-5w-------------------------34 yearlings……...7.74%

4wins,4-5w,4-6w,4-7w------------------19 yearlings………4.32%

5wins,5-6w--------------------7 yearlings….1.59%

6wins,6-7w,6-8w-------------9 yearlings….2.05%

OPEN CLASS---------------19 yearlings…4.32%

STAKES WINNER--------20 yearlings…4.55%

We think those yearlings we have assessed with a potential to win 5 or more races, could possibly earn enough to pay for all their rearing, breaking, pre-training, racing, gear and spelling expenses.

THE FIGURES TELL US WE NEED TO LIMIT OUR SELECTIONS TO A REASONABLY SMALL GROUP,

WHICH THIS ANALYSIS FOR THIS SALE SHOWED US.

Keep your selections to .ONE HORSE IN EVERY EIGHT.

12…………………….SUMMARY……………………………

….55 yearlings have been given an OK rating out of 439.

This is 12.51% of the total on offer.

13….Our pedigree analysis gives us an initial inspection list of 55 horses , and it should be stressed that the best way to proceed would be to ignore the 5 and 6 win groups and concentrate on an even smaller list of the 19 OPEN CLASS rated yearlings and the 20 potential STAKES WINNERS group.

14….You may miss a good horse from this dropped off group, but there could be expected to be even more failures at each

lowered level or assessed group as you go down.

15….After checking out the two best assessed groups, then a good plan would be to go over the 16 lower rated horses and see if there is one or two really standout types with real character, swinging walk, exceptional conformation, intelligence

or athleticism.

That should give you a chance to find that really good horse if

there is one or two among that group. Just pick out the best.

16…Because the 39 yearlings that have been assessed as OPEN CLASS or STAKES WINNER POTENTIAL were just picked on pedigree principles, further tweaking is possible, AND NECESSARY by adding more ducks in a row to the standard you want your horse to have, and that should be to have a very high expectancy on physical conformation.

17…Some Trainers are selecting horses on good type, good balance, good growth, height, walking action, and as long

as they have highly successful sires, and plenty of black type along their dam line, then they sometimes get all the essential

crosses in the background and end up with a top horse occasionally.

18….Some pedigree people who have studied plenty of the best pedigrees and have found good crosses in the pedigree sometimes come up with a horse with the right physique, temperament, will to win, heart efficiency by luck and they sometimes come up with a really good racehorse.

19…It seems logical to assume that you need to combine the

best pedigrees, best breeding techniques, best conformation

and best individual. Don’t select on just one or two traits.

20…A suggestion would be to RANK the 39 yearlings into 4 GROUPS OF TEN, based on the PEDIGREE ANALYSIS,

with your best horses in the first group.

Horses can’t run on pedigree alone, so make sure they stand up as individuals in terms of power, balance, strength, reach, motor, temperament, heart and physiological efficiency.

21…Because you now have 4 lists of 10 yearlings all RANKED in order, when you go to check the physical strengths and faults it’s easy and much quicker to ELIMINATE FAULTY yearlings or DOUBLY LIKE yearlings that are superior by both pedigree, type, balance and accurate legs.

22….Another suggestion is to have your 40 yearlings arranged in order, and have about 10 SUPERIOR TRAITS and 10 FAULTS all listed in columns, so a few TICKS OR A POINTS SYSTEM would quickly SELECT the better ones or ELIMINATE those that have unacceptable faults.

23…..How did we arrive at our assessments?

We compiled every pedigree by adding the sire, then added his birth-date, his race and breeding record, before checking that this part of the pedigree was consistent and accurate.

After adding the dam, her date and breeding record, we continued on through the pedigree until we had the race and breeding record for the first 10 dams.

Then we compiled each pedigree to see if it compiled accurately,  did corrections until each one was as accurate as we could make it, and also checked to see if we had racing and breeding information for the first 62 ancestors, and if not, we found the

missing  parts and completed each pedigree.

24…..What principles did we use?

Firstly, we selected one of the five selected principles and went through every one of the 439 pedigrees to record this, then repeated the process 4 more times to record the other principles.

Finally we compared each pedigree, looked at the record of the parents, grand-parents and great grand-parents and combined that with the FIVE main principles that we had collated.

This then gave us an idea of the horses possible potential as a racehorse when we compared further soundness factors, speed factors, repeatability and other breeding principle indicators.

25……..What other principles are available?

An intensive study of pedigrees has revealed there are over 330

Principles of Breeding which can be identified and able to be measured.

Some of them need to be avoided because they have strong connections to lack of success. Just about every researcher and writer publishing statistics are coming to very incorrect conclusions because they possibly do not know or understand this phenomenon.

26….We have selected just FIVE of the most important ones here.

One gives a measurement on the amount of ancestor duplication or line-breeding in the pedigree.

Another one measures how often the main target ancestor affects the outcome.

The other three methods measure how three very different ways that intensity, intensification, and build up affect the pre-potency of the pedigree or individual.

27..What other principles are available at the sales?

a…Need to match the pedigree with the physical individual

b…There can be FAULTS, so essential to check balance, action, size, temperament, and especially leg alignment. It is really amazing just how many physical faults can adversely affect

what looks like an outstanding pedigree with every desirable

method or index, and the negation can turn a brilliant pedigree

into a very disappointing also ran.

c….Make a list of HIGHLY DESIRABLE FACTORS and look for all these superior traits which suggest good speed and racing ability.

28…….Pitfalls with some principles.

An intensive study into thousands of champion gallopers, thousands of great breeding sire and dams, thousands of average and many times more limited racing ability horses show conclusively that some principles have a polarizing affect when in combinations.

 Either outstanding ability or very negative outcomes can result  because Nature is always combining many principles at the same time.

29….Most people do not realize that CLOSENESS or DISTANCE or MULTIPLES all have different effects.

SEX of the animal has important consequences for many principles.

30…Three of the Breeding Principles above are examples of this.

The absolute best pedigrees mostly have extremely high indexes and Natures principle of random sampling of genes brings forth

combinations that can double the strength of fortuitous traits.

Or it can double up faults which can wipe out the possibility

of outstanding athletic ability, and result in a virtually worthless

animal for racing or breeding purposes.

31…….These intense breeding plans produce a RANGE of animals.

A FEW WILL HAVE  ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING BREEDING OR RACING ABILITY.

A lot will be quite good animals, BUT there will also be A LOT OF DOUBLE FAULT ANIMALS …WHICH HAVE TO BE CULLED.

Below is a table to show what the pedigree analysis for

each animal suggested to us. This is the starting point if

you are serious about buying a yearling to race later on.

32…………….0 wins assessment……….67 yearlings

……………….0-1 wins………………….62 yearlings

……………….0-2 wins…………………..5 yearlings

……………….0-3 wins…………………..2 yearlings

……………….0-4 wins…………………..1 yearling

20……The following yearlings had something worthwhile in their pedigree and we thought they had a chance to win a race.

NOTE….29% to 33% win a race each season in New Zealand

………………1 win assessment………….53 yearlings

………………1-2.wins……………………49 yearlings

……………….1-3wins…………………….7 yearlings

……………….1-4wins…………………….1 yearling

21……………2 wins assessment…………..35 yearlings

………………2-3wins……………………..41 yearlings

………………2-4wins………………………6 yearlings

22……………3wins assessment……………2 yearlings

………………3-4 wins…………………….19 yearlings

………………3-5wins……………………..13 yearlings

23……………4-5wins assessment…………15 yearlings

………………4-6 wins………………………3 yearlings

………………4-7 wins………………………1 yearling

24……………5wins assessment……………….

………………5-6wins………………………7 yearlings

25……………6wins assessment…………….1 yearling

………………6-7wins……………………….5 yearlings

………………6-8wins……………………….3 yearlings

………

26……………OPEN CLASS assessment……..19 yearlings

27……………STAKES WINNER assessment..20 yearlings

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28…..Having looked very carefully and very critically at

all the yearlings in this sale that will mostly be bought by

New Zealand Trainers and owners, we can recommend the

twenty yearlings which we have given a STAKES WINNER rating to.

29…..They all have some very impressive crosses, nice build-up,

excellent  intensity, high pre-potency and all the necessary

principles to excel in the best company, even though their breeding and ancestry may not be as good as the other 2 sales.

30…Those that pass a very critical physical examination should

be very good prospects for future racehorses. From experience,

about 10 yearlings should measure up. Do your homework, and

place a realistic value on each horse which you would be prepared to bid up to…

Good luck with your purchases from this sale!!

Helen and Les Pratt…… lpratt@clear.net.nz