OUTCROSSING in 2013 KARAKA Sale yearlings.

Chapter NINE-(2013 series of articles)

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

1….We have discussed in detail in CHAPTER EIGHT some

considerations for IN-BREEDING 3X3 and closer in the

Premier Select and festival sales in New Zealand.

2….Now we are looking at the other extreme, OUTCROSSING.

This is a term that I do not like because it conveys a totally wrong

message or understanding.

 However, it is a very common and well used term, so we will go with the flow. The name can be very surface and  should not matter as much as the real understanding that lies behind it and that is so much more important.

Many people are so pre-occupied with surface considerations, that

they tend to go round and round in circles during their lifetime and fail to get on up the ladder of life.

3….We’ve compiled every one of the 1492 yearling pedigrees

out to 15 generations, so we can have a very good look at them.

4….After looking carefully at every pedigree, we’ve come up with a list of EVERY YEARLING THAT HAD NO LINE-BREEDING WITHIN IT’S FIRST 5 GENERATIONS.

5….Lot’s of people on forums, in publications and everywhere

you come across are decrying the effects of in-breeding, the large

number of faults in horses, the intensification, the break-downs,

the decreasing gene pool, the over-saturation of the breed because

of the over-riding success of superior sires like Northern Dancer, and previously St Simon, Phalaris, Hyperion and Nearco .

There are literally thousands of articles extolling the virtues of

out-crossing, even some rather naive ones lately that want to reintroduce Arabians into the Thoroughbred gene pool .

6….I’ve collected 1788 racehorse pedigrees that won a million

dollars of more across all major racing countries in the world.

The evidence of their pedigrees indicates that you will have

extremely small pickings if you rely on OUT-CROSSING.

7…The majority of these top horses follow very similar intense patterns in their pedigrees. However, it is very clear after reading

what a lot of people write, most of them just don’t even see these intense crosses and relationships.

8….We’ve seen at least 9 articles over the years referring to the

great unbeaten racehorse and multiple Champion sire RIBOT

 as an out-cross. Having taken this pedigree out to 10 generations

by hand, and marking every possible cross that I could find, I am

inclined to extol his pedigree as an outstanding example of intense pedigree crosses. Same for the multiple Champion Sire BOLD RULER that has for many times over, been referred to as an

out-bred or out-crossed horse. Investigation proves otherwise.

9….Horses with no obvious ancestor cross closer than 6X6

can sometimes have several other systems at work in their pedigree which can build up to quite a level of intensity. However, the

majority do have very limited crosses. YOU NEED TO CHECK

these backgrounds THOROUGHLY.

10…..Some people are writing that the pedigrees are the same in back generations. Some do a survey and make an erroneous conclusion without knowing all the connecting links and missing several supportive and essential other methods which can affect the whole result.

11….They are also missing the point that the main crosses that work

in strength patterns can double faults as well as the superior traits, and

the pedigree shows clearly the other factors which can tip it one way

or the other. These people just do not understand pedigrees and lack

an insight past the obvious.

12….However, mostly, these pedigrees have less chance of getting

fortuitous combinations up close and in a way that Nature will

reward with SPEED. Lots of line-breeding in a pedigree can initiate several methods that Nature uses all the time and they are seen all the time in the greatest racing and breeding pedigrees.

13…This shows up extremely convincingly in the pedigrees of all those horses everyone would acknowledge as CHAMPIONS.

They have speed, stamina, finishing speed, win again and again

at the highest G1 level, and besides a whole pile of outstanding

ancestors, this would appear to be a huge requirement and is so

predictable to appear in the best pedigrees..

14…In a nutshell, if you check out a pedigree you are intending

to buy, and it has no ancestor duplication closer than 6X6, then

you are giving yourself perhaps a 98% chance of not getting a

horse that will pay its way on the racetrack.

15… Unless the horse has other superior traits that give you a belief

for really good success, we suggest you look for a combination of

better breeding methods which would suggest you have a much better chance of finding that future superior galloper.

16……There are many really good positives like the sire being a Champion sire, having a champion race-mare dam, from a phenomenal family line full of black type winners, the yearling having perfect conformation, great athletic looks and action. All these could be expected to have a very positive effect and most buyers would proceed with some confidence and be willing to impart with a great deal of money to acquire this best possible grouping of superior factors. 

17……It certainly is hard to evaluate just how important each of these traits are, and if there is a priority order.

 18….Looking at a huge number of outstanding pedigrees it is clear that pedigrees with exceptional crosses can produce a fairly high

number of standout galloper from below top class pedigrees. Again,

it is clear that this formula produces many times more failures, so

attention must be paid to many, many other factors as well as just

the pedigree crosses, intensities and breeding methods.

19….Commercial pedigrees have the greatest number of desirable

ducks in a row regarding sire, dam, family, rearing etc and buyers

are eager to outlay large amounts of money in the belief that they will

have a big edge on the race-course in the future.

20….They are right, because this group does produce the biggest number of top gallopers, because they have more of the necessary

traits that top gallopers have.

However, the prices are exceptionally high, and combine that with high racing costs and this group could be producing about 19 horses

out of every 20 failing to get ahead of, or make a return on their combined purchase and racing costs.

21…We are advocating the best of ALL METHODS. It makes sense

to work within the commercial framework of outstanding sires, the

best families, performance and SW along the dam line, exceptional

brood-mare sire, paying attention to all the soundness and physical

considerations, AND INCORPORATING proven very intense, BUT

SAFE breeding methods that have produced the greatest racehorses

and Champion sires and brood-mares in the past.

22…If you put all these considerations together, perhaps you could start emulating the outstanding success of one of the great thoroughbred breeders of the world like TESIO whose

record was phenomenal.

23….He used lesser performed members of the

best breeding families, then totally intensified their pedigrees.

In our database, we have collected 517 TESIO pedigrees.

It’s very hard to find records way over there in Italy, but various

publications  through the years have references and they have all

added to our ever increasing search for his amazing success.

24….One publication suggests he bred just over 600 foals in a

very long breeding career, but we have only been able to find 517 named ones so far. He was a top jockey himself, knew horses

intimately, and enquired, gathered facts and reasoned all the time.

It still took him about 10 years to  figure out how to intensify pedigrees.

25…..He has one of the best records we’ve found for IN-BREEDING closely, but he also had quite a lot of failures. He did know the

several secrets about how to make IN-BREEDING work, however,

because his methods included these normally. He also tried some OUT-CROSSING matings which were further compounding by

some the stamina/soundness he desired in his pedigrees. Some

intensity from his methods saved the day because of several methods

occurring for combined effects in his pedigrees, but many of these matings were among his failures. Even a great breeder with a phenomenal breeding record had lots of problems with getting

success from OUT-CROSSING, so best we avoid it as much as

possible ourselves.

26…I’ve just gone into our computer and added up all his horses

and their successes to show you what selection for soundness(DERBY

YARDSTICK), line-breeding to the best bloodlines, selection from

the best bloodlines, using combinations, and intensifying pedigrees can do.

……………………………517 named pedigrees

……………………………127 Multiple SW-&orSP…………24.56%

…………………………….85 Single STAKES WINNERS….16.44%

…………………………….62 multiple winners-(see below)…11.99%

(43wins,38,42,32,20,23,22,16,16,16)..

(15wins,14,14,14,12,11,10,10,9 wins)

(9wins,8,8,8,7,7,7,7,7,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,5)

(5wins,5,5,5,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3)….

Summary…517 raced foals, 274 paid their way……52.99%

What other breeder has ever produced half of their produce

able to pay their way on the racecourse?

 Most would be operating around the 2% to 6% from top bloodlines.

27.WHAT OTHER BREEDER HAS PRODUCED AN AMAZING

..41.00% STAKES WINNERS TO NAMED OR RACED FOALS?

28….Here is the role model for all breeders wanting to breed STAKES WINNERS. The record speaks for itself, and the pedigrees show an

amazing amount of intensity that is hidden but able to be picked up

by in-depth computer analysis. How TESIO did it without a computer

shows he was a real genius.

you look elsewhere for far better constructed pedigrees with much

greater potential..

29…We could produce an amazingly long list of superior bred

horses with no line-breeding closer than 6X6 that just did not

prove themselves very useful on the racecourse.

30….WHAT IS THE SITUATION WITH THE 2013 YEARLINGS?

The PREMIER SALE has 441 yearlings and we found 69 yearlings with no line-breeding closer than 6X6. This is 15.64% of the total.

If all or just about every one of these 69 yearlings prove to have

a limited potential for future race-course ability as we suspect,

we could predict that there is going to be a terrific lot of much poorer and very disappointed buyers in the future. ESPECIALLY AS THE AVERAGE FOR THE PREMIER SALE WAS a very high $154,877 LAST YEAR IN 2012.

31……The two previous years had even higher averages of $174,864 in 2011, and $181,557 in 2010.

32…..Certainly, this seems to be a lot of money going to be spent if

this years pattern follows that of the last two years for buying these

69 potentially limited racing ability yearlings.

All this expense (69 x last years figure of $174,864 = $12,065,685…AND ADD ANOTHER 69 X an estimated $35,000 each to race these 69 horses for the next two  years = $2,415,000

Add GST, plus plane trips and these 69 horses will have to

earn $209,865 each to recover all costs paid by their new owners.

33……If these horses perform to expectation, we could expect

perhaps 1 to recover all purchase and racing costs, and perhaps

3 or 4 to cover just training expenses, and the rest to cost their

owners money, time, effort, worry, disappointment and anxiety.

34…..What we are advocating is that the breeders of these yearlings do their homework and put together better pedigrees to increase

the chances of the yearlings chance on the race-course.

35…Also that prospective buyer look very carefully at the pedigrees they intend to buy. Here is one pedigree method that has proven to have limitations. High risk purchases could have been avoided if this principle and knowledge was known and utilized.

There are several other rules to add to this way of formulating

matings and to analyse for buying, and of necessity we have only

presented the tip of the iceberg with this generalised account of

lack of line-breeding out to the first 6X6 crosses in the pedigree. 

36…..The SELECT SALE catalogue of 610 yearlings show 129 with no line-breeding closer than 6X6. This is 21.14% of the total.

37…..Here are 129 yearlings that have a perceived limited potential to be worthwhile race performers if the pedigrees of thousands of previous pedigrees used as control groups hold true for this future group of racehorses.

38…..The lack of line-breeding closer than 6X6 usually results in a lack of competitive speed. Because a sufficient number of ancestor

crosses are missing from the close up pedigree, there is a tendency

to miss the important concentrations that can build up in pedigrees. This further means the pedigree could miss lots of vital intensity factors. There will be smaller Chains counts, it lowers the Fem40 score, wipes out the F4 factor common to  most top horses, wipes out the important Intricate crosses, misses that important cross most top pedigrees show, wipes out Blue crosses, doesn’t allow Hitting Pre-potency to work, and wipes out the ability to be pre-potent, plus

most importantly, doesn’t allow the exceptional SUPER EIGHTEEN

METHOD which is so important to all male sire line success.

39…..HOWEVER, FROM THE THOUSANDS OF SUCH PEDIGREES AND YEARLINGS LIKE THIS THAT WE HAVE STUDIED IN THE PAST, THE YEARLINGS OFTEN AND USUALLY LOOK QUITE GOOD.

Perhaps this can be the main redeeming feature and some consolation to the buyers from this sale.

40……That is, they will usually have a stronger type of yearling , generally quite good looks and a good type because there is less in-breeding depression and less faults in double strength..

Following up on many yearlings that looked good in sales, that had

no worthwhile line-breeding, we noticed they were sounder, can’t remember any of them breaking down, but lacked speed or acceleration, and many ended up in lower level staying races or over hurdles.

40…….They will tend to look quite good on the surface.

More faults will be hidden, and their legs usually have less observable faults.

This doesn’t always hold true though, because we have seen some bad legs on quite a few yearlings that possessed outcross pedigrees.

The breeding, family and parents usually were a lot less successful

than the best commercial yearlings.

41…..The buyers of these good looking, perhaps slower horses will

mostly be disappointed, especially as they would have had to pay a very high average for their purchases.

42… The COMPLETE Premier, Select and Festival SALE averages for the last 3 years were:

2012 average….$78,512

2011 average….$83,899

2010 average….$82,875

43…..Each investment means a lot of money. To ensure he has the

best chance of success, the buyer needs to really look carefully at every potential horse and pedigree in real detail.

44…..The FESTIVAL SALE catalogue of 439 yearlings was checked and 105 yearlings were found that had no line-breeding closer than 6x6. This is 23.91% of the total.

45…..The percentage of out-crossing seems to get higher with the lesser  involvement of the big stud farms, the less successful sires in many cases, the lesser experience of a number of small-draught breeders, and the obviously less successful dam lines.

These are many times more frequent in the breed, and therefore the wider base can have more ancestors which can result in more unrelated ancestry.

46.….By checking out all the yearling pedigrees for this way of breeding , buyers may be able to eliminate a lot of very risky

investments, save themselves a lot of time and effort in the future,

and move onto finding a more suitable yearling with more potential

and a greater chance of success on the racetrack.

47…The average for the FESTIVAL SALE in 2012 was $15,300,

and when GST tax is added, plus another year or two of rearing, plus

breaking in, and pre-training, buyers may be facing an investment

of $40,000 on average. This is getting quite steep for a 3^rd tier investment.

48…..The chances of success are certainly less when you consider they are using an animal with a lot less potential by sire, by dam, more limited ability family, less line-breeding, a horse with probably less speed and more of them will have less chance by ending up in the 2^nd tier trainers yards, and to add to the problem, more often these horses will usually have a lot less ties to the best jockeys.

49…..If the above scenario doesn’t have enough negatives, they

then have to front up and race against many of the PREMIER SALE (441 yearlings) and SELECT SALE (610 yearlings) that have better breeding, usually come from bigger more successful rearing farms with good staff, and it’s also critical and hard work to come up

against owners  with bigger pockets that usually use the best trainers and get the services of the best jockeys.

50…Your average $40,000 investment over the next two years from the FESTIVAL SALES has a long way to go and an extremely hard task ahead of it to get 5 or 6 wins under it’s belt so as to get a return on the owner’s optimistic investment. 

51….As most of these OUT-BRED yearlings are expected to fail the racecourse test, potential buyers would be wise to check out this possible method of yearling elimination, so that more time and effort could be devoted to finding better  qualified yearlings with better racing prospects.

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Dedicated to my sister Delwyn who also passed away after a long illness

due to cancer.

Pictured below are my 3 sisters, Janice, Delwyn and Carol.

DELWYN CLOUT, nee PRATT

July 28th, 1942----Feb 21st, 2010

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