Is my TB Mare worth breeding?

[Lord_Helpus]

I haven’t read all the posts, but once I looked at the progeny results for her first 4 dams and did not see any black type, I could not justify breeding a mare with such an incredibly weak damline.

The mare would not warrant a stallion fee of over $5000. So you are breeding a “dime a dozen” mare to a crowded field of unsuccessful stallions. At a sale she would be worth $0.00 – $7,000 and would have every chance of running up to the [extremely low] level of her female line and/or the statistics common among low priced stallions.

IMO, the question that every mare owner must ask him/herself is “Would I want to own this foal for the rest of its life, even if it was not a good racehorse?”

The honest answer to that is 99% “no”. If more people stuck to this simple test, there would be fewer TB’s needing to be rescued.

[halo]

Apparently she hasnt been bred, according to Equineline.

[Pronzini]

[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8393138]

IMO, the question that every mare owner must ask him/herself is “Would I want to own this foal for the rest of its life, even if it was not a good racehorse?”

The honest answer to that is 99% “no”. If more people stuck to this simple test, there would be fewer TB’s needing to be rescued.[/QUOTE]

In all honesty, how does anyone know that before the horse is on the ground? Lot’s of really well bred horses look like trainwrecks.

A friend was at Keeneland this past week and had a shortlist based on pedigree. Almost all the horses were bounced off. A Distorted Humor looked like “a llama”, an Empire Maker had “no quality”, a Gone West mare was “plain and ordinary”. Yes he’s picky but he also voted with his feet as would most horsemen.

OTOH, some horses light on pedigree were absolutely lovely. Breeders get surprised both in good and bad ways.

[Lord_Helpus]

All you can do is “breed the best to the best and hope for the best”. (But if the “best” you can afford is from a family of non winners and by a stallion who is lower than #70 on the ranking list, the odds are very low that you will get a good horse.

But it has happened — and that is why there are still people out there breeding marginal stock. And that is also why there are TB’s at kill auctions and at rescue farms.

If you go to The Blood Horse and look at stallion statistics, you will see the incredibly low % that all the stallions have of runners to winners. Less that 50% of Tapit’s get ever win a race… And he stands for $300,000. That is a LOT of money to spend when you have less than a 50% chance of getting a winner.

And only 2 stallions (Medaglia d’Oro (sp?) and Scat Daddy) have 10% stakes winners. That 10% mark used to be the requisite % for a stallion to be thought of as “good”. Now stallions with 5% - 6% of SW stand for 6 figures. :rolleyes:

But then scroll down to the bottom of the list and the statistics get even scarier.

[Lord_Helpus]

All you can do is “breed the best to the best and hope for the best”. But if the “best” you can afford is from a family of non winners and by a stallion who is lower than #70 on the ranking list, the odds are very low that you will get a good horse.

But it has happened — and that is why there are still people out there breeding marginal stock. And that is also why there are TB’s at kill auctions and at rescue farms.

If you go to The Blood Horse and look at stallion statistics, you will see the incredibly low % that all the stallions have of runners to winners. Less that 50% of all of Tapit’s get ever win a race [the statistics page only shows “runners” and “winners” – Tapit does have slightly over 50% winners from runners – but those figures to not take all the offspring which never even start.] And he stands for $300,000. That is a LOT of money to spend when you have less than a 50% chance of getting a winner.

And only 2 stallions (Medaglia d’Oro (sp?) and Scat Daddy) have 10% stakes winners (from runners). The 10% mark (of SW from all foals) used to be the requisite % for a stallion to be thought of as “good”. Now stallions with 5% - 6% of SW (from runners) stand for 6 figures. :rolleyes:

But when you scroll down to the bottom of the list the statistics get even scarier.

[Texarkana]

Lord Helpus, I know you were breeding TBs years before I was even involved in the industry, but just a fine point that I think is worth mentioning:

Percent winners do take into account all foals in most forms of reporting. It is not calculated from the runners only. So for example, if you pull up Tapit’s current stats: when it says 60% winners, that means that 526 foals out of his total 875 foals of racing age have become winners.

Currently, 81% of Tapit’s foals of racing age have started on the track. When you do the math the way you mentioned in your post by calculating winners from runners, it comes out to be 75% winners from runners.

When you see someone like Medaglia D’oro with 44% winners, again, that’s from his total population of foals of racing age-- both starters and non-starters. When you recalculate with winners from starters, it comes out closer to 64%.

And as I’m sure you’re aware, but just for the sake of clarity, the stallions at the very pinnacle of the breeding world often have an artificially low percentage of starters because their offspring have residual value as breeding stock. If someone has a million dollar Medaglia D’oro filly who doesn’t show the ability to run in MSW conditions, there’s not much point in wasting money and risking injury starting her. She still has a chance to recoup her value as a broodmare, and honestly will look better on paper being unraced as opposed to unplaced.

Stallions at the very bottom of the dollar rankings have a similar issue for different reasons. If someone “only” invested a couple thousand dollars in a mating and the foal shows only average ability, some folks may say there’s no sense in spending thousands of dollars a month to put him in training even if he might be able to win in low level claiming company. Even the lowest level circuits are expensive places.

I’m way on a tangent now, but on the whole, the thoroughbred world does not contribute to the slaughterhouse population nearly as much as it used to. Also, thoroughbreds account for a relatively small percentage of horses who go through slaughter considering they are one of the top three breeds in the United States.

Of course, “any” horses in a slaughter pen are too many and folks should indeed be proactive about not contributing to the problem.

[danceronice]

[QUOTE=Pronzini;8395516]
In all honesty, how does anyone know that before the horse is on the ground? Lot’s of really well bred horses look like trainwrecks.

A friend was at Keeneland this past week and had a shortlist based on pedigree. Almost all the horses were bounced off. A Distorted Humor looked like “a llama”, an Empire Maker had “no quality”, a Gone West mare was “plain and ordinary”. Yes he’s picky but he also voted with his feet as would most horsemen.

OTOH, some horses light on pedigree were absolutely lovely. Breeders get surprised both in good and bad ways.[/QUOTE]

I say this despite having deep affection for the family, no one in their right mind would have looked at Littleprincessemma’s female family and said “Yep, great shot at getting a multiple graded stakes winner there”. There’s some nice names there if you are into racing and know history, and it does produce sound, sane, serviceable work-horse types, but a Triple Crown winner? AP looks nice, too, and obviously his way of going is notably good, but again, not something anyone would really have predicted.

(And I get being picky, but what’s his problem with plain? It’s not a beauty contest as long as everything works right! )

[Gestalt]

I don’t understand “voting with their feet.” Just because a colt is plain, has a ewe neck, or even crooked legs, why would that turn someone looking for a racehorse off? Running well isn’t a beauty contest and we all know horses with perfect conformation that are lame. Was this person looking for a possible show horse?

I care about how a horse moves, how they looked just standing takes the last seat in the bus. Spectacular Bid was drop dead gorgeous standing and galloping. But horses like him are few and far between.

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=Gestalt;8403890]
I don’t understand “voting with their feet.” Just because a colt is plain, has a ewe neck, or even crooked legs, why would that turn someone looking for a racehorse off? Running well isn’t a beauty contest and we all know horses with perfect conformation that are lame. Was this person looking for a possible show horse?

I care about how a horse moves, how they looked just standing takes the last seat in the bus. Spectacular Bid was drop dead gorgeous standing and galloping. But horses like him are few and far between.[/QUOTE]

I grew up in the Arabian horse show world, where looks are practically everything. Then I spent my teenage years doing hunters, where looks and matching the “ideal” are again a HUGE part of the equation for success. Then I eventually got into racing.

I only say this because how many racing people evaluate conformation and “looks” is slightly different than many other breeds and disciplines. I’ve spent years trying to retrain my eye, and even still, I can be easily swayed by “old” preferences sometimes.

“Straight legs” are important because, as in every discipline, horses with correct legs are perceived to be at less risk of injury. Movement is important in the sense that a big, easy, ground covering walk usually translates to a big, easy, ground covering gallop. Neck shape on its own isn’t particularly important, but balance and the ability to use the horse’s body is-- horses with ewe necks often have a hard time relaxing their back and stretching out, which can result in a shorter gallop stride and less efficient movement. “Plain” often means the horse doesn’t have the look of an athlete; some horses have that “it” factor, others just look kind of blah and dopey.

It’s not a beauty contest, but it’s all about stacking the odds in your favor when selecting the best potential athlete. Sure, there have been plenty of ugly, crooked horses who sold for very little and have gone on to be superstars. There have also been plenty of high dollar “perfect” horses who have been huge disappointments. When you’re investing large amounts of money in unproven or breeding stock, you want your horse to check all the boxes for athletic potential, and conformation is part of it. Many successful racehorses are not “drop dead gorgeous” in a sporthorse sense, like Spectacular Bid, but are still functionally correct… and that’s what buyers want.

Personally, I think the US market has become more forgiving of conformation than they were in years past, thanks to a lot of highly influential stallions with some dubious conformation. I waver back and forth on whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

[danceronice]

Given horses like California Chrome (who gets nickpicked about his legs) don’t seem to have any serious soundness issues (unless they were lying through their teeth about the foot) that would come from a conformation fault. And then of course in his book “Lightning in a Jar” Cot Campbell mentions how he passed on a colt who winged out a bit and notes the next time he saw the colt he was named Cannonero II and was winning the Kentucky Derby. As far as blah-looking goes, Seabiscuit was nothing to write home about, and in fact more of the TC winners were like War Admiral (plain and not exactly the first horse your eye goes to. Heck, AP is built nicely but generally looks half asleep. In that case give me dopey any day as the ones who aren’t breathing fire don’t hurt themselves or waste energy as much.)

[Pronzini]

[QUOTE=Gestalt;8403890]
I don’t understand “voting with their feet.” Just because a colt is plain, has a ewe neck, or even crooked legs, why would that turn someone looking for a racehorse off? Running well isn’t a beauty contest and we all know horses with perfect conformation that are lame. Was this person looking for a possible show horse?

I care about how a horse moves, how they looked just standing takes the last seat in the bus. Spectacular Bid was drop dead gorgeous standing and galloping. But horses like him are few and far between.[/QUOTE]

Texarkana hit most of the points that I would have replied with but I’ll just emphasize that racehorses are athletes and the package has to work. “Plain” and “JAH” (just a horse) may mean different things to different horsemen when they jot it in their catalog but generally I understand that the horse has no glaring faults but also no overall quality, style or athleticism. That’s not to say that snapshot in time is everything because everyone can point to Seabiscuit or John Henry. But if your job is to look at a couple of thousand horses over the span of two weeks, you need to narrow the field from possibles to probables to No! which is actually the shorthand I see in catalogs.

Lukas called it “finding the cat”, seeing that indescribable something that told him that the horse was a runner.

But to get back to the original premise, I think that bloodlines is a great place to start but then things can go sideways fast. Specifically I know of a Bernardini filly named in honor of Sophia Loren because her legs from the front looked like Loren’s figure. You don’t get much more well bred but something bad happened in the genome.

I think before you breed your mare that you have to have a plan in place ie What are you breeding for–the racetrack, for personal use, for the sales ring? Then you have to figure out a budget (which I believe at its minimum should be $10,000 a year for broodies and babies ). Know what you have before you commit especially if you are going to try to sell commercially. If the mare produces anything that can’t get a bid at a Thoroughbred sale, maybe it’s time to rethink things unless you want to do the heavy lifting of actually getting the horse to the races. A lot of horses become essentially giveaways at the yearling sales because the breeder knows that the monthly goes up to $1500-2000 from there on in and it only gets more expensive the closer they get to the track. That is a tough place to be for a horse lover.