Helen_S, while I agree that Unbridleds Song has been at best a lukewarm sire of sires, I just want to mention Midshipman, currently standing at Godolphin America. He’s done a good deal better at stud than Songandaprayer.
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Seattle Slew was not considered a “sire of sires” until he hit it out of the park with AP Indy. If it weren’t for AP Indy, the entire Seattle Slew sire line would have fizzled out.
So while I agree that Arrogate has that disadvantage, nothing is guaranteed.
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Lots of armchair quarterbacks for sure. While I recognize that Arrogate had some (significant) issues with consistency and a MAJOR opinion on track surfaces…it can’t be disputed that he was also absolutely spectacular at times. Isn’t the old TB breeders’ maxim, “Breed the best to the best and hope for the best,” still relevant? Superstar mare to renowned stallion should be a sales ring doorbuster, if nothing else, and stands as good a chance as any at resulting in a very good racehorse. She’s apparently going to Tapit in 2019, to have one of, what, thousands (?) of Tapits that now exist. Hopefully they’ll take her to American Pharoah at some point, too. Because what, really, does Mandy Pope have to lose? She can afford to take chances that most breeders can’t, so let her do it! Even “sure thing” nicks RARELY produce a super star or even an exceptional horse. So why not go for the “star-studded” pedigree?
Because the pedigree page isn’t what runs, it is the horse. It doesn’t matter how star-studded a pedigree is if both sides of the pedigree–a reasonable proxy for the physical and genetic makeup of the parents–don’t match up well, or if the physical bodies of each horse don’t match up well.
North Light is a champion and English Derby winner who won nearly 2 million pounds sterling, sired by a breed-shaping super-sire out of a Gr-1 winning mare who herself is a daughter of an Arc-winning chef-de-race. El Expresivo is by a champion stallion out of one of the deepest, most productive mare lines on the planet, with no fewer than 15 Gr-1 winners on 3 continents under his first 3 dams. Pins is the Gr-1 winning son of a champion sprinter and a winning daughter of a two-time broodmare of the year. Despite the fact that all three stallions have star-studded pedigrees and sparkling performance records, and two of the three have useful to excellent records as stallions at stud, nobody would seriously suggest breeding Songbird to any of them. (Pins is actually a very reasonable pedigree matchup although he’s not in her league as a stallion.)
Matlacha Pass’s Arch foal was born crooked that her breeders decided to never send that mare to that stallion again, even though she ended up being a Gr-1 winner.
Genetics is complicated enough that the emphasis is on the word “hope.”
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If one is breeding solely for the sales ring, then yes, Songbird to Arrogate should be a doorbuster.
We do know that Songbird can run and, if the mood strikes him, so can Arrogate but it is yet unproven what either can throw in their offspring.
There might be thousands (just using your words, I don’t know) of Tapits but over time, he has shown he can throw performance on the track… not every time, but enough to justify his stratospheric stud fee 
There is some merit in breeding known to unknown to minimize guessing, when the foal is born and races, which side the talent came from. Harder to do when both parents are a question mark.
Sounded like Mandy also looked at Pioneerof The Nile which would have been my choice. We know Pioneerof The Nile can throw good offspring… American Pharoah still remains to be seen.
Overall a cr*pshoot and I’m glad there are folks like Mandy that can afford to shake that tree and see what falls out
also, when Tesio said breed the best to the best and hope for the best, his version of “best” was a sort of generational approach to breeding, meaning farms had bands of broodmares who worked well within a certain pedigree cross. So it was a little bit about what was on paper… backed up by a whole lot of what was done on the track and solidified with repeatable results. He probably never imagined the concept of breeding for a yearling sales or worse yet, headlines…
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For any question as to whether Tapit can throw quirky, I give you Lani. Third in the Belmont, talented as hell, but hey, do I really feel like running today? Not so much in the Derby or Preakness.
Tapit has been bred to so many talented mares at this point, that you wonder if the mitochondria are working overtime, on a bunch of these things. Not to take a thing away from the horse, but I do wonder if quirky doesn’t tend to reproduce itself.
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Songbird checked in foal to Arrogate; looks like from a two week ago cover (from Timber Town’s FB page).
:encouragement:
Still a long way to go from the 14 day US to live foal stands and nurses but a good start
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This has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I just discovered that there was something very powerful going on when Secretariat was bred to Crimson Saint. We all know about Terlingua, but that match produced Pancho Villa and Border Run as well. Crimson Saint was also the dam of Royal Academy by Nijinsky, so we know she wasn’t a one stallion wonder.
Naturally her Secretariat foals were all chestnut.
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Here’s a list of some of the other top mares who have been confirmed in foal to Arrogate: https://www.paulickreport.com/news/bloodstock/songbird-among-top-mares-pronounced-foal-arrogate/
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