Value of nicks

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=camohn;7497043]
Mr. A++ nick is Medallist. He is the highest stud fee of my short list but at stud the longest too. An up side is though my search area was within a 6 hour drive radius he is literally 15 min up the road from me… So does save on transportation and mare care fees.[/QUOTE]

I’m breeding a few mares locally, PA and MD and should be using a couple stallions at N-V PA. Because we breed a number of mares I can usually get some pretty good discounts. If you would like I could include your mare with ours and get something like 25% off if not more. If interested clicking on my screen name will give you my direct contract information. Direct email me the list of stallions you are looking at and I will see what I can do. Happy to give you my thoughts on each also. We’ve bred to Medallist in the past got a nice foal.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=LaurieB;7496827]
A nick is a guideline based on a very small portion of a potential pedigree–sirelines only, and often calculated from what worked with a grandsire or great-grandsire. They’re a marketing tool that exists to sell…more nicks. (And horses to people who believe that a hypothetical letter grade is more important and easier to understand than the horse standing in front of them.)

Do I look at them when planning matings? Sure. Do I base my decisions on them? No, not all. Especially since the majority of nicks are based on sample sizes small enough to be statistically irrelevant.[/QUOTE]

This is not entirely true. Yes, with freshman sires and or stallions that only have a few crops certain assumptions are made as I said in my previous comments.
Stallions that have numerous crops to work from the data does make an argument. I would not say the majority sample sizes are small enough to be statistically irrelevant. Plenty are and like I said all information, data is only as good as the person extrapolating. Regardless of the widget.

Having had some lengthy discussions with some of the people who started the Nicking Businesses there is far more thought behind the data then what you are stating.
Like I said Nicks are only one of many tools to work from.

[spotted_draft_x_fill]

The whole thing is a gamble. No matter how much thought, research, time, and effort is put into it, it’s still a gamble. Here’s an example: Curlin. They didn’t think much of him. Thought he was ugly, wasn’t worth anything, he spent most of his time outside, they didn’t prep him as much as the others, and were surprised that he sold for as much as he did at the sales. They didn’t think it was a good cross and that he wouldn’t amount to much at the track.

Another Valerenzie (or whatever his name is now) multi million dollar super hyped up yearling that really hasn’t done much. I’m sure he had all the right ratings for his breeding.

If you like how the horse looks, has the pedigree for what you’re looking to do, I wouldn’t let numbers make my decision.

[SportArab]

I would say that any time I breed, the first thing I consider is whether the the stallion’s phenotype compliments my mare’s. Then I look at whether the the stallion’s phenotype matches his genotype.

After all of that I’ll start looking for possible nicks that have worked in the past. It’s a consideration, but not the most important factor.

[merrygoround]

A Breeder’s Dream!

In QH breeding the Chicado V, breeding to Three Bars worked out phenomenally well. Every breeders dream.

Chicado V (1950 – February 1972) was a Champion Quarter Horse race horse foaled (born) in 1950, and considered one of the outstanding broodmares of her breed.[1] She was bred by Frank Vessels of Los Alamitos, California, and trained by Earl Holmes.
Chicado V started only six times because knee problems cut short her racing career. However, she won her first two starts while breaking or equaling track records, and was given the title of co-Champion Quarter Running Two-Year-Old Filly by the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) in 1952. The next year she ran her last four races, winning once and setting one more speed record. After her last race, in December 1953, she was retired from the track to become a broodmare, and had nine foals. Two of her offspring were named Champion Quarter Running Horses, and all her foals had a total of seven stakes race wins. One of her daughters, Table Tennis, went on to become a noted broodmare herself, as did Table Tennis’ daughter Rapid Volley and granddaughter Perks. However, three of Chicado V’s sons—Triple Chick, Three Chicks, and The Ole Man—were her best known offspring; all three became leading sires and are the main cause of her fame. She was inducted into the AQHA’s American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2006.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=camohn;7496821]
I am looking into nicks in regards to race sales because in the past I have had some race inquiries on my sport bred tb yearlings.so this time around I am keeping that in mind. If I have 2 stallions I really like for sport and looking at race nicks one is a D and one is A++ maybe I should consider it as a tie breaker for future sales options. I have one mare of non descript pedigree I bought because I saw her first 2 foals… Verygoodlooking offspring. The others have very classy pedigrees… Either they didn’t run well or sustained injuries like chipped knees[/QUOTE]

If you are breeding for the Thoroughbred sales especially using regional stallions I would not breed on a D nick. If the mare’s pedigree is strong enough to take the resulting foal to any sale these days and hope to realize some sort of profit then it should be strong enough to spend the money to ship to KY and breed to a stallion that will give you a much higher probability or realizing a profit. Whether regional stallion owners like or not a $5,000 stallion standing in KY carries a lot more weight in the sales ring then a $5,000 stallion standing in PA. Yes, a Pa breeders gives up 10% in breeders awards breeding to an out of state stallion but 20% is still attractive enough. The horse has to be a runner to get anything to start with so you might as well have as much sire power working for you both on the race track and the sales ring.
The buyers at the mid-Atlantic yearling sales are not as sophisticated as those at the KY sales. They don’t buy solely on a nick rating and or sire but they put more stock into them then others. They also only want bargains. Most of the horses we have bred for the regional market have broken even at best in the sales ring. Though we have hit a few doubles and triples. But have more then made up the losses with Breeders Awards. The ones that run outside the state have generally sold very well so I am not worried if they will race in PA or not.
I can tell you this if you breed a mare with a marginal pedigree to a so, so stallion with a so, so Nick you better be prepared to give it away and hope it is a runner in the state. Or be prepared to race it.

Advise is generally only as good as what you pay for it. Yes, this is free but it would be some of the same advise that I am paid for. I don’t think any of my paying clients read this forum.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=spotted draft x filly;7496669]
Unfortunately sometimes all it means the horse looks good on paper.[/QUOTE]

Well, considering when I sign a breeding contract for the next year all I will have to look at will be a “good looking page” it seems to me that is a good place to start.
And hope in 2 years when I go to market I have a lot more then that working for me.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;7496690]
Most of the time it doesn’t even mean that. You can have a foal by an unraced sire out of an unraced mare and still have an A++ nick.[/QUOTE]

Plenty of unraced mares, none winners, claiming have produced some of the best racehorses. But one thing they all have in common by and large is creditable family behind them.

I hear what you are saying but a no name sire out of a no name mare with no family will not give get an A++ nick. At least it shouldn’t. If you have an example of one I would like to see it. I will bring it to the attention of the people who developed the Nicking programs and get an explanation. I know most of them by first name. And have taken them to task over the years. They will get back to me and I will post their comments.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=spotted draft x filly;7498289]
The whole thing is a gamble. No matter how much thought, research, time, and effort is put into it, it’s still a gamble. Here’s an example: Curlin. They didn’t think much of him. Thought he was ugly, wasn’t worth anything, he spent most of his time outside, they didn’t prep him as much as the others, and were surprised that he sold for as much as he did at the sales. They didn’t think it was a good cross and that he wouldn’t amount to much at the track.

Another Valerenzie (or whatever his name is now) multi million dollar super hyped up yearling that really hasn’t done much. I’m sure he had all the right ratings for his breeding.

If you like how the horse looks, has the pedigree for what you’re looking to do, I wouldn’t let numbers make my decision.[/QUOTE]

Yup, to a certain extent I agree it is a gamble. There are so many variables that breeders have no control over
.
Sometimes I think I might as well tear the pages of stallions I like out of the stallion directory put them up on the wall bring in the monkey and have him throw darts.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=LaurieB;7496827]
A nick is a guideline based on a very small portion of a potential pedigree–sirelines only, and often calculated from what worked with a grandsire or great-grandsire. They’re a marketing tool that exists to sell…more nicks. (And horses to people who believe that a hypothetical letter grade is more important and easier to understand than the horse standing in front of them.)

Do I look at them when planning matings? Sure. Do I base my decisions on them? No, not all. Especially since the majority of nicks are based on sample sizes small enough to be statistically irrelevant.[/QUOTE]

What stallions are you breeding to? Always like to hear what other people are thinking.

[LaurieB]

[QUOTE=gumtree;7498224]
This is not entirely true. Yes, with freshman sires and or stallions that only have a few crops certain assumptions are made as I said in my previous comments.
Stallions that have numerous crops to work from the data does make an argument. I would not say the majority sample sizes are small enough to be statistically irrelevant. Plenty are and like I said all information, data is only as good as the person extrapolating. Regardless of the widget.

Having had some lengthy discussions with some of the people who started the Nicking Businesses there is far more thought behind the data then what you are stating.
Like I said Nicks are only one of many tools to work from.[/QUOTE]

I just got back from visiting a beautiful 3 day old filly we bred whose pedigree illustrates perfectly what I’m trying to say. When planning and booking the mating that produced her (Nov. 2012) I ran a hypomating that came with a True Nicks report. The filly is by Blame and o/o an Afleet Alex mare. True Nicks rated the mating A++ “Based on the cross of Kris S. and his sons and grandsons and Afleet and his sons and grandsons.”

Considering that Kris S. appears in the 3rd generation of the foal’s pedigree and Afleet appears in the 4th generation, it’s clear that only a miniscule portion of the pedigree (19.25 % to be precise) has even been considered in rating the nick. Yes, Blame is a new sire, but his sire Arch has plenty of foals from which to draw conclusions. Apparently not enough however (see my comment above about sample size) because the nicking program jumped back yet another generation.

On the dam’s side, the nicking program skipped over both Afleet Alex and his sire Northern Afleet before coming to rest on his sire Afleet. So it turns out that the nick rating is based solely on an affinity between two stallions that were born in 1977 and 1984.

The thing that I personally liked best about the mating (aside from the physical match) was the inbreeding to Special. But of course since she is a mare, that information is immaterial to a nicking program. The remaining, unexamined, portion of the foal’s pedigree (80.25%) contains some interesting and useful horses too but since they don’t appear in either of the direct sirelines, once again their potential contribution is not considered.

I have no doubt that much time and thought goes into creating, producing, and marketing a nicking product. I just wish that the data was more useful in the real world.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=merrygoround;7498453]
In QH breeding the Chicado V, breeding to Three Bars worked out phenomenally well. Every breeders dream.

Chicado V (1950 – February 1972) was a Champion Quarter Horse race horse foaled (born) in 1950, and considered one of the outstanding broodmares of her breed.[1] She was bred by Frank Vessels of Los Alamitos, California, and trained by Earl Holmes.
Chicado V started only six times because knee problems cut short her racing career. However, she won her first two starts while breaking or equaling track records, and was given the title of co-Champion Quarter Running Two-Year-Old Filly by the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) in 1952. The next year she ran her last four races, winning once and setting one more speed record. After her last race, in December 1953, she was retired from the track to become a broodmare, and had nine foals. Two of her offspring were named Champion Quarter Running Horses, and all her foals had a total of seven stakes race wins. One of her daughters, Table Tennis, went on to become a noted broodmare herself, as did Table Tennis’ daughter Rapid Volley and granddaughter Perks. However, three of Chicado V’s sons—Triple Chick, Three Chicks, and The Ole Man—were her best known offspring; all three became leading sires and are the main cause of her fame. She was inducted into the AQHA’s American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2006.[/QUOTE]

I assume this is the same family that owns Vessels Stallion Farm?
http://www.vesselsstallionfarm.com/stallions.php

[LaurieB]

[QUOTE=gumtree;7498559]
What stallions are you breeding to? Always like to hear what other people are thinking.[/QUOTE]

We have foals due this year by Arch, Blame, Ghostzapper, Broken Vow, and Creative Cause.

For 2015 we’re breeding to More Than Ready, Animal Kingdom, Congrats, and Colonel John.

How about you? Who are you breeding to?

[Linny]

Nicks are a tool. Like anything based in statistics, they are only as good as the information available. As LaurieB points out, if the system is relying on 2 stallions well back in the pedigree, it is probably less accurate. When dealing with stallions like Mr. P and ND there is tons of data. Those sires had long careers and their offspring went into breeding programs at a rate probably higher than average. As a result, the stats reflected more input. Blame’s sire, Arch and his sire Kris S don’t have nearly as many representatives in production.
As GumTree states, nicks are important enough to breeders and buyers to be worth using. If the sale price is 20% higher because of a high rating, you’d be crazy not to use it.
There seem to be certain patterns that do well and others that don’t. When I first started following racing, the “Nasrullah over Princequillo” pattern was evident everywhere. Thanks to WWII, that nick was dominant in the 50’s-60’s. The Phipps’ owned Bold Ruler and because of their connection to Claiborne had many Princequillo mares. They rode the gravy train on the nick (until they lost Secretariat in a coin toss) but the ride ended when they started breeding their Bold Ruler daughters to their other champion, Buckpasser. That stallion over Bold Ruler mares would have probably rated a Z-.

In addition to nicks, I tend to look for affinities between the family (dam, 2nd, 3rd dams and their daughters) and certain sire lines or sire families.

No matter what, you still need to look at the mare objectively. You need to match her with the proper physical type and avoid the potential of magnifying any flaws in the foal. If the foal will be sold, you have to consider the commercial viability of the stallion and try to project what the impression of that stallion will be 2+ years in the future when the foal is being sold. (A friend stretched her budget a few years back to go to a nice young KY stallion. By the time her colt sold, the stallion had recently been banished to a regional market and was thus branded as a “flop.”)

Native Dancer and Man O’ War each had several full siblings. I doubt anyone could name any of them. Secretariat’s full sister The Bride was won by the Phipps’ in the coin toss that sent Secretariat to Chenery. The Bride was slow and not much of a producer either. There is an element of random chance to all of it. Nicking is an attempt at neutralizing some of the effect of chance.

[camohn]

[QUOTE=gumtree;7498177]
I’m breeding a few mares locally, PA and MD and should be using a couple stallions at N-V PA. Because we breed a number of mares I can usually get some pretty good discounts. If you would like I could include your mare with ours and get something like 25% off if not more. If interested clicking on my screen name will give you my direct contract information. Direct email me the list of stallions you are looking at and I will see what I can do. Happy to give you my thoughts on each also. We’ve bred to Medallist in the past got a nice foal.[/QUOTE]

wow that is a super nice offer!! mare i am looking for is from USFlag/ Roanoke/
Rock Point
lines. She is short (15.1) and can be temperamental. she could use a higher set on neck and height, need a stallion with good temperament/ trainability for what i am trying to fix in her. She has a short dam, everything on her sire side is big/ over 16H …so is more size in her pedigree.PM you a little later.

[camohn]

[QUOTE=spotted draft x filly;7498289]
The whole thing is a gamble. No matter how much thought, research, time, and effort is put into it, it’s still a gamble. .[/QUOTE]

It always is…no matter what discipline you breed for. I have 2 colts that are full brothers. Other than both being black …well they don’t look alike at all. One is the spitting image of his dam, the other his maternal damsire. stuff in the woodpile pops up . You just try and learn as much about the woodpile as you can, and see what the genetic soup gives you from there.

[SportArab]

It’s been my experience in nearly 30 years of breeding, that you see the grandparents much more often than you see the parents in the foal.

There is the occasional prepotent mare or stallion that throws baby after baby in their own image.

[camohn]

its off topic…but long time no see SportArab!
pic of the list leader at present…
http://www.northviewstallions.com/index.php/stallions/pa-sires/medallist
In the big picture I see a nicely balanced looking horse, nick aside.Physically I am looking for a nicer set on neck for my mare, and I do like his neck…

[SportArab]

Yes… wondered how you were doing…

I’ve been buried under the regular writing work and the fast track book. Finally getting a chance to relax and get those ponies trained.

[camohn]

wasn’t doing much breeding for a couple years there…for a lot of reasons that overlapped. My day job got crazy busy, my mother was terminally ill and any free time was spent taking her to doctor/chemo appointments and the economy/horse sales were bad. so…took a hiatus for a bit. Now the economy/ horse sales have picked up, Mom passed away last August and things are slow at the day job. so…back to spending time on the ponies!