Monthly Archives: March 2021

Inglis Easter Yearling Sale 2021

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The time honored Inglis Easter Yearling Sale 2021 will soon be upon us. The old tree may no longer be there, but the social comradery certainly will be. The Sale is skewed towards the Australian sires currently at the top of the premiership list. Of the 466 lots on offer, 55% come from the first 15 sires in the 2021 premiership table. Even though there isn’t a lot of variety, there are some interesting horses to look at. A contractual obligation limits the comments I can make in certain areas but I am free to report on some of my observations.

Japanese bred horses have a great record in Australia from very limited opportunities. Melbourne and Caufield Cups, Blue Diamond Stakes and a couple of Toorak Handicaps aren’t a bad record.  I have selected a Japanese bred horse by Deep Impact, and a yearling by More Than Ready as horses worth looking at.

Lot 103 (b or br c More Than Ready – Street ‘Em Shelia)

More than Ready is a remarkable sire and I have made comments about him before. He now ranks 43 in the world sire list and his sire line has 316 SW with 42 G1.  His progeny can win at any distance between 1000-2500m, depending what genes the dam brings to the table. The cross between sire lines More Than Ready X Street Cry has already produced three SW.

More Than Ready-Champion Sire for many years

  • Sesar (G2 Roman Consul Stakes 1100m and G3 Ken Russel Memorial 1200)
  • Miss Admiration (G3 Colin Stephens Stakes 2400m and G3 Japan Racing Assoc 2500m)
  • Mokarris (L Rose Bowl Stakes GB 6f)

Street ‘Em Shelia is part of a strong female family with a 6G female index of 11.9%. Green Dancer (3 G1, sire of 90 SW) and Authorized (joint world champion 3yo of 2007) are part of the female family. A PRI score of 96.0 points to a winner.

Lot 180 (b c Deep Impact – Admire Pink)

Deep Impact-World’s Number One Sire

Deep Impact is currently the world’s leading sire, a position he occupied in 2020. The cross between the sire lines of Deep Impact and King Kamehameha has a SW/R ratio of 14.3% and G1W/R ratio of 3.6%.  (For comparison a contemporary Australian combination is Redoute’s Choice x Encosta de Lago with SW/R 6.59% and G1W/R 1.5%). The cross Deep Impact X King Kamehameha has produced four SW. The best is Wagnerian winner of the G1 Tokyo Yushun Derby.

Admire Pink comes from a high-class female family with a 6GFI of 12.6%. Her position in the female family is further away from the black type action than I would like. Nevertheless, she is still part of the family. With a PRI score of 92.1, Lot 180 is worth a look.

While you are at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale 2021, stop to have a look at Lot 257. This filly (Snitzel –Crystal Flute) is bred on a Delta Cross about which we have made comments before. Soon, a horse bred on this type of cross is likely to be a super star. The question is which one?

Are Stallion Fees a Predictor of a Foal’s prize-winning Potential?

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Stallion fees are a poor predictor of a foal’s prize-winning potential. This conclusion was reached by A J Wilson and A Rambaut based on their work published in 2008 (Biol Lett 2008, April 23 4(2) :173-175. As few racehorse owners are avid readers of Bio Lett I thought it would be interesting to see if this work measures up against the current leading Australian stallions

Methodology

The Researchers used 554 active stallions and 4476 foals as their database. I have taken the current top ten sires in the Australian premiership list and calculated the racetrack performance of each of the top 10 horses of each sire. Their racing performance was rated as 4 points for a G1 win, 3 points for G2, 2 points for G3 and 1 point for a Listed race. I have called this Total Stakes Wins.

A Stallion service fee was due on each of these horses in the year before foaling. The total fees paid to each of the ten stallions is found by summing that paid for each of these best 10 progeny. The results are set down below in a simple XY scatter graph.

Results for Stallion Fees and Foals Potential

 

The results are given in the form of a scatter plot. A strong correlation would be at best a straight line fit. However, in this case the results are too independently variable to consider putting any straight line to link the points. Thus, I believe this data confirms the findings of A J Wilson and A Rambaut.  Stallion fees are a poor predictor of a foal’s prize-winning potential.

The graph has some degree of relevance. The stallion with the best rating has an Accumulation Service Fee of 198 and a Stake Performance rating of 93. But as time  passes and the data of most of the 10 best horses is now a few years old.  Stallion service fee have also changed. Another thing learned is that you don’t have to pay for expensive sires to get a good foal. Its all in the pedigrees. You still might have to pay big to get that..

MM Gold Coast March Yearling Sale 2021

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The quality of the yearlings in this year’s MM Gold Coast March Yearling Sale 2021 is not of the same standard as their first sale of the year. Of the 419 lots on offer, only seven horses are from sires present in the top ten of sires’ premiership list. In addition, the quality of broodmares is down to an average index of around 300 compared with 700 in the yearling sales held to date. Nevertheless, there are winners to be had -finding them is more difficult. Of the horses I have examined, one is of interest. Unfortunately the data is not available around him that I would like. 

The three sires of interest in the top ten are All too Hard (Lots 9,79,262,369,404), Pierro (Lot 28) and Zoustar (Lot 40). Of these I believe the latter is of most interest.

Lot 40 (Zoustar – Beyonce’s Star)

The analysis of the pedigree of this horse demonstrates the need to rely on secondary data if primary data is not available. Primary data is that produced by looking how well the sire and dam male line cross.  The PRI score for the above match is a low 58.5. This usually means a country class horse. However, in the case of Lot 40, 37.5% of the data is missing. Orientate, Mt Livermore and Tell have few descendants in Australia contributing to the pedigree. The low PRI score can be explained by the absence of data. But for more insight examination of the secondary data is necessary.

Fappiano: Is he the key to success?

  • The mare Beyonce’s Star is a SW and is the dam of a SW
  • Zoustar has already produced at least 17SW. I don’t know if his heroics of last Saturday have hit the record books yet. Certainly, a Newmarket Handicap quinella is pretty rare)
  • Zoustar has produced a stake winner/runners (S/R) ratio of 5.54% which compares favorably with a Redoute’s Choice benchmark of 4.61%
  • Orientate in the broodmare sire line has produced 25SW (16 male, 9 female) and has an S/R of 5.5%
  • The Orientate broodmare sire line crosses well to Fappiano in the male sire line. 36% of his 25 winners are crossed to Fappiano.

The data above and the fact that Zoustar is going from strength to strength suggests strongly that this colt is worth a look. He could well be the best buy in the MM Gold Coast March Yearling Sale 2021.