b4breeding

(A rich and elegant puzzle Part 2 of 3) Why do the sons of successful sires and top broodmares sometimes not make it as a sire? That’s the question I posed to New Zealand breeding consultant/writer Frank Marrion.

The proof of the pudding – by Frank Marrion

I think it is important to remember that no two horses are the same genetically.

You might have brothers and sisters and three quarter brothers from the same mare, but they will still be individuals with strengths and weaknesses.

The foals from Rich N Elegant are a good example.

I don’t know a lot about Richess Hanover, other than that he went amiss as a 2yo and has just been fair at stud standing in Illinois.

Rustler Hanover had some conformation issues which showed up in his foals, while Red River was a big horse who had ‘wheels in his head’ i.e. a nervous temperament. On the whole it seems many of the Red River Hanovers don’t want to ‘be there’ and lack that real genuine racehorse quality where they will always try their best whatever the limits of their ability.

As an individual, Red River was a very good horse of course, winning a North America Cup beating Mach Three, but after that he proved a very difficult horse to get the best out of because he had such a nervous disposition.

I can recall talking to Brett Pelling about him and he was saying that the horse was so ‘wired’, he would never sleep. We can almost certainly attribute this to his dam being by Direct Scooter. While that sire line is a legitimate source of speed, it is also a source of ‘craziness’ and the reason Direct Scooter was not a good sire of fillies.

Red River Hanover progeny and the Direct Scooter line generally produces horses that can be ‘fiery’ or ‘hot headed’ types. They may come with degrees of ability, but getting them to consistently show this or getting them to fulfil their potential, can be entirely different matters.

We can double up to Direct Scooter in various ways, one example being Red River Hanover over In The Pocket mares, and this can produce very ‘speedy’ horses, but one also runs the risk of breeding a horse which is just a lunatic and no racing proposition at all.

Rocknroll Hanover has done very well with his first crop, but it remains to be seen whether he can maintain that momentum with his follow up crops. He would have got a great book of mares when he first went to stud, but that quality mare support would have shifted to other sires straight off the track such as Somebeachsomewhere, because the American breeding scene is very much geared towards first crop sires at the yearling sales.

If there is a problem with a sire, that quality mare support just disguises the inevitable.

I don’t mean to bag Rocknroll Hanover, but I’m not getting too carried away just yet. Very few sires at all make it commercially, so I don’t see a surprise that Rich N Elegant’s foals have not transferred racecourse success to breeding barn success, outside of Rocknroll to date. That is just the way of things.

Pedigrees and bloodlines actually have very little to do with it when a sire does succeed – most of those sires that did find success weren’t rated at all when they first went to stud.

Meadow Skipper could hardly get mares for a start because he had a bad hitch in his gait, and look what he did!

It is mostly about the individual as a type, and whether or not they possess the genetics to be prepotent.

Most sires don’t…and you never really know that until the ‘proof of the pudding’…