b4breeding

Quality mares are the foundation of the standardbred industry. Brilliance can come from anywhere, but long-lasting quality is something else.

Although we remember the names of the brilliant racehorses, often the really great maternal lines are built on the qualities of those mares who were not stars on the track. Many are good or very good performers, but may be retired to breed with a handful of wins and perhaps $20 – 40,000 to their name. These “middle range” mares, often from consistent families, prove to be a good breeding investment, whereas the stars can struggle to leave good performers, certainly in their first generation, and hardly ever leave one better than themselves.

4yo mares are one of my favourite categories of racehorses.  Their sires often include those who needed time and will eventually add real value as broodmare sires even if they lacked the flash of leaving fast enough 2yo colts. I’m thinking of Helena Jet and Whisper Jet (Jereme’s Jet) and Christy Breanna (Lis Mara), and Tactful Lady (McArdle) as examples, and even Chillyjustastrutter (Sutter Hanover) and Lauramegan (Tinted Cloud) as examples of mares with sires that are currently less fashionable but have real quality in their own maternal lines.

In the Harness Jewels 4yo Diamond the final field had 3 mares by Bettor’s Delight, but as you can see from those listed above, the breeding was very open apart from that.

I have done a “breeders summary” of the field, and will do several more, using the fields from Harness Jewels as small groups of good age performers. I will also look at the fields from some of the early Jewels fillies and mares races and see what has happened to those in terms of their breeding career.

Breeding summary 4yo Diamond – located under the Articles section which you can reach on the tabs across the top of my blog.