b4breeding

Over the past 6 months I have written a series of articles for Harnessed magazine, which I have now posted as part of the list under the Articles section of this blog. You can find the Articles section on the tabs across the top of my blog.

The articles track the breeding performance of fillies and mares who participated in some of the great races of 10 or 20 years ago, and the last one of the series (which I will post up when it has been published in Harnessed) does the same for the sires who first stood here 10 years ago.

Researching these articles was both inspiring and depressing. Depressing because there are so many descending lines from mares which either end poorly or never even start. There are mares who are hardly given a chance in terms of quality sires, and mares that are given many, many chances for little reward. There are mares who miss or slip repeatedly, and mares that breed almost entirely one sex or the other. There are many top race mares who leave nothing nearly as good as themselves.

But the research was also inspiring, because there are mares (often brought cheaply) who have excelled on the race track and in the breeding barn, and mares who have kick-started a fading maternal line and given it two or three strong branches for the future. There are breeders who have upgraded families, and breeders who have successfully taken chances rather than played it safe.

It all shows just how tricky it is for a maternal line to continue on successfully over a decade or more, and how challenging it is to be a good breeder.

When you read these articles, remember that the statistics for progeny were correct at the time of writing. Many of the mares’ progeny will have raced and hopefully won since I wrote the articles, new foals will have been born, and yearlings sold for big or small prices at the 2015 or future yearling sales.

You are welcome to update, correct or add to the articles in the “Leave a comment” area at the bottom of the Harnessed magazine articles page.

Finally I urge you to subscribe to Harnessed magazine as a top quality monthly publication about harness racing and standardbred breeding in New Zealand, and insights from further afield. It is the official publication of Harness Racing New Zealand. You can subscribe here