b4breeding

Ohoka breeder and vet Bruce Taylor (with co-breeder Bruce Kennedy) has an interesting Changeover filly on offer at the Premier yearling sale in Christchurch.

He describes the filly as a lovely, striking looking one, a typical Changeover being a bigger and scopey type, with a big bum and strong neck.

The filly’s dam is My Life, a 16yo Life Sign mare who was imported from North America for breeding purposes more than 10 years ago, by Bruce Taylor, Bruce Kennedy and Danny Boyle. My Life’s dam is where things get very familiar – she’s Mica Lobell (by Temujin from Ms Romeo Waverly), and is of course Live Or Die’s dam.

Live Or Die, half brother to My Life who has a Changeover filly Lot 315 in the 2016 Premier Yearling Sale.

So given the enduring respect and popularity of Live Or Die (particularly in the years around 2000 to 2005 when he was serving large books of mares), importing his half sister to breed from must have ticked many boxes. But the hoped for success turned out to be very elusive; Boyle drifted away, and more recently Kennedy has ended his interest, and so now Taylor is the one left with the mare for any future breeding.

Her first foal (born 2005) was by Red River Hanover, and qualified here, was sold to Australia and scratched out 3 wins and 15 places from 64 starts.

After that, the mare proved impossible to produce a foal for another 5 years until a Badlands Hanover colt came along in 2010. He was just average. The following year the mare had a Royal Mattjesty colt that Taylor describes as a magnificent type and was headed for the yearling sales but got kicked and ended up having to have an operation, so was withdrawn from the sales. They tried him as a racehorse and he did look promising but as soon as the pressure came on the damaged hock started playing up again. Taylor says he developed into a lovely natured horse and is now enjoying life as a hack.

My Life’s third foal (born 2012) was a breeding arranged by Boyle. The chosen sire was Rob Roy Mattgregor and Brisbane Pastoral, the owners of that sire, took the resulting colt foal. Brisbane Pastoral Company Ltd (Steve Clements) leased many mares at that time to help build up the sire’s book, and I am presuming it was one of those deals. Interestingly, Rob Roy Mattregor comes from the maternal line of Leah Almahurst (K Nora), so possibly a bit of conscious doubling up going on in that match with a Life Sign mare (K Nora). The foal, named Walter Mattgregor, was exported to Australia in early 2014 and is now a 3yo but yet to show up in the Australian statistics.

The mare missed to Changeover in 2013, but foaled this Lot 315 filly by him in 2014 – nicely named Change Of Tempo.

As I mentioned, Bruce Taylor is pretty much left with the mare now and wondering what direction to take. He’s keen to step up in terms of the quality of a sire, and has been considering Art Major as an option. That has an intriguing double up with brother and sister Romeo Hanover (sire of Ms Romeo Waverley in My Life’s maternal line) and Romona Hanover (dam of Rodine Hanover in Art Major’s maternal line). They are, of course, from the great Romola Hanover/Romola Hal line.

Another option is to look at My Life as a Life Sign mare with all the potential modern connections to the stunning K Nora/Adora maternal family, which we’ve looked at in detail in previous blogs. And that would lead you in the direction of American Ideal for a 3×3 to the great mare Three Diamonds, and a 5x6x5 to K Nora herself.  (He’s Watching would be another option in this regard but that cross results in a 4×2 to Life Sign which I would be wary of.)

Or you could go back to the Mica Lobell well, and try something like Terror To Love who has Live Or Die as his damsire. But is doubling up the Mica Lobell connection the wise way to go?

The fact is, Mica Lobell produced several really nice racehorses – 10 winners from her 15 foals – with Live Or Die ($728,264) and Sea The USA ($765,521, by Seahawk Hanover), and Presidential Power ($218,993) the best of them. But as a maternal line, it is not kicking on at the level or with the consistency that you might expect.

At this stage, I think Bruce Taylor is heading in the right direction – forget the Live Or Die factor and play to the mare’s strongest enduring elements in her pedigree (those modern classic maternal lines I mentioned above) and match to the most proven and commercial sires who also have those elements or ones that click well with them.