I have a response from Dot Schmidt in Australia which may answer the question posed in a previous blog – and initially by Harvey Kaplan – about the Bettor’s Delight over Falcon Seelster mare cross being so much more potent in America than it has been in Australia or New Zealand. I listed some possible reasons, and flagged up that this is not unique to the Bettor’s Delight/FS cross.
Dot has put forward this explanation:
I think you’ll find the disparity here and for all sires that have stood in the US/Canada and downunder is that we register all the foals they produce whereas up there they don’t. The yearling catalogues from the non APG sales here in Oz (Australia) have North American and Australian sire winner percentages in the stallion bios at the back and NA percentages for winners are always around 10% better, sometimes more,once a stallion has a reasonable number of foals in both hemispheres. Of course there is some variation as a result of the different genetics of the mare populations but most of it is the different registration process.
I don’t think the Americans have to register the foals until they want to sell or race them. The BD/FS cross up there does seem very impressive still all the same.
Thanks for that, Dot. Any other comments (on this page using the respond feature, or to me at bee.raglan@xtra.co.nz are welcomed.
b4breeding 