There are two direct maternal descendants of Romola Hal racing in New Zealand today. Articulight, the Art Major gelding son of Light Of The South, is in Race 9 at 6.17pm, and My Rona Gold, the Klondike Kid mare from Dreamy Romance, is in Race 9 at Invercargill at 3.28pm. On 1 May Elliot Daniel chalked up another win – he’s descendant from Romalie Hanover via her son George Allen, as covered in Part 3 of this series. I want to say just a week bit more about Elliot Daniel while I’m thinking about it – he’s particularly interesting in that he has three quite close links to Romola Hal through his sire (Live Or Die) his damsire Sands A Flying as well as through his grandam Armbro Zip Zap.
Breeder Mike Finlayson writes about Light Of The South and breeding back to the herd
Mike Finlayson of “Finn” fame, bred the first foal by Art Major from Light Of The South, before she went to Brian Cowley. He adds some more insight on the breeding, but adds ‘Give a tip 0’ the hat to Ken MacKay of Premier Pedigrees because most of it is based on his work. In my view Ken is ahead of his time when it comes to standardbred breeding.” And I think many of us would concur with that.
Thought I’d chip in with a few comments on this mare for your most excellent blog on the Romola Hal’s line.
First off the O’Briens bred this mare. I got her to put to Art Major because it was a great opportunity to breed back into the herd through a set of full sisters. The family were also natural runners which was probably due to it tracing relatively close up to thoroughbred origins.
She was for sale for next to nothing through the Weekly. Light of the South didn’t have a great reputation when I got her. She was a lay-down-sally on the track when they tried her and when she arrived from up north she was SPCA material. Motherhood and TLC softened her and she was a great mum in the end.
I think the interesting thing in all this is that just because she went to Art Major and didn’t produce a champion first up doesn’t mean that it was a bad choice of stallion. The law of probabilty is 1 in 4, so theoretically you should patronise a sire four times for maximum results. This is directly related to the X factor theory that says that a union of each chromosome will produce a differing set of genes. Perhaps the best example of this is Pleasant Franco. She went to In the Pocket four times producing a champion in Christian Cullen, two good horses in Julius Caesar and Tiger Woods and a mare Dreamsaregold which was unraced and hasn’t produced anything of any significance.
Thus its difficult to draw conclusions about a cross based on one union.
I think the interesting thing in this particular discussion is that the law of probability is often overlooked in breeding. In other words one shot is often not enough to see if a cross works as you’ve only got a 1 in 4 chance of hitting the jackpot. That’s why I’ve put Eilish Finn back to Grinfromeartoear for the third time. She has produced two very good horses in Mac the Finn and That Guy Finn to Grin. I’m hoping this time will be the champion. But it may be a dud. Or it could be another good horse. Because the odds remain forever 1 in 4 for every mating.
I asked Mike if he thought it was important where the cross lay in the sire’s pedigree e.g. Art Major versus his son Art Official:
If you are breeding back to a superior female, it is better if the particular female is in the very bottom line of a proposed sire’s maternal pedigree although the duplication can be anywhere within the broodmare’s total pedigree. That way you are returning blood to the direct maternal line of the sire and that is considered a superior form of pedigree matching than breeding back into the sire’s paternal line (Ken MacKay).
b4breeding 