He’s Watching, Alabar stallion parade October 2015. Photo: Bee Pears
When I wrote the previous blog on the sales yearlings bred on the American Ideal x Life Sign cross, I got diverted into seeing how other double ups with important mares from the K Nora line could happen, and what had already been tried here with our limited resources.
I edited much of that out, and it is now part of this extended blog looking at our potential downunder to dip into the K Nora/Adora pool in a number of different ways. Please comment if you find other options of interest, particularly in Australia where timings and numbers, siring and even Adora descendant options might be different.
As Australian blog reader C Rookwood notes in his comment on the last blog: “Another way to get the Three Diamonds double up is American Ideal/Real Desire mare. Yes, absolutely, and in his case an American Ideal colt foal from a dam by Real Desire out of a Panorama mare, so in his mare he already has a duplication to another very good maternal line, aka Golden Miss. That is impressive. It is the same other strong maternal line that He’s Watching brings of course, via Real Desire. You also find a mix of the K Nora and Golden Miss families in $3.7m earner Mr Feelgood.
Mr Feelgood in the winners circle, 2006 Little Brown Jug
Photo: Bee Pears
Just before I go into some of these other cross options, I did take a look at the closer Australian crosses with American Ideal x Life Sign mares – in total 12 to date, and about half of those are 2yos or younger, so it’s really hard to get a line on anything from small numbers. So far the best performers are Life’s Just Magic (49 starts, 9 wins) and Spinner’s Boy (15 starts, 6 wins).
So let’s have a look at what other crosses deliver crosses to Three Diamonds or the K Nora/Adora line. Here’s part 2 of the blog:
American Ideal is offering more opportunities to achieve multiple influences of the Adora/K Nora family, and his coming of age as a sire is also well timed to catch breeding mares not just from Life Sign himself, but also from some of his sons – Day In A Life, I Am A Fool, Island Fantasy and (like He’s Watching) Real Desire.
But in many of these cases, the double ups are moving back in the pedigree and may not be situated in particularly influential positions. For example their influence is going through two males (e.g. Three Diamonds to Life Sign to Real Desire), rather than what seems to be a more influential female-to-male-to-female or female-to-female relationship. What we might call the “x factor” line. The numbers are so small here, that drawing conclusions is impossible. But it is still worth taking a look – and a punt that quality + quality will result in better quality. In New Zealand and Australia to date there is just a scattering of these sons of Life Sign mares going to American Ideal and it would be foolish to try to draw conclusions one way or another. You can check out the NZ ones on the HRNZ Info Horse website by filtering American Ideal progeny on damsire. My own view is that each of these sons of Life Sign is a different package in terms of pedigree and in their ability to pass quality genes and other attributes as a damsire, and for some of them the drivers may be less Life Sign/Three Diamonds, and more influences from their own maternal lines. Both Real Desire (via Whispering Sands, a daughter of Shifting Sands) and Day In A Life (via Strike Out, a half brother to Shifting Sands) bring in the Golden Miss family which, as noted above, may complement the K Nora family.
In future there may be a reverse way of getting these strong female double ups, and that is through American Ideal as a damsire. In New Zealand he has 11 damsire credits to date, none of the mares going to sires with K Nora influence in their pedigree. Of potential sires, only Mr Feelgood and sons of Western Ideal meet the criteria at the moment as far as I can see, with He’s Watching being too close, Mr Feelgood not getting much traction here unfortunately, and sons of Western Ideal (like sons of Life Sign) really putting the Leah Almahurst factor in a position where it may not be particularly influential. So a sire with perhaps Life Sign as his damsire or grandamsire is what we are looking for.
What about the Leah Almahurst branch of K Nora?
Leah Almahurst. Photo from Gene Riegle Memorial website
Going back to the American Ideal x Life Sign cross offspring in New Zealand…. Remember there are 8 produced on that direct cross. Included in the 8 is Ideal Romance a mare who is bred and owned by Brisbane Pastoral Company Ltd and was exported to Australia in July this year but not yet sighted racing. Perhaps is going straight into breeding? She is of interest because (like He’s Watching), her maternal line adds two K Nora strands, one from Life Sign and the other via Angel Hair, who is Leah Almahurst’s grandam. Pedigree link here. Ideal Romance is from the American-bred mare Ashley’s Romance imported downunder and bred by Bromac Lodge and Cee Bee Holdings Ltd before selling her to Brisbane Pastoral Company Ltd.
As well as some imported mares, we are getting to a stage when Leah Almahurst will start appearing in the maternal pedigrees, through Make A Deal mares (so far only one bred on the American Ideal cross), Western Ideal mares (perhaps too inbred to go to American Ideal although Charlie Roberts has not shied away from it), and eventually Mr Feelgood, Rob Roy Mattgregor and He’s Watching mares. In Australia there may be other, different possibilities as well with Leah Almahurst or other descendants from Adora – let me know. I see Mr Feelgood has just had his first damsire credit in Australia – a colt foal born in October 2015 by, yes you guessed it, American Ideal.
In New Zealand we have only about 16 fillies or mares by Western Ideal, and the 3 ones doing most of the breeding so far are Lisconnie, Western Starr, and San Rafaella. Lisconnie, bred and owned by Charlie Roberts of Woodlands Stud, has gone 3 times to American Ideal (the 2yo and yearling already exported to Australia), but the others have made different choices, mainly to Artplace or one of his sons, or to Bettor’s Delight.
And another branch of K Nora – Halo
Tas Man Bromac and driver Nathan Williams. Photo Otago Daily Times.
There is another good horse bred here with a different K Nora cross, the 4yo American Ideal gelding Tas Man Bromac (15 starts, 8 wins, 2 seconds, 3 thirds, Lt $64,363). This time there is no additional presence of Three Diamonds or Leah Almahurst, but his bottom line is also descended from Angel Hair, via a different branch – Halo. Pedigree link here. Again, the family was brought to New Zealand through Bromac Lodge importing the gelding’s dam Tasmcmanian. Interestingly, her latest breeding is to Western Ideal. (I should note that the mare has a yearling filly by Auckland Reactor in the 2016 sale at Christchurch Lot 424 Tempest Bromac. The pedigree page gives a nice summary of the recent descendants from this Angel Hair line, in this case the No Nukes mare Shy Devil.)
What is clear, is the strength of this K Nora maternal line, and nothing illustrates that better than how Three Diamonds and Leah Almahurst have kicked it into another gear in more recent times.
Just a section of the K Nora descendants tree in Classic Families
Three Diamonds. Photo from Gene Riegle Memorial website
You only have to look in Classic Families “Descendents” category for Three Diamonds and click through to see the male and female descendent results are simply stunning. There is a significant return on extended family matches with Western Ideal and American Ideal, but not solely. Do the same for the whole K Nora branches and it is fascinating how very good performers keep occurring. Again, some crosses with sires from other branches from the wider family work – but probably some haven’t and don’t even appear on the Classic Families radar. I have only shown a fraction of it in the clipping above. It’s worth taking a look yourself; many of you will already be familiar with it.
In summary then, the numbers are too small to draw any real conclusions. However the K Nora/Adora family is probably one of the top 3 of the modern pacing era and is driven currently by two extremely potent mares – Three Diamonds and Leah Almahurst. Linking back to their influence is not going to give you certain success. It won’t work miracles. But is is definitely likely to add value and quality to a pedigree.
I’ve blogged about this a number of times. Use my blog search on “K Nora” and “Three Diamonds” to find some earlier musings and information.
b4breeding 