Bill Oppenheim, Feb. 20, 2013-Top Damsires TOP DAMSIRES I had planned to finish up this cycle of APEX and A Runner analysis with some detail about broodmare sires, historical as well as current, and that is still the plan. In the meantime, in doing some further research last week, we discovered a group of 651 A Runners from 2010 who had unaccountably disappeared from the year-end 2012 cumulative file of A Runners. They were there at the end of 2011, but sometime along the way, they went for a walk, and we lost them. They have now been found and restored, but it does mean a lot of the information on sires of >Uniq A= Runners which we ran last week needs to be corrected. Fortunately, the G1-G2 winners among them didn=t disappear from that file, so that data is exactly as you saw. Also fortunately, no sires look worse; the sires of the 651 lost A Runners just look better. This discovery does mean the correct percentage of A Runners to Named Foals of Racing Age is 3.62%, rather than 3.42%--one out of every 27.5 instead of one out of every 29. The percentage of G1-G2 winners remains the same--0.715% (1 in 140), but the proportion of G1-G2 winners from Uniq A Runners drops slightly to 19.75%, still just about one in five. To see the corrected file with all 1003 sires, listed alphabetically, click here. There are two main problems with trying to identify leading living broodmare sires: first, it=s a little bit like jumps sires--by the time you know how good they are, half of them are dead; and, second, there is a perceived randomness in American pedigrees now--nobody knows quite what they=re looking at when they see a lot of the names. Accordingly, since we=re usually focused so intently on sire performance statistics, we thought it might be useful to have a brief look at broodmare sires. First, we have a list of contemporary broodmare sires, with the number of Uniq A Runners their daughters have produced, organized by their year of first foals, from sires with first foals 1994 through sires with first foals 2003. There are a few standout performers we can identify: Cont. p2 Bill Oppenheim is now on Twitter at www.twitter.com/billoppenheim
Transcript
Bill Oppenheim, Feb. 20, 2013-Top Damsires
TOP DAMSIRES I had planned to finish up this cycle of APEX and ARunner analysis with some detail about broodmaresires, historical as well as current, and that is still theplan. In the meantime, in doing some further researchlast week, we discovered a group of 651 A Runnersfrom 2010 who had unaccountably disappeared fromthe year-end 2012 cumulative file of A Runners. Theywere there at the end of 2011, but sometime along theway, they went for a walk, and we lost them. Theyhave now been found and restored, but it does mean alot of the information on sires of >Uniq A= Runnerswhich we ran last week needs to be corrected.Fortunately, the G1-G2 winners among them didn=tdisappear from that file, so that data is exactly as yousaw. Also fortunately, no sires look worse; the sires ofthe 651 lost A Runners just look better. This discoverydoes mean the correct percentage of A Runners toNamed Foals of Racing Age is 3.62%, rather than3.42%--one out of every 27.5 instead of one out ofevery 29. The percentage of G1-G2 winners remainsthe same--0.715% (1 in 140), but the proportion ofG1-G2 winners from Uniq A Runners drops slightly to19.75%, still just about one in five. To see thecorrected file with all 1003 sires, listed alphabetically,click here. There are two main problems with trying to identifyleading living broodmare sires: first, it=s a little bit likejumps sires--by the time you know how good they are,half of them are dead; and, second, there is a perceivedrandomness in American pedigrees now--nobody knowsquite what they=re looking at when they see a lot of thenames. Accordingly, since we=re usually focused sointently on sire performance statistics, we thought itmight be useful to have a brief look at broodmare sires. First, we have a list of contemporary broodmaresires, with the number of Uniq A Runners theirdaughters have produced, organized by their year offirst foals, from sires with first foals 1994 through sireswith first foals 2003. There are a few standoutperformers we can identify:
Cont. p2
Bill Oppenheim is now on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/billoppenheim
$ First foals 1994: A.P. Indy hasn=t been eight timeschampion APEX sire for nothing, sire of 158 (corrected)Uniq A Runners and 54 G1-G2 winners. He=s equallyimpressive as a broodmare sire, with 96 Uniq A
Runners as a broodmare sireby the end of 2012, and withcrops still to run for him, he=sa long way from finished inthat sphere. If you race inNorth America, anyways,surely an A.P. Indy marewould be the number onetarget for any broodmarebuyer. Historically,all-American sires are fine asbroodmare sires in Europe:
Halo, for example, never worked a yard in Europe as asire, yet was the broodmare sire of Machiavellian. So,even though 90% of A.P. Indy=s A runners as abroodmare sire so far are in North America, classusually trumps regional differences when it comes tothe broodmare sire. Whether that works out or not,A.P. Indy is just as good a broodmare sire as he=s beena sire.
$ First foals 1995: Kingmambo, another real class actwho stood, as did A.P. Indy, at Lane=s End, Kingmambois now the damsire of 64 Uniq A Runners and counting.It=s not a huge surprise: his own damsire, Nureyev, was
a great broodmare sirebefore him. From ourstudies, the interestingthing about Kingmamboas a broodmare sire isthat a fair few of thedams of at least his earlygood horses as abroodmare sire wereunraced--quite a bithigher proportion thannormal. I=m a big believer
that >class trumps all,= and I reckon Kingmambo is agreat example of that. He crosses well with just aboutanything, too, though both as a sire and damsire hedoesn=t much seem to like another dose of Mr.Prospector as the sire or damsire when he is in theother slot.
$ First foals 1996: Here=s a surprise--Dehere, whoonly sired five crops in North America before he was
sold to Australia (and also stoodin Japan, where he has a few ARunners as a broodmare sire),before coming back to the U.S.,then finally being sold on toTurkey in the Coolmore packagedeal which also included LionHeart and Powerscourt. He=snow the damsire of 43 ARunners, much the best among
F1996 sires. Barathea (31) has also done well in thatdepartment.
A.P. Indy Lane’s End photo
“Though both Arqana (which included the Sylvia Wildenstein dispersal in 2012) and Goffs were down on gross from last year, as in all mixed sales the prices reflect more what are in the catalogues (even with supplements) than any movement of the market one way or the other. With the January- Februrary Mixed Sales now in the books, the North American and European market’s attention now turns to the 2-year-old sales, beginning next month. We’ll be back on March 12 with the first of those results. Thanks for listening.”
$ First foals 1997: French Deputy, like Dehere a sonof Deputy Minister (himself among the top 10broodmare sires of A Runners with 169) leads thisgroup with 37. He was sold to Japan, but still, likeDehere, the majority of his A Runners as a broodmaresire are in North America. Thunder Gulch (26) has alsodone well as a broodmare sire.
$ First foals 1998: Two standouts here--Unbridled=sSong, with 39 A Runners as a broodmare sire, andSmart Strike, with 36. Both may ultimately turn out tobe better as broodmare sires than as sires of sires,though both are still active, and will have more sons togo to stud (and Unbridled=s Song has First Defence, andSmart Strike none other than Curlin, with their first3-year-olds this year). However, you=d be very happy tohave daughters of either one to be breeding from; bothare clearly very good in this sphere.
$ First foals 1999-2003: Early days still, for most ofthese; after all, the oldest foals even by F1999 sireshave just turned 14. The one who does seem to betaking off as a broodmare sire is F2002 Giant=sCauseway, whose 11 A Runners as a broodmare sire sofar, with his first foals just turned 11, looks verypromising.
Cumulative Broodmare Sires... The APEX database begins with racing of 1983; inthe last 30 years, there have been 132 stallions whohave sired 50 or more A Runners as broodmare sires.Given that Northern Dancer=s first crop was foaled in1966 and were already 17 by 1983, no doubt hiscareer totals will be considerably more than the 159 ARunners of which he was the broodmare sire from1983 on. But for most of the sires, these will be careertotals as broodmare sires, and how amazing was Mr.Prospector, with an incredible 323 A Runners as abroodmare sire! Northern Dancer=s hoofprints are allover this list, as you=d expect, with sons Sadler=s Wells(226), Nijinsky (205), Nureyev (174), Lyphard (169),and Danzig (158), and grandsons Deputy Minister (169)and Storm Cat (167), and Northern Dancer himself(159) filling eight of the top 11 places--so much foravoiding inbreeding to Northern Dancer! Sunday Silence(180) and Seattle Slew (168) are the only non NorthernDancer-line horses with more than 150 A Runners asbroodmare sires at the end of 2012. I know lists likethese are of primarily historical significance, but they=restill pretty interesting to look at every once in a while. Apologies again for the dropped 651 A Runners inlast week=s lists, but we=re confident the lists we runthis week, as well as the click-through list of all 1003sires, are now accurate. Please use these lists, not lastweek=s. And, on that note, this column is off on holidayfor the next two weeks; the column and WST resumeMar. 12. We=ll be paying attention, though, so therecould be Tweets, or even Blogs in the meantime.
