The Breeding Corner
This week in the Breeding Corner we take a look at retired mares in general. Many new players ask questions about retired mares and many long time players may enjoy another opinion on how to breed to your retired mare. The price break received for breeding retired mares is too irresistible to resist. That price break is something you want to make good use of while producing quality runners.
For me it starts with the mare or he-mare in question. The first two things to research are their pedigree and then their race record. Pedigrees come in many different variations and what might appear well bred to one trainer may appear modestly bred to another. One of the easier ways to determine how well bred a mare might be is to see how much a mare like that would cost to breed from scratch. The higher the price the better the pedigree, but keep in mind this is not exact. Sire ticker price do not represent actual ability, but in general this is a good way to help determine the class of a pedigree.
I do put emphasis on the race record. No matter what the breeding, if the mare or he mare never broke an 80 speed figure and raced in claimers mostly I will not breed them. You can take a look through claimers and see that these type mares (well bred, poor track record) litter the game with good pedigreed, crappy runners. You often end up with a runner that can only compete in claimers and because of the pedigree they are more likely to get claimed from you, so I’ll pass on that.
There are several things to look for in a mares race record. This goes for all mares but I am much more willing to over look short comings for a well bred mare. For anything that is not royally bred they absolutely have to have had some success on the track to peak my interest. I look for Non M/C/O/S wins. I will even go so far as to see what type of allowance races the horse won. If I see a string of CPU restricted or “T” restricted allowance wins I do not consider those to be any better than claiming wins. Stakes wins are ideal or placing in stakes races is nice.
The next thing to look at is earnings. I like to see at least $100k although this can be deceiving if the runner has run in residency races or bought races with larger purses. Any horse bumping around the sim in regular races earning $100k has some talent. Speed figures are a big thing for me. I look for their career best and then look at what they most commonly ran most times on the track. If a runner did not crack the 90 speed figure mark that is a negative for me unless they ran mostly at 12f-16f then my threshold is about 85. Ideally you have a runner that had run a 100+ speed figure at some point and ran mostly in the 90’s.
Once we have a mare that meets the race record criteria it is now time to look a little more at the major sire lines in her pedigree and her racing style. Unlike scratch breeding where you most often start by selecting a sire here we have to look at the mare’s sire and dam sire pretty closely. We look at the major sire lines already present in the pedigree, and this can often times point us in a certain direction to look for our potential sire. Then we look at what type of runner the mare was on the track. Was she a sprinter, a miler, a route runner, a turf runner, a long distance runner etc. Not only do I want to try to match or blend solid sire lines I want a sire that generally produces runners that fit the mares preferred distances and surface.
Well Bred (Top Sires) mares that were at least allowance winners, ran solid speed figures (90’s) I would breed to top sires. In some cases if lightly raced but ran poorly I will give them a shot with a top sire but if she did not produce I would not use her again in the future.
For those mares that are not royally bred I look at what I like to call second tier sires. They are sires that probably are overlooked, and under used in the sim but in real life they are successful sires capable of producing graded stakes winners. In a normal week, where breeding costs are at a more normal level, these sires fall into the 160-80 BP cost by the end of the week.
Maria’s Mon is one type of sire (young and on the rise) I like to use as an example of a mid tier sire. In real life he has produced a Kentucky Derby Winner and every year seems to have a runner on the derby trail or other graded stakes winners. You know in the sim he will be capable of producing a graded stakes winner. He only gets used about 40-45 times each year in the sim and you could say overall his production is not meeting expectations. A lot of that I think is the fact he is not used more. There is talent there and with the right mare you could have some good results.
Now that we have looked at the mares pedigree, race record, preferred distance and surface and over all class (well bred, cheap bred) we narrow down the search options for our potential sire. The great thing about mares is you will have years of experimenting with different sires, styles and chances.
I hope you have enjoyed more retired mare talk. As always if you have any questions, comments or sire requests feel free to drop me a line at mcbwildcat@aol.com. Please reference the Breeding Corner. Good Luck and Good Breeding