Breeding Puzzle – Continued

The continuing saga of Yellow Dog Racing’s bargain breeding program for 2018, as found in our ydracing23 stable.

A brief recap, I decided to select what I considered was our best brood mares that were available from way back when I started playing (2005 – 2010). Note: a lot of these mares were still hanging around in their stalls when I recommenced 12 months ago, and were instantly retired, when our stables were emptied to make way for a new beginning. Once the brood mares were selected 9 sires were selected from the range of 10 to 40 BP’s and one “expensive” sire in the 200 – 220 BP zone.

You can read about the start up in more detail in CAN YOU SOLVE THE BREEDING PUZZLE and what matings I finally selected and their debut runs here THE BREEDING PUZZLE SOLVED – NOT LIKELY

The horses have all had their 2nd runs, and in the most we managed to adhere to the plans we set for them in our previous article, with 2 of our 10 horses winning at their debut and only 2 others gaining a check (both 5th places), it was a very mixed result. 2 winners was a nice result but no placings from the other 8 was a little disappointing.

The team’s 2nd outings was an even greater mixture with some real surprises and minor disappointments, let’s start with our debut winners, both were planned to take on an NW2L or MW1x allowance.

Axe Scar found a suitable NW2L in a small midweek field of 5 but it was against the boys. Jumping 2nd by a 1/2 she trailed the leader for the whole 6 furlongs losing by that same 1/2 length. Her speed was only a small increase on her debut. Our other debut winner

Sneaky Princess had to go in an open allowance luckily in a small field of 6, jumping 4th she was never back more than a 1/2 length she went to the line strongly only failing by 0.01 of a sec. The disappointment here was that her speed was also only a minor increase on her debut.

After those minor setbacks there were some real highs, with 3 more of our team greeting the judge,

Straight Drive, whose debut run was a one paced 6th beaten nearly 4 lengths on a wet turf track, found some form on a dry track jumping 20% SP to win in the closest finish I have seen in my time here (the 1st 5 horses crossing the line with a gap of under 0.1 sec between 1st and 5th, and 0.01 secs between 1st and 3rd).

Tryst In A Forest, was our 2nd winner, he showed a definite liking for the change from dirt to turf, jumping 3rd just over a length back, he had found the lead at the top of the lane and went on to win by 1 and a half. (where on dirt he lost over 3 lengths down the running). A 15% increase in his SP was also a reason to be pleased with his run.

Hid In Clear Sight was our final winner, and definitely our most exciting. After a disappointing debut jumping 9th and finishing 8th over 5 lengths back over 6 furlongs, I decided that he could have another try over the same track and distance. He went back up against 12 others and this time broke in 5th 2 and a half back, by the top of the lane he had closed to a half length of the leader before going away in the run home to win by a length (from a closer from behind him who only made up a quarter length in the final 2 furlongs). The real buzz here was his SP of 76.8 (hopefully its not a fluke speed) which was a jump of 25% from his debut.

Of the remaining 5 horses 4 of them had very small SP increases, with only Turtle In A Spin going backwards (on a surface change), and none of them earned a check or any BP’s. Breakfast Dancer again failed to impress finishing 6th, 5 lengths back, I was hoping for a bigger improvement from him on a dry track, him being my “expensive” horse and all.

After 2 races each, my 10 lil bargain breds have earned 291 BP’s and SIM$156,757. A more than satisfactory result so far with half our team being winners.

Cheers

Linton (aka Yellow Dog Racing)