Retired Mare Series
Many people would argue that the breeding system is an integral part of the sim. Some feel that this is the best aspect of our complicated, yet fascinating Sim universe. But breeding now is not what it once was. I personally did not start using this feature of the sim until after certain elements had already been established. By the time I made my first breeding (the now retired Shag O Matic, Charismatic x El Gran Senor x Turn-To), BPs, credit breeding, and breeding limits had already been imposed. When I got a filly, I was disappointed, and not just because I loved my choice of a name in the event of a colt…My hopes of breeding a Kentucky Derby winner were all but dashed. Little did I know that a mere 2 years later, I would be thankful to have a filly in my barn.
Anyone who has joined the Sim in the past 4 years does not know the sim before retired mare breeding. Nor do they know the debates that raged on during the initial stages, when rules regarding the new feature were hammered out. One of the most controversial rules was that in order to qualify as a “previous owner”, you must have raced the horse at least once. So even if you were the person who initially bred the horse, but you had acquired her through auction or claimer and had not raced her, you could not use her again. The other hot issue was that all horses, regardless of their previous owners, would be opened to the entire sim at the beginning of October. So if you wanted to save up enough BPs to land a Storm Cat or a Sadler’s Wells, you’d had better do it before October came around.
Of course, the retired mare program of today’s sim is very similar, but has become more refined as time has elapsed. The “previous owner” issue, still occasionally a hot topic among simsters, has been expanded to any stable that has owned the horse at any time during its career. Mares are now no longer open to the public in October, unless no previous owners have run a race during the year. Furthermore, additional changes have come along. You can now breed a new horse into any stable, as long as you use credits. And the cost of retired mare breedings has been solidified so that the cost after the initial breeding is the cost of the sire + ½ of the dam’s sire + ¼ of the dam’s dam-sire. But now, as we reach the time when an additional cost needs to be paid to have additional offspring, and mares begin to be retired from breeding duty, it’s time to take a small look into what has come from the last five years.
The result of this, of course, is a brief series into the retired mare world. More specifically, we will look at some of the breeding aspects that you can take with you when making future breeding decisions. What sires have become the best broodmare sires? Which ones just aren’t cutting it? Which sires are working well with retired mares? Which aren’t? What, if anything, do the most successful retired mares have in common? Does it make sense to breed to a good runner with poor bloodlines? Does it make sense to breed to a poor runner with good bloodlines? This series will hope to answer each of these questions. But before we get to that, it would make sense to look at some of the retired mares themselves.
Every year, there is a brief call for a new Sim Eclipse Award: the Sim Broodmare of the Year. Unfortunately, this has been a difficult category to add. The collective horse pool, including retired horses, is several hundred thousand large. Many of these are retired, and assuming that there is a 50/50 chance of getting a female when breeding, half of the retired horses are mares. With such a large number of retired mares roaming the breeding pastures, it is tough to determine how each of them is doing in a given year in the sim. Whereas an average simster will know the name Basketball Jones, only the very dedicated will know that his dam is Upper Crust. And this is the Sim Horse of the Year. Majority of the results of retired mares in the sim is known only by the owner or owners of that mare. How do you determine nominees when the nominating committee doesn’t even know the options?
As of January 9, 2009, there were 54,625 “active” horses in the sim who were the son or daughter of a retired mare. 54,625. That’s nearly 1/3 of the horse population. On top of that, there are 34,656 unique mares used in at least one of those breedings. That means that in order to nominate a horse, the committee would need to look through almost 35,000 unique horses. Whereas other categories have shortcuts one can take, such as Breeders Bowl, Equinics, DPCD, Classics, or other major races throughout the year, the same cannot be done for retired mares. A 3yo may win 5 races in a year, including the Kentucky Derby, but if his three half-brothers are 0 for 33 in claimers, does the mare really deserve a Broodmare of the Year nomination? If you believe she does, does she then deserve the nomination over a retired mare that has picked up 7 G1 wins, 15 total Graded Stakes wins, and 28 total wins for her 5 babies, in which none has won more than 2 G1s or 3 graded stakes? This second one would be a sure nominee, and probably the winner of the vote. But she’s much more difficult to find. It’s likely that the only one who knows she deserves the honor is her owner.
So to properly start this series, I would like to pay homage to some of the better broodmares in the sim today. I hope that this series will not only provide you with some statistical advice to use in future breedings, but also to introduce you to some of the best horses when it comes to producing runners. My data is limited to horses at the start of 2009, so I apologize if some great retired mares of the past few years slip through the cracks. My hope is that by the end of the series, horses such as Upper Crust will become just as much of a household name as Basketball Jones. Then perhaps the Sim will be abuzz with more than just the stars on the track.
But for now, sit back and relax, and enjoy the historical and statistical ride through the world of Retired Mare Breeding.