DECONSTRUCTED AFTERTHOUGHTS. AVERAGED WINNERS.
1. The winning standard
On average the most promising starting-point to win one of the 14 races at last weeks Breeders’ Bowl card would have been to saddle a male scratch bred horse at the age of 3 years; sired by a stallion from the last century standing in Kentucky, out of a dam whose sire is a son of Mr. Prospector, if not the horse should at least carry a strain of blood from Mr. Prospector anywhere in his pedigree and showing a decent inbreeding to Northern Dancer, albeit no closer than in the 3rd and 4th generations.
The trainer should have tried to ensure the service of an overseas jockey with the name preference of Harzheim for his horse.
Then he needed some luck to get starting box number 3.
The horse must have earned some money in his previous race, even better if he has won it, as one half of the winners have done; the other half is made up of two 2nd , three 3rd place finisher and one 4th and 5th money earner each.
Nonetheless both bettors and bookies(and BTB writers too) should have overlooked the horse a little bit with morning-line odds around 10/1, ideally ranging from 9 to 13/1.
So, as widely expected the so-called local bred dominated the races with nine winners bred in Kentucky, whereas none Kentucky based jockey won at his home track.
Other winners were bred in Japan, California, Florida and two in Ireland, both winners on turf by Montjeu.
The only other sire providing two winners is A.P. Indy – but wait a moment if you are thinking about breeding a 2 yo with him for next years Bowl, then you should at least consider the additional costs to assure you are getting a filly, cause both his winners were mares; yes, you read this right, they are at the ripe old age of 5 years; as far as talking about breeding for the upcoming Bowl.
Another lesson I learned: no winner is coming out of a freshman sire or even from the first three crops of any sire this year.
As for the jockeys in general the Non-American riders ruled, led by the Harzheim family with Ascot’s jockey P. Harzheim winning four races and H. Harzheim from Dubai(UAE) winning three more! Also two races were won by O. A. Haack from North Florida. Five jockeys won one race each: O. Osbourne from Utah, A. Rolling from Brish Columbia, leading Japanese rider K. Ledwith , the Australian horseman D. Evans usually based in Victoria and J. Caves from Eastern Kentucky.
2. Exceptional winners
Or in other words from an antithetic angle:
Only one odds-on favorite won his race. The 2yo colt THE SEVEN SEAS(IRE) ridden by P. Harzheim won The BB Juvenile Turf over one mile at 7/1 for the super1 stable. He is sired by Montjeu out of a sex-changed C ranked Seeking the Gold x Seattle Slew colt, thus he is inbred 3rd generation on his sire side x 4th generation on his dams-side to Northern Dancer. He may be named in reminiscence of the collection of poetry by Rudyard Kipling, still the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature to date.
By the way THE SEVEN SEAS(IRE) was the only winning horse I covered in my preview article in the BTB last week-obviously I placed to much emphasis on the favorites.
“But dammit all, I’m wrong.” Stephen Dobyns
The only winner showing the so-called Rasmussen factor, the inbreeding to superior female families, has a lot in common with the aforementioned horse. It is the 3yo colt SEVENTH SENSE(IRE) trained by rapt(Tees stable). P. Harzheim too piloted this Montjeu x Kingmambo x Nijinsky II scratch bred to his win in the BB Turf(12 furlong). He is inbred 4S x 5D to Nureyev’s dam Special and 3S x 4D x 5D to Northern Dancer.
You may have also noticed the similarity in both horses’ names.
This observation costs me 663 breeding points this week, cause I am awaiting by Montjeu:
Sevenleagueboots (the name Seventh Heaven was already taken)
On another note, Nijinsky II was the most successful dam-dam-sire with three winners.
Besides in SEVENTH SENSE(IRE), you will find him also as a dam-dam-sire of super13‘ 2yo filly LINDY HOP(KY), named after a dancing style I’ve never heard of before. The daughter of Awesome Again out of a G ranked sex-changed Street Cry x Nijinsky II colt is this years BB winner with the lowest speed figures(94) and inbred 4S x 4D to Mr. Prospector and Northern Dancer.
The super stables are really having great fortune with the sex-change surgeries, no wonder as one of them is reported to be a surgeon and another partner is working as a master on something along those lines of anesthetic stuff.
Back to the last one with Nijinsky II as a dam-dam-sire, to londoner’s(Kevoman stables) 3yo filly EXTENDED POWER(KY); the Unbridled’s Song x Seattle Slew x Nijinsky II scratch bred with her promising powerful name is the only winner without any inbreeding in the first 5 generations of her pedigree.
In addition her sire Unbridled’s Song is the only sire responsible for one winner each as a sire and also as a broad mare sire.
As a dam-sire Unbridled’s Song paired very well in a breeding from scratch with A.P. Indy as a sire and El Prado as a dam-dam-sire for bluegrass3 of the Hoosier Empire, his COYOTE SMUGGLER(KY) being the only filly capable of beating the boys in the 14 furlong Dirt Marathon.
El Prado was also successful in another scratch bred, when mated with Fappiano x Kris S. as the sire of the 3yo filly KETARING(KY) for Knightmares bbrs3 stable. She is representing El Prado’s last crop of 3 yo and inbred 5S x 5D to Native Dancer and Hail To Reason. I wonder what this name means, is it the Bulgarian or Russian misspelling for catering?
Bertrando together with A.P. Indy and El Prado are the oldest sire showing up with winners at the event last week, those three are all born in 1989. Trainer thebigm(sjmeola racing) hit it big with his scratch bred 2yo filly SJ’S CARSONADO(CA) (Bertrando x Carson City x Affirmed). After a mediocre debut on dirt, she was switched to the turf, won seven in a row and remains unbeaten on this surface. Inbred: 4D x 5D to Raise A Native and 5S x 5D to Native Dancer.
The youngest stallion with a BB winner to his credits and the only one born in the 21th century is Tapit. The 2 yo colt OPEN PIT TED(KY) is the first foal of a F ranked mare; with his breeding of Tapit x Medaglia D’Oro x Deputy Minister, he is inbred 4S x 5S x 5D to Mr. Prospector and 5S x 5D x 5D to Northern Dancer. The responsible trainer is refinement.
What else do we have? Danzig, for example as the only broad mare sire with two winners dominating the races over a mile on both surfaces with his 3 yo colts:
astinator0 saddled the Japanese bred DOOTY DA DOO(JPN) by T.M. Opera’O out of a G ranked Danzig x A.P. Indy mare for a win in the Turf Mile. While he is inbred 3D x 4S x 5D to Northern Dancer, he is at the same time the only winner free of any Mr. Prospector blood.
And khalasar(Given stables: Fire and Blood) prepared THE BEGGAR KING(KY) to win the equivalent on dirt; by Tiznow out of the G ranked Danzig x Mr. Prospector mare Khaleesi, he is the second G1 winning offspring of his mother and is inbreed 3D x 5S x 5S to Northern Dancer.
Stable jrogue successfully sent the very blue-blooded 5yo A.P. Indy mare SKIDMORE INDY(KY) into the 9 furlong BB Distaff. Amongst others she is inbred 5S x 5D to Hail To Reason. Her F ranked Sadler’s Wells x Kingmambo mother herself is based on the A ranked horse Loup Garou.
Now before I will have the joy to present you the last three winners, I give you a little side note about the dominating numbers at the starting-gate: with 3 winners, 3 second places and two 3rd’s it was clearly start-box number 3 being the real deal. Followed by box 5 and 14 with two winners and one second place each. All in all the outside boxes were doing quite well with one win for box 12(+ three 2nd’s and a 3rd ) and also one win for gate 13(+ two 2nd’s ). The 3-13 exacta came in two times, paying $ 361.60 in the Dirt Marathon and $ 240.00 in the Dirt Mile.
Bad luck was in start-box no. 4 with no horse finishing into the top 3.
We are coming to an end with three very special colts:
-two of them owned by two of my favorite writers for the BTB
-two of them the winners of the BB Sprints
-and two named on the same popular basis(take one part of the sires name and mix it with one part of the name of the dam-sire)
Furthermore among them we find:
-the horse with the highest speed figure of the whole BB day
-the horse with the highest payout
-the horse bred by the cheapest sire of all BB winners
-the only one 4yo winner
-and the BB Classic winner
I am starting to talk about sweetnan‘s aptly named winner of the Turf sprint STRIKE WHEN READY(KY).
Not only snowchief came back to write an extraordinary article about the Classic, but also she managed to bring her scratch bred 5yo More Than Ready x Smart Strike x What A Pleasure colt as fit into the game to score with the record speed figure of 117 on that day in the Turf Sprint. His inbreeding factor is 3D x 4S to Mr. Prospector.
Another stellar BTB writer supertaffy – btw, taffy, I miss the continuation of your breeding series! – brought another sprinter, this time on dirt, out of her bluefox stable, the winner by the cheapest sire, her 3yo Graeme Hall x Blushing Groom x Diamond Prospect colt named PINCHINGDALE(FL) (probably after the literary character Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe). He is inbreed to Mr. Prospector on the base 4S x 4D and he was the winner with the highest payout as he started at the odds of 25/1 out of the lucky box no. 3. He was the only one scoring the big BB win as the the darkest horse of his field.
The one who hit the jackpot in the Classic was latinlover with the only 4yo winner of all BB races. His Distorted Humor son called Distorted Storm(KY) out of the F ranked Storm Cat x Mill Reef Away For Storm (note: a retired mare without any active previous owner!) is the only BB winner 2010 with the highly demanded Storm Cat in the top-line of his pedigree. Inbreeding? Yes, 4S x 4D to Northern Dancer and 4D x 5D to Never Bend.
Congrats to all the connections!
For those who followed me despite my long-winded English up to this point and maybe read my preview article from last week, I will add the last verses of the poem from Stephen Dobyns I quoted some stanzas out of it “Kentucky Derby Day, Belfast, Maine”:
“Dark Star, Dark Star, where are the winners I was promised?
But I’m not dump; I know you only win when you bet real money
and play for keeps. Instead, I stand in the street as feathers
drift over my shoulders. Like Icarus? I ask myself, hopefully.
No, just another damn fool who won’t make up his mind.”
P.S.: at least one problem remains unresolved: what happened to Dr. Lip?