The fallacy of nicking products

[Barcaldine]

Don Engel:

"At present, the industry has no mechanism of any kind to evaluate the quality of the nickers' products, to verify their claims, or to expose possible conflicts of interest."

Though written 15 years ago this sage observation is as true now as it was then.

Why won't Byron Rogers or another nickster reply to Engel's thoughtful dissection of their work?

[DDT]

Barc

Don Quixote-wannabee, the laugh of the day. Why not discuss the snake oil agents in this business? Why not discuss all of the shady dealing that goes on at the sales? You want to take apart a theory based on sireline affinity, which in fact is how most breeders start their selection process, whether they use a computer program or research the mare line the old fashioned way, by hand. All of the nicking programs available have a disclaimer, none of them are willing to admit the shortfalls involved in creating the method. You continue to look for an argument just for the sake of argument. You know you have checked out some of the programs, come on now, at least admit that.

DDT

[parlo]

Don Engel:

"At present, the industry has no mechanism of any kind to evaluate the quality of the nickers' products, to verify their claims, or to expose possible conflicts of interest."

Though written 15 years ago this sage observation is as true now as it was then. ...

This can only be written by someone who has no idea how methods work with which indices are constructed, tested, verified and updated. And these mathematical methods were already known some 15 years ago. Mr Engel should have known that, too.

But this attitude is quite common in the tb-industry: its "experts" are "experts" just on tbs - and nothing else what goes on in the world.


Any empirical scientific study on tb-breeding shows: if you compare evaluation-models / rating-models with and without the eventual effect of the trainer, the influence of pedigree-data diminishes significantly in models that consider the effect of the trainer. The reason is clear: horses with "better" pedigrees are given to "better trainers". There is a remarkable positive correlation between these two possible influences on horse-performance.

This "trainer-horse"-correlation will be definitely higher than the correlation between certain names in certain pedigree-positions, which in "common tb-sense" makes up a so-called "nick".

Of course all this will change, if the molecular-genetic disposition of the horses to mate is known and the Mendelism of certain important traits is known aswell. Then you will be able to decide which mating offers the maximum likelihood for "good genes" in the horse out of the matings with optional sires to a certain dam.

Sooner or later this scientific background will be the future of tb-breeding.

[Barcaldine]

Parlo,

You're interjecting another factor (trainers) into the mix. Not even True Gimmicks promotes their products as including this variable.

Don Engel's conclusion was absolutely correct: there's no litmus test for the veracity of Nicking products. And because "unbiased" publications like the Blood-Horse are now part-owners (True Gimmicks) their objectivity in evaluating any of the nicking companies is lost. Talk about a conflict of interest!

I agree that science may someday clarify many such issues. But don't confuse Nicksters with scientists. That would be similar to likening used car salesmen with Henry Ford.

[louis finochio]

The BH would do breeders a favor, to breakdown the sire lines of each stallion, so those breeders could see how many crosses of each sire line, threir mares have in comparasion to the hypo stallion.

If the hypo stallion had 13 crosses of Fair Play, & the mare had 15 crosses of Fair Play, the breeder would seek another stallion for an outcross.

If the breeder wants to breed for Fashion, & the stallion has 25 crosses of Ph. & his mare has 20 crosses of Ph. The breeder would go ahead & make the union resulting in a FB foal.

[parlo]

As it seems, you, @Barcaldine, still haven't got it: an application for evaluating nicks that "subtracts" the effect of trainer and may be some other environmental influences on performances of horses will deliver a reasonable rating.

So the question is - and this question is justified:

Do those "Nicking Products" eliminate the effect of trainers and / or other environmental effects in their rating-algorithms?

If the answer is YES, then an important criteria in the quality of the rating-system(s) will be fulfilled. ... and one possible criteria of a "litmus test", too.

There may be other criteria to complete your so-called "litmus test". But nevertheless: an evaluation and verification of the prognosis-power of a data-processing-application is almost always possible, even in those applications we are talking about here.

[xfactor fan]

A good way to "evaluate" nicking products would be to select a large number of horses, top runners, middle runners, and bottom level runners. Then run their pedigrees and see what the nicking products say.

If the products work, there should be more A nicks in the top level, much fewer in the low level.

This of course drops out any horses that didn't make it to the track, but at least would provide a first cut look at the data.

[parlo]

... Ongoing studies by WTC and OWNER-BREEDER show that approximately 25% of the Thoroughbred population are the product of highly successful nicks ("A" rated nicks) while over 70% of stakes winners are "A" rated nicks! ...

@xfactor fan: As it seems this test of verification, you refer to, should have been already done or is in a steady running process of quality-control.

Of course would it be interesting wheather different nicking-systems show different results in a certain group of named horses.

But: a nicking-system, that does not "subtract" the trainer-effect will show higher nick-ratings, because this important effect on horse-performance will be unspokenly summed up to the quality of the nick.

[Barcaldine]

Parlo,

Im afraid that you are the one who "doesn't get it."

You're advocating an improved process to derive so-called "nicks," which is fine, but since none of these products currently includes trainers in its analyses, it's a waste of time to prognosticate on what might be.

To be viable, nicking products need to be evaluated as they are. Either they work, or they don't. Maybe in a perfect world where ALL possible variables are introduced the results would be more conclusive but until such time they are what they are.

Automobile advertisements often quote official studies of Miles Per Gallon(MPG). But to my knowledge, these numbers aren't based on factors such as differences in driving techniques, weather, surface, temperature, or road conditions. Surely, in real life, these and other circumstances impact actual mileage. But even with these omissions, MPG ratings are widely accepted comparisons.

You can't ask a product to do what it was never intended to do. But you can subject that product to validation of what it does do---and of potential conflicts of interest, sample sizes, and qualitative standards (which is a BIG question about nicking products)

[Crystal]

[quote="louis finochio"]The BH would do breeders a favor, to breakdown the sire lines of each stallion, so those breeders could see how many crosses of each sire line, threir mares have in comparasion to the hypo stallion.

If the hypo stallion had 13 crosses of Fair Play, & the mare had 15 crosses of Fair Play, the breeder would seek another stallion for an outcross.

If the breeder wants to breed for Fashion, & the stallion has 25 crosses of Ph. & his mare has 20 crosses of Ph. The breeder would go ahead & make the union resulting in a FB foal.[/quote]

Breeders won't care, it will fall into that pile of mail we all get and say "Hmm, it's that interesting?" The answer is no it isn't and it will get disgarded. Putting the number of 18,19,20,21.. etc of however many crosses a pedigree has 12 generations ago that has no effect on how well balanced and correct a foal is, or how it will handle training.. A good 2-3 year old who goes out and wins Graded Stakes in a hand full of starts then retiring after a setback to conserve value or a 10 year old 4k claimer making it 50th start is all you see.

Louis,, Really man!! There is not one person who has believed in this non sense enough to fund you 10+ year venture into TB breeding to prove a theory, so why continue to post it~?

[xfactor fan]

Griff

re Secretariat x Northern Dancer.

What I was getting at was the first generation x.

Storm Cat by Storm Bird--Northern Dancer, out of a Secretariat daughter, is one generation removed from the direct cross.

I was looking at the widely different physical types between ND and Secretariat. Storm Bird at 16.1 hands looked more like the Secretariat type than the Northern Dancer type.

One of the things that a lot of horse folks talk about is "looking for a horse that is in balance" Good runners come in all sizes and shapes, but the parts need to work well together.


Northern Dance at 15.1 hands was a well put together horse. All his parts worked in balance. Ditto with Secretariat at 16.3. But they were very different types of horses.

[xfactor fan]

Louis had to self publish his own book on Nicking. In terms of the publishing industry this means that no editor at any press was willing to commit funds to publish, promote and distribute his work.

Looks like the editors at Blood Horse are also ignoring this theory.

[louis finochio]

Before i published my book on Nicking, I asked the opinion of many trainers, Only one trainer out of 25 said that it wouldnt sell, that breeders already know what nicks are all about. That was 1973, before the nicksters came on the scene.

I paid for my own printing & publishing, & the Nicking book was a success. I have asked many breeders about the BH publishing the sire lines of each stallion in their Stallion Directory. All of those breeders agreed, it would be of great interest to all breeders, & would save them time in selecting a stallion.

[griff]

consider the possibility horse breeding is analog and not digital;i.e., shades of grey, not ones and zeros.

Nicking is one of many useful tools, it gives you some useful information while not addressing other very important needs. yes, I believe it does not have to be "yes or no", 'black or white" or "one or zero"; i.e., the shade of grey might also be useful.

I am a very small breeder of regional horses; more specifically, WVBREDs and PABREDs. Forgive me but I do almost always use true nicks when it's available and even cheat by using a prospective stallion's sire as true nicks uses sire lines anyway and a prospect that has not paid for true nicks would get the same rating as his sire anyway.

I also , when possible, I nick my mare[s] with the prospective stallion's dam's sire. That yields some very interesting variations as I have gotten an A+++ with the stallion's sire and a "D" with the sire of the prospective stallions dam. There is where I have my problem with true nicks, enicks and MareMatch as I belive the tail female is mor important than the sire line.

However, I do not propose to use the mares and ignore the stallions as that would be as short sighted as only nicking sire lines. and ignoring the tail female,

I have a sign on my office wall of Peter's Laws, or, The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive, and number 2 on that list is; "When given a choice, take both"

Another of my favorites is number 16; i.e., "When in doubt: THINK!".

Again, I am very small time and do not profess to have the knowledge or expertise as many of you, but it really does seem, at times, we really are arguing about how many angles can dance on head of a pin.

griff

[louis finochio]

Griff: I always look for nicks thru the mare & stallion. If the mare nicked with the Teddy sire lines, & the stallions family nicked with the Fair Play sire lines, I will look for a stallion that has both Fair Play & Teddy thru inbreeding.

You are covering all bases, & trying to breed a superior runner from a successful nick that has worked before.