Looking for soundness in a PA sire

[Blue feather]

I breed to race in PA and I'm trying to match a sire for my Housebuster mare "My Yellow Diamond". I want a regional sire $5000 or below. I am willing to go to neighboring states.

[Denise]

Soundness? How about Cetawayo? Retired at age 10. He's a nice cross for any mare. Lots of turf propensity with your mare.

[HiddenEchoFarm]

Interesting bloodlines on your mare - a Damascus-line sire could give you a nice Rasmussen factor breeding on his dam, Kerala, who is also your mare's 3rd dam. But I don't know any Damascus-line sires in PA to point you toward.

Nasrullah, your mare's sire-line, and Turn-To are a well-documented nick & you mare's family seems to also cross well with Turn-To line sires -- and there are several Turn-To-line sires available both in PA & elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic.

In addition to that, the family may nick well with Conquistador Cielo-line sires & Artax/by Marquetry is just a state to the north, so there are several places to look for your mare.

Mountain Top, one of our PA stallions, who is also a sprinter & who finished shortly behind Artax in the Vosburgh the year Artax won it & the Eclipse, raced until he was 9 & is a Turn-To top line [through Cox's Ridge] and out of a Turn To Mars mare, if you would like to consider him -- but as his first foals arrive in 2008, there are no offspring race records to show you. Yet.

FoxTale & Xanthus & a couple other PA farms have got some nice & compatible bloodlines & you could check their stallions' race records & durability.

Enjoy the search - you have lots of options.

[nythoroughbredvz]

Say Florida Sandy, in NY they arent any sturdier than him! inquire about him on this board..

[BargainBlueblood]

It would be very hard to ignore Request for Parole, Freefourinternet, Fastness, and Pies Prospect in terms of PA stallions who offer not only soundness, but soundness at the ABSOLUTE highest class of the game. These stallions ran at the graded level throughout their careers, and never descended into a lower class of racing. The good folks at Fox Tale have really made a concerted effort to avoid offering abysmal KY rejects to PA breeders. I really think, despite the bias I have from having worked with them for several years, that they should be applauded for their effort to UPGRADE the PA sire market, and not just drag in KY rejects that will make a quick buck for a year or two, and then shuttle them to a lesser state. Fox Tale is a stallion operation that obviously wants to succeed and make money, but also wants to offer the bread and butter PA breeder a better quality stallion that has a chance to really hit a double, a triple, or maybe a home run. For my money, Request for Parole is as good a stallion as anyone in the PA-MD-NJ-WV market, amd Freefourinternet, Fastness, and Pies Prospect are all close behind.

[winds]

Well, since we didn't hear back from Bonita about working with us on Go For Gin's stud fee we decided to check out Request For Parole for our mare It's All Good and we like what we saw.

It goes against what I like to do with maiden mares, I like to go to proven sires, but I really like the match up and his record for stamina and soundness (even though he did chip his knee it was after 51 starts). He ran on everything and won, so why not.

Plus, the resulting foal will have Hail To Reason top and bottom.

winds

[leveeguy]

Maybe Partner's Hero for $2,500?

[leveeguy]

Maybe Partner's Hero for $2,500?

[Monmouth Matt]

Partner's Hero delivers alot of bang for the buck at $2500. You can end up with any kind of horse....dirt/grass and although he is thought of as a sprint-type sire, he gets quite a few nice two-turn runners. He's been a little light on getting consistent stakes quality, but most of 'em run hard. Good luck!

[Joltman]

I breed to race in PA and I'm trying to match a sire for my Housebuster mare "My Yellow Diamond". I want a regional sire $5000 or below. I am willing to go to neighboring states.

I would look at Real Quiet. Since he has left Ky he is doing OK - among the best in Pa. He could go a distance and with that distance pedigree on the bottom side of you mare, I think you could get a nice two turn horse. (I really like that ff!)

jm

[Davec]

Real Quitet? He was crooked himself and why he went for 37k and many of his offspring have club feet, somewhat crooked themselves. While I would be the first to say everyone once in awhile he has a super horse if you get lucky (Midnite Lute recently), not the first I would list for soundness in PA.

I would suggest Lite the Fuse, who gets tough runners with a lot of starts.

[Joltman]

Breeding to race - there is something very attractive about a horse that raced his behind off for 20 starts against the toughest competition. The prospective dam has distance capabilities, where you are not stressing minor conformational problems with 21.1 quarters. Often ignored in the yearling beauty pageant are the internal body structures that enable a horse to run - the ones you don't see). I believe those are the ones that 'stop' horses, and even lead to breakdowns. The 'bleeding' issue is an example. There are a lot of 'well bred' beautiful horses conformationally that have internal structures that they will pass on that will seriously limit their sire potential.

A horse that does what RQ did has some powerful positives and has, on occasion, passed them on. Key is to find the right matchup.

my opinion

jm

[Davec]

Good points made on Real Quiet and he was on my short list. However, I could not pull the trigger when I heard too many stories of fertility issues last year, foals that will never run based on crooked legs or club feet... so I agree with you that he does have powerful positives - the problem is the percentages in being lucky enough to have them passed on to my foal. While RQ was able to run through his conformation issues, my only point was not sure I would put him on the top of my list for soundness as a sire (versus race horse)....as most likely those conformation issues will slow down or stop many from even getting to the track. I at least could not identify the right matchup to negate these concerns and make the "risk reward" pay off....

[Foggytrip]

Freefourinternet.

[Joltman]

..- the problem is the percentages in being lucky enough to have them passed on to my foal.....

If you looked at the percentages, you've done your homework and that's as much as you can. I think RQs starter and winner percentages are a tad lower than the norm, but not bad. Sometimes, if the conformation of a stallion is 'flawed' the price will be lower, which will in turn attract only lesser quality mares, particularly those with 'flaws'. I'm sure we've all had foals come out crooked when both stallion and mare were conformationally correct. So it is a percentage thing.

When I was in Texas years ago the leading sire year after year was Mr. Washington. He was a real solid broodmare sire. Yet, to my eye he was badly over at the knee. Lifetime he probably had 85% starters from foals. and they ran forever. To this day, I still look for him in pedigrees.

There are so many variables. Sometimes the mare's conformation can carry the day to overcome minor flaws. Sometimes they just run through them. I still think its the 'internal' stuff that we just don't understand yet that can be even more important.

jm