What's the highest Werk nick rating??
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What's the highest Werk nick rating??
I play and experiment on the farm sites that have free Werk nick ratings and hypo matings. What is the highest Werk Nick anyone has seen and what was the mating? I know that the Werk nicks are merely tools along with many other tools but I am amazed at some of the numbers. Has anyone used a Werk nick to select a match and did it work as anticipated?
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KamiBrooks
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The highest I have seen is A++ +7048% between Citidancer and Pleasant Colony.
From what I've found, Citidancer has 3 blacktype (1GSW) from 5 different Pleasant Colony mares. I haven't looked at mares by sons of Pleasant Colony and don't know if that adds to it. But any mating between those two sire lines (even 3 sires back) will produce the same rating.
The second highest is A++ +3160% Citidancer/Fappiano with 1 sw from 3 raced horses by Fappiano mares, 1GSP and 1GSW from Fappiano sire line mares.
From what I've found, Citidancer has 3 blacktype (1GSW) from 5 different Pleasant Colony mares. I haven't looked at mares by sons of Pleasant Colony and don't know if that adds to it. But any mating between those two sire lines (even 3 sires back) will produce the same rating.
The second highest is A++ +3160% Citidancer/Fappiano with 1 sw from 3 raced horses by Fappiano mares, 1GSP and 1GSW from Fappiano sire line mares.
Highest Werk Nicks
Thanks for the reply. What triggered the question was a Repriced(Darby Dan)-Relaunch mare mating Werk Nick A++ (+17,733%). Try using for example Ghostzapper' Dam Baby Zip I don't have a clue what that that really means as a real number of foals and stakes winners from that number of foals. 17,733% sounds unreal!
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KamiBrooks
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hpkngjr
WOW that certainly blows my number out of the water! My understanding was that the +% number was an indication of the improvement. Like in your case a foal should be 17,733% better than the two horses involved... with a number like that, I'd be looking for afterburners on the little tyke.
It would be interesting to know how many horses that is based on. I thought 7,000 and 3,000 number were strangely high, but that really makes me wonder what the math is behind that part of the rating system. I'm probably wrong, but I always thought a 100% improvement meant twice as good... so you're looking at 177 times as good!
Could you send it to Werk and ask them to confirm it?
TBLADY
From the little I found written about Werk ratings, even a B rating is considered good. A - A+++ are all considered very good. And remember, this only considers the tale male line. You might be looking at horses that have been bred much more often? I just happened to study Citidancer who doesn't have the large crops that a lot of studs have and is a little bit of a breeding challenge... so I would imagine many of his mares were strongly considered matings... vs a commercial stud with larger crops who may have had a lot more matings done strictly based on the commercial value of the stud.
The Werk website is a good way to find where there may have been success in the past, but then I check out the actual horses involved... one time a high rating was 4 foals all from one higher quality mare who'd had had good foals with other sire lines as well ... so all that told me was I really wished I could afford that mare,
WOW that certainly blows my number out of the water! My understanding was that the +% number was an indication of the improvement. Like in your case a foal should be 17,733% better than the two horses involved... with a number like that, I'd be looking for afterburners on the little tyke.
It would be interesting to know how many horses that is based on. I thought 7,000 and 3,000 number were strangely high, but that really makes me wonder what the math is behind that part of the rating system. I'm probably wrong, but I always thought a 100% improvement meant twice as good... so you're looking at 177 times as good!
Could you send it to Werk and ask them to confirm it?
TBLADY
From the little I found written about Werk ratings, even a B rating is considered good. A - A+++ are all considered very good. And remember, this only considers the tale male line. You might be looking at horses that have been bred much more often? I just happened to study Citidancer who doesn't have the large crops that a lot of studs have and is a little bit of a breeding challenge... so I would imagine many of his mares were strongly considered matings... vs a commercial stud with larger crops who may have had a lot more matings done strictly based on the commercial value of the stud.
The Werk website is a good way to find where there may have been success in the past, but then I check out the actual horses involved... one time a high rating was 4 foals all from one higher quality mare who'd had had good foals with other sire lines as well ... so all that told me was I really wished I could afford that mare,
THE MYSTERY UNCOVERED
It is amazing what you can learn on this forum. Ask and you shall receive. Thanks all
TBLADY wrote:What exactly is a Q Rating?
More or less the same as dosage points but without having to wait for Roman to get off his ass and classify the horse.
There are a handful of stallions that Jack and Co. feel SHOULD be classified as Chefs and aren't (like Storm Cat), the Q points make up for that oversight on Roman's part.
HOWEVER, do NOT be dismayed if a horse has a lack of Q points or Dosage points. It just means there aren't a lot of stallions in the pedigree that qualify as Chefs. Low Dosage/Q points does not necessarily mean it is a bad pedigree.
As for the letter grade, it is only a ranking grade and it is based on sireline/broodmare sireline, not sire/broodmare (which is why you can get a grade for Smarty Jones over Repriced even though Jones doesn't have any foals yet) and how it relates to other nicks from that same sireline.
IOW a Forty Niner over Danzig nick is graded in how it relates to other Forty Niner crosses (Forty Niner over Kris S., Distorted Humor over Blushing Groom, etc.) and is NOT affected by other sirelines (IOW, a Kris S over Blushing Groom grade will have no effect on a Forty Niner over Danzig grade). The grades are only ranked in relation to other grades within the same sirelines.
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chicago78
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Actually, Relaunch and Repriced didn't stand at the same farm. Relaunch stood at Wimbledon Farm his whole career, and Repriced has been at Mare Haven Farm and now Darby Dan. Both Relaunch and Repriced were owned by Glen Hill Farm though, and a bunch of Relaunch mares were bred to Repriced. I think there are 12 Repriced's that have earned over $100,000, and 6 were out of Relaunch mares.
Repriced has a particular affinity with the mare Deep Discount. He has had three foals with her, with two stakes winners and a pretty nice allowance horse with earnings of $295k, $144k, and $125k, respectively. Deep Discount's dam, named Supplier, also had a nice horse by Repriced that earned $270k. I'm not sure if Repriced has a connection with Relaunch mares or with that female family in particular.
Repriced sires tough, durable horses that run well on the grass. I think the best horse he has ever had is the current three year old filly Rich In Spirit. Hopefully she makes some noise in some of the good stake races on the grass the rest of this year.
Repriced has a particular affinity with the mare Deep Discount. He has had three foals with her, with two stakes winners and a pretty nice allowance horse with earnings of $295k, $144k, and $125k, respectively. Deep Discount's dam, named Supplier, also had a nice horse by Repriced that earned $270k. I'm not sure if Repriced has a connection with Relaunch mares or with that female family in particular.
Repriced sires tough, durable horses that run well on the grass. I think the best horse he has ever had is the current three year old filly Rich In Spirit. Hopefully she makes some noise in some of the good stake races on the grass the rest of this year.
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brogers
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Werk nick ratings aren't calculated properly
What you should all understand is that Werk Nick Ratings make no allowance for opportunity.
Werk Nick Ratings are achieved by using their own database which is restricted to approximately 25,000 stakes winners worldwide. The program also does not include restricted stakes winners, even though they are often superior to minor unrestricted stakes winners. For example the likes of Archers Bay, a Grade One winner in Canada is not in the population because the grade one race he won was restricted to Canadian breds even though he was a much better horse than many of the listed stakes winners in their database. A formula below (which was published in the Australian Bloodhorse Review so has entered the public domain) is then utilized to calculate the nick.
No. of stakes winners for the nick
Divided by
No. of stakes winners for the sire line
Over
No. of stakes winners for the broodmare sire line
Divided by
No of stakes winners in the database
Anyone with even a basic understanding of mathematics will appreciate that they are comparing apples to oranges. There is no factor considering the number of times that the cross has actually been tried.
The key problem here is that the correction for opportunity is only hypothetical. It assumes that any mare in the population could be bred to any sire in the population, whereas geographic and other factors ensure that this is not so.
An excellent example to use here is that of the cross of leading South American sire, Southern Halo with mares by Logical. The Werk Nick rating has the Southern Halo/Logical cross performing 352 times better than opportunity resulting A++ rating.
It is true that of the 121 stakes winners sired by Southern Halo, at least 26 (21.4%) are out of mares by Logical. What is not evident from this statistic, however, is that Southern Halo and Logical stood at the same farm. As a result, Southern Halo covered a far higher number of Logical mares than theoretical opportunity would dictate. In fact, of 796 known foals by Southern Halo, 76 (9.9%) are out of mares by Logical. Applying a straight opportunity based formula we find that the Southern Halo/Logical cross is, in reality, outperforming opportunity by a factor of 2.61, rather than the 352 suggest by Werk.
Despite Joe Estes, nicks are valid guidelines to use when assessing a potential mating but the way Werk does it is just mathematically flawed and only comes about because they don't have a complete database to factor opportunity.
Werk Nick Ratings are achieved by using their own database which is restricted to approximately 25,000 stakes winners worldwide. The program also does not include restricted stakes winners, even though they are often superior to minor unrestricted stakes winners. For example the likes of Archers Bay, a Grade One winner in Canada is not in the population because the grade one race he won was restricted to Canadian breds even though he was a much better horse than many of the listed stakes winners in their database. A formula below (which was published in the Australian Bloodhorse Review so has entered the public domain) is then utilized to calculate the nick.
No. of stakes winners for the nick
Divided by
No. of stakes winners for the sire line
Over
No. of stakes winners for the broodmare sire line
Divided by
No of stakes winners in the database
Anyone with even a basic understanding of mathematics will appreciate that they are comparing apples to oranges. There is no factor considering the number of times that the cross has actually been tried.
The key problem here is that the correction for opportunity is only hypothetical. It assumes that any mare in the population could be bred to any sire in the population, whereas geographic and other factors ensure that this is not so.
An excellent example to use here is that of the cross of leading South American sire, Southern Halo with mares by Logical. The Werk Nick rating has the Southern Halo/Logical cross performing 352 times better than opportunity resulting A++ rating.
It is true that of the 121 stakes winners sired by Southern Halo, at least 26 (21.4%) are out of mares by Logical. What is not evident from this statistic, however, is that Southern Halo and Logical stood at the same farm. As a result, Southern Halo covered a far higher number of Logical mares than theoretical opportunity would dictate. In fact, of 796 known foals by Southern Halo, 76 (9.9%) are out of mares by Logical. Applying a straight opportunity based formula we find that the Southern Halo/Logical cross is, in reality, outperforming opportunity by a factor of 2.61, rather than the 352 suggest by Werk.
Despite Joe Estes, nicks are valid guidelines to use when assessing a potential mating but the way Werk does it is just mathematically flawed and only comes about because they don't have a complete database to factor opportunity.
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kimberley mine
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Two other considerations specifically with Werk Nicks:
Werk Nicks only consider the stallions on the sire line and on the broodmare sire line. The mares are not considered at all. There are some cases where there is a powerful affinity between a particular stallion and female family, regardless of where that stallion and female line appears in a pedigree. For an example, consider the stallion Double Jay with the wonderful broodmare Firetop and her family (from another post of mine, because the research is already done):
In each of the above pedigrees (except Doubledogdare and Top Double), Double Jay and Firetop appear in widely different positions, and in only one instance does Double Jay appear as the first broodmare sire. A Werk Nick might then assume that the Nijinsky II over Double Jay cross (tried only twice) is A+++, when in fact it is Double Jay/Firetop that is the key here.
The next caveat with Werk Nicks is that they look for the big names, and thus may not be useful in a regional market. My example here is Smokester. He was a very useful stallion in the California circuit, yet if you look at a nick for a Smokester mare, it will give you the cross based on Never Bend two generations back. If I told you that your foal's chance of success was mostly due to Never Bend and Grey Dawn II, and not any other influence, would you believe me? Would you try the mating, especially given that out of five tries, the best runner won only $33,000? But putting Smokester (who carries a strain of Prince John, which Grey Dawn II loves) over a stakes-winning Vigors mare clearly accomplished amazing things.
Werk Nicks only consider the stallions on the sire line and on the broodmare sire line. The mares are not considered at all. There are some cases where there is a powerful affinity between a particular stallion and female family, regardless of where that stallion and female line appears in a pedigree. For an example, consider the stallion Double Jay with the wonderful broodmare Firetop and her family (from another post of mine, because the research is already done):
Double Jay crossed with Firetop (not always directly) has produced the following Big Horses (that I could find easily):
Champion Doubledogdare (Double Jay x Flaming Top)
Champion Ferdinand (Nijinsky II over Double Jay)
Champion Sky Classic (Nijinsky II over Nodouble)
Champion Shadeed (Nijinsky II, Double Jay as 3rd BMS)
G1 Colonial Affair (Pleasant Colony over Nijinsky II)
G1 Cherokee Colony (Pleasant Colony over Nijinsky II)
G2 Colonial Minstrel (Pleasant Colony over The Minstrel)
L Olamic (Nijinsky II, Double Jay as 2nd BMS)
L Top Double (Double Jay x Flaming Top)
L Toward (Bagdad x Way to Go, a daughter of Flaming Top)
In each of the above pedigrees (except Doubledogdare and Top Double), Double Jay and Firetop appear in widely different positions, and in only one instance does Double Jay appear as the first broodmare sire. A Werk Nick might then assume that the Nijinsky II over Double Jay cross (tried only twice) is A+++, when in fact it is Double Jay/Firetop that is the key here.
The next caveat with Werk Nicks is that they look for the big names, and thus may not be useful in a regional market. My example here is Smokester. He was a very useful stallion in the California circuit, yet if you look at a nick for a Smokester mare, it will give you the cross based on Never Bend two generations back. If I told you that your foal's chance of success was mostly due to Never Bend and Grey Dawn II, and not any other influence, would you believe me? Would you try the mating, especially given that out of five tries, the best runner won only $33,000? But putting Smokester (who carries a strain of Prince John, which Grey Dawn II loves) over a stakes-winning Vigors mare clearly accomplished amazing things.
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KamiBrooks
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brogers - Thank you for posting that information! That is the first time I've seen any explaination of the math behind the ratings, which is critical if you want to figure out how much 'value' to put into the system. I also agree with kimberley that there's more to it than tail male or tail female lines.
That is why I use the various tools as starting points only. Of course, 8 months ago, I was SO happy to find all these analysis tools and techniques, but life can never be that simple and they do have their uses.
That is why I use the various tools as starting points only. Of course, 8 months ago, I was SO happy to find all these analysis tools and techniques, but life can never be that simple and they do have their uses.
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roving boy
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