Aldebaran

[Pete]

Hi Bill,

As El Prado approached (the first time I saw him) I was sure that he was @16.2hh but realized (when I stood next to him) that he was only 16.0hh with a lot of flesh. Aldebaran isn't as substantial as El Prado but a member of this forum that would know confirmed his height.

This market likes: 1) to play against odds with unproven sires; 2) speed 3) size and flesh, all this under an atmosphere that discriminates in favor of just three or four male bloodlines.

Accurate assesment. It's the current playing field.

Regards,

Pete

[Worksoplad]

Street Cry was always a much better stallion prospect in my mind, even with the higher class bottom line of Aldebaran anchoring his pedigree.

I own a stakes-placed Street Cry filly and I wish you the best with yours, Madelyn. I LOVE mine.

Street Cry had a G-3 winner (3yo f), Majestic Roi, today in England in the 1,000 Guineas prep race.

[Rokeby Forever]

No Buddha fans, huh?

One of his sons worked a half in :50 today...whadda ya think of that?

[Toccet02]

Is THAT the gasping I heard from the west today . . .

[Morningside]

oh my god! billl, if you have no idea how to interpret statistics, then try not to use them because it becomes very misleading.
if a stallion has 7 stakes winners and let's say 14 maiden winners, and you take his MEDIAN earnings, you're really taking the earnings figure of his 11th highest earner (which means one of those maiden winners who most likely had 1 or 2 starts), so why would a 11K median surprise you? in other words, that median earnings figure is completely meaningless at this point.
if you were to assess a stallion from the angle of median earnings, it would only make sense if you isolate his first crop and take the data 2 years from now when his first crop becomes 5yo's.
in fact, street cry already has 7 stakes winners out of 83 foals (4 graded SW and 1 graded SP) in his first crop, that's a pretty good number at this stage of his career. i think he's the real deal.

[billl]

oh my god! billl, if you have no idea how to interpret statistics, then try not to use them because it becomes very misleading.
if a stallion has 7 stakes winners and let's say 14 maiden winners, and you take his MEDIAN earnings, you're really taking the earnings figure of his 11th highest earner (which means one of those maiden winners who most likely had 1 or 2 starts), so why would a 11K median surprise you? in other words, that median earnings figure is completely meaningless at this point.
if you were to assess a stallion from the angle of median earnings, it would only make sense if you isolate his first crop and take the data 2 years from now when his first crop becomes 5yo's.
in fact, street cry already has 7 stakes winners out of 83 foals (4 graded SW and 1 graded SP) in his first crop, that's a pretty good number at this stage of his career. i think he's the real deal.

Morningside, I have to completely disagree with you. My point on the median earnings in very valid and meaningful. Any introductory course on statistics will show you that the "median" is a very valuable measure, since it does not favor any side of the sample population, in contrast to the "average" which can be misunderstood if you have a single outlying value. You're somewhat correct about isolating the the first crop, but still you can compare him to other sires that entered stud on his year and his numbers are not impressive. Take a look at Officer for example. Also, wait until he is five years at stud and you will realize that stats make sense even though you cannot use them alone. I stay with my position, nothing special, just a mediocre sire.

[Pete]

Hi Bill,

I hope to temper this reply because my intent isn’t to offend you and I think you hit a nerve in Morningside, but I strongly agree with him/her.

Sires should be evaluated from two perspectives; performance and commercial appeal, and they're mutually exclusive.

Commercial appeal is (usually) defined by stud fee and sales success based on the performance of a sire's highest profile performers, not the consistency of his runners. This value is amplified by the perception that he can get sons (especially) and daughters that are successful in the breeding shed in their own right.

Sire performance has far more meaningful data that can be analyzed but the value that one assigns a sire is still very much personal opinion.

In my opinion, it’s improper use to apply median earnings to sires, especially those that have fewer crops. Median price at sales can be useful but in performance the numbers aren’t equal and any comparison made using these numbers has little or no meaning to me. Median earnings will show a bias towards mediocre sires whose foals run more often and accumulate earnings. To commercial breeders that are projecting stallion value this could lead to crucial mistakes. Median earnings values a champion, like Street Sense, with more than $1,000,000 in earnings the same as a horse that started only once with no earnings. I haven’t checked but I’d assume that Yonaguska has a better median earnings record than Street Cry.

The ability to get top performers is what will make a stallion successful and despite some market hesitation to embrace him, Street Cry is off to a strong start.

Regards,

Pete

[kimberley mine]

I agree with Pete up to a point about median earnings and performance. By itself the median earnings figure doesn't really tell you all that much, but the same is true for just about any statistic you can name. I like to look at the the median combined with %runners/%winners/%stakes winners as a way to tease out consistency in a stallion's progeny. A big gap between average and median suggests that the stallion is throwing a larger number of big money winners, whilst a smaller gap suggests that hard-knocking ham-and-eggs runners are responsible for the bulk of a stallion's earnings.

[Pete]

Hi Kimberley,

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli

A big gap between average and median suggests that the stallion is throwing a larger number of big money winners, whilst a smaller gap suggests that hard-knocking ham-and-eggs runners are responsible for the bulk of a stallion's earnings.

You’re adding average earnings to qualify median earnings and it does help give it some value. I use average earnings with and without the sires’ top earner to give me a better baseline and some idea of quality depth. The point in using statistical tools should be to better project sire value and without qualification I find two simple facts, Progeny Earnings and number of graded stakes performers, to be more reliable prognosticators of potential commercial appeal.

I don’t know that there’s any sire with median earnings high enough to allow creation of a profitable economic model but people buy horses for reasons other than fiscal sanity. Far more impacting on a stallion’s chances for success are the prejudices that accompanied him when he entered the shed and whether he’s getting foals that can compete in graded stakes, even if it’s only a few individuals. Over time a stallion a stallion’s fee and sales prices will fall if his performance doesn’t support them as we see in Grand Slam (as an example) whose fee has slipped back from $75,000 to $35,000.

Regards,
Pete