Pedigree Query

I'm new to this board and wondered what the general opinion is regarding choosing a stallion. Do you put more weight in the nicking of a certain cross or hypothetical matings? Obviously conformation plays a role as well (the foals of one of our mares seems to be inluenced more by a stallion than the others).

I look forward to hearing opionions.

I look for race record if the stallion is unproven and produce record if he is proven.

I don't put that much stock into conformation unless the sire has the same serious fault the mare does.

The farm weighs heavier on me than anything...bad farm, I don't care who they are standing!

the weight for me falls on breeding to race or sell.

I want stallions that improve their mare's for the lowest stud fee possible, but I am a breed to race breeder. It really depends on your goals for the mating.

How about something simple, but important, like Speed on Stamina?

I believe a breeding stallions dam is more important than his sire.

I want a stallion who could run; comes from a productive family; demonstrates he can sire a good sound horse and is producing athletic well conformed babies if unproven.

Picking any stallion without foals on the ground is a shot in the dark. If there is sufficient offspring on the ground to judge consistent quality (even before any have gone to the track), I will always pick conformation and quality, of the foals, above all. Speed and hopefully pedigree will follow. There are lots of million dollar pedigrees that are dismal failures at stud.
It is all a numbers game, anyway. You would have to really have a bad sire not to get something if you breed enough mares. I forget who it was or the horse in the early 80's (in Florida) who the owner bet he would make him the leading juvenile sire - he won the bet by buying enough mares to mathematically assure it.

In this day and age, were I ever to make a breeding decision, I would go with :

1) soundness. Sire should have made many starts and retired sound
2) good female family
3) balanced conformation

according to condition 1, I guess I'd be a breed-to-race

We breed to race, so my laundry list goes this way:

1) Female family: dam's first, then stallion's, because the dam contributes the mitochondrial DNA (energy producing cells) exclusively to a foal. I'm a Rasmussen groupie for that reason. Linebreeding and inbreeding to superior female families is key for me.
2) Breeding a winner to a winner may increase your chances a bit, though unraced is more desirable than unplaced.
3) Size matters : we try to keep the physical types close to each other.
Obviously, if a very correct stallion can improve a mare's conformation faults and vice versa, that matters a lot, but breeding a giraffe to a pony is probably unwise.
4) Our particular program focuses on more classic (in other words, not fashionable at the two year old sales) pedigrees and nicking patterns. If we want runners, we're perfectly content with late bloomers who can cover a route of ground and run for many years.