What can anybody tell me about Pancho Villa.
According to the JC statiscal page, he bred
26 mares in 04
In 03, he bed
52 33 26 and onl had 50% foals
In the 002/03 season, it was really bad:
Pancho Villa 56 26 22 39% T
01/-2 74 56 42 57% TX
00/ 01 56 41 31 55% TX
These figures tell me that there is a little problem with fertility here, even though some of the mares may be at fault, but his stats are pretty consistent with the exception of 02/03 with 39%!!
SB
Is Pancho Villa still active this year?
Moderators: Roguelet, WaveMaster, madelyn
sb - I can't speak for Pancho Villa but believe that he started the season as an active stallion.
He's an aged stallion capable of incredibally fast races during his career whose pedigree possesses both stamina and speed influeneces but tends to pass on speed and early maturity along with his muscular physique and bright chestnut color.
One thing that affects his stats is the lack of mares being bred to him in the first place and I think there are several reasons for that. Here's some thoughts about his numbers. By Texas standards for an aged stallion not ranked at the top of the state's stallion listings I think those are decent numbers of mares being brought to him.
Recent large drops in the numbers of mares that a stallion sees - here in Texas - are largely reflective of the impact of every surrounding state having slots and now very well rewarded state-bred racing programs at their tracks. (well, Oklahoma IS having trouble getting their slots instituted after approving them it seems.) EVERY stallion and every stud farm is hurting here in terms of the number of mares being bred and the quality of those mares being bred. Its' had a huge impact.
Second thing is - I NEVER see any advertising for him whatsoever in our Texas Thoroughbed nor do I receive any mailings or other forms of promotion. Other stallions' connections send out flyers, hypomatings of your mare to their stallion, etc. You'll see none of that for this guy and there hasn't been any for some years now. So maybe his connections reached a point where it doesn't pay for them to promote him but I think that his has to hurt him a bit.
Third I don't see his offspring do well at the sales nor have I seen any stakes winners of late from him. The lack of offspring in the race going public's eye is very difficult for an aged stallion to overcome.
Finally, some more food for thought on the subject of his % of mares that produced live foals. A statistical survey of the USA performed not too many years ago showed that there were regional differences of some signifigance between the number of mares thyat had full term pregnancies and that bore live foals and those that did not by state/region. At the time Texas breeders had a pretty low % of "success" producing live foals - I don't recall the numbers but it was below 50% or just at 50% while in Kentucky the percentages were considerabally higher.
Compared to KY, MD, VA, etc. it is true that Texas has a lot more parasites and tropical diseases that might jeopardize a weak foal or difficult pregnancy's outcome. HOwever, it seemed fairly apparent to me then that despite a history of being horsemen with respect to the horses used for cattle handling...we Texans needed to spend a lot more time and money teaching young people coming into the industry and those old timers who are willing to learn more about 'modern' pregnant mare care, foaling and post partum foal & mare care.
Don't get me wrong Texas ranked way above a number of other states, including some you thought would do better but a far cry from the bar set by the industry in Kentucky. I think it's a matter of not having a large body of trained personnel. It's also hard for a Texas stud farm to invest in all the equipment that it takes to support a weak foal that might otherwise be lost by detecting early on infections, vs. other problems in the newborns. It's kind of hard to justify investing in that equipment when your stallion's had a good season seeing as many as 25 mares and some of those are farm mares.
I'm not suggesting that this latter is Pancho Villa's story but just to give you an idea that the baseline might not be so different from the numbers he's getting.
Finally, another thing is that way too many people are tardy registering their foals...which skews the stallion's stats downward from their reality. I tend to think this happens more frequently in Texas than say Kentucky - sure hear a lot of stallion managers & farm managers comment on it.
He's an aged stallion capable of incredibally fast races during his career whose pedigree possesses both stamina and speed influeneces but tends to pass on speed and early maturity along with his muscular physique and bright chestnut color.
One thing that affects his stats is the lack of mares being bred to him in the first place and I think there are several reasons for that. Here's some thoughts about his numbers. By Texas standards for an aged stallion not ranked at the top of the state's stallion listings I think those are decent numbers of mares being brought to him.
Recent large drops in the numbers of mares that a stallion sees - here in Texas - are largely reflective of the impact of every surrounding state having slots and now very well rewarded state-bred racing programs at their tracks. (well, Oklahoma IS having trouble getting their slots instituted after approving them it seems.) EVERY stallion and every stud farm is hurting here in terms of the number of mares being bred and the quality of those mares being bred. Its' had a huge impact.
Second thing is - I NEVER see any advertising for him whatsoever in our Texas Thoroughbed nor do I receive any mailings or other forms of promotion. Other stallions' connections send out flyers, hypomatings of your mare to their stallion, etc. You'll see none of that for this guy and there hasn't been any for some years now. So maybe his connections reached a point where it doesn't pay for them to promote him but I think that his has to hurt him a bit.
Third I don't see his offspring do well at the sales nor have I seen any stakes winners of late from him. The lack of offspring in the race going public's eye is very difficult for an aged stallion to overcome.
Finally, some more food for thought on the subject of his % of mares that produced live foals. A statistical survey of the USA performed not too many years ago showed that there were regional differences of some signifigance between the number of mares thyat had full term pregnancies and that bore live foals and those that did not by state/region. At the time Texas breeders had a pretty low % of "success" producing live foals - I don't recall the numbers but it was below 50% or just at 50% while in Kentucky the percentages were considerabally higher.
Compared to KY, MD, VA, etc. it is true that Texas has a lot more parasites and tropical diseases that might jeopardize a weak foal or difficult pregnancy's outcome. HOwever, it seemed fairly apparent to me then that despite a history of being horsemen with respect to the horses used for cattle handling...we Texans needed to spend a lot more time and money teaching young people coming into the industry and those old timers who are willing to learn more about 'modern' pregnant mare care, foaling and post partum foal & mare care.
Don't get me wrong Texas ranked way above a number of other states, including some you thought would do better but a far cry from the bar set by the industry in Kentucky. I think it's a matter of not having a large body of trained personnel. It's also hard for a Texas stud farm to invest in all the equipment that it takes to support a weak foal that might otherwise be lost by detecting early on infections, vs. other problems in the newborns. It's kind of hard to justify investing in that equipment when your stallion's had a good season seeing as many as 25 mares and some of those are farm mares.
I'm not suggesting that this latter is Pancho Villa's story but just to give you an idea that the baseline might not be so different from the numbers he's getting.
Finally, another thing is that way too many people are tardy registering their foals...which skews the stallion's stats downward from their reality. I tend to think this happens more frequently in Texas than say Kentucky - sure hear a lot of stallion managers & farm managers comment on it.