Breaking down Sires (in a good way).

[dray33]

I have been breaking this down every which way but Sunday. For sires $75,000 and over, doesn't it seem that El Prado is one of the best? I mean his horses race, and earn money.

I look at the equineline reports to get a better understanding of a sire's true talent. I was wondering if anyone has a formula they use to fix on a sire's "ability" Here are some of the points:

The quantity data:
crops
foals
crops of racing age
foals of racing age
current 2 year old foals
yearlings
weanlings

The quality data:
champions
graded stakes winners
stakes winners
stakes placers

The quality averaging data:
Foals of Racing Age
Starters(/foals of RA)
Winners (/foals of RA)
Stakes Winners (/foals of RA)
Stakes Placers (/foals of RA)
Starts
Wins (/starts)
Placings (/starts)
Total Earnings
Avg Earnings/starter
Avg Earnings /start
Median Earnings

The index data:
Avg Earnings Index
Comparable Index
Avg Distance Raced
Avg Winning Distance
Avg Max. Win Distance
Avg Min. Win Distance

This is all followed by sales data.

So... for example, I took a look at horses in the higher ranges (would be interested if anyone has done anything similar).

First, I wanted to see how many runners were going to be included. I guess alot has to do with time of year, because 2 year olds have no0t started. So, from foals of racing age i took out current 2 year old foals and yearlings. Leaving me with a number of 3 year old or greater runners (foals of racing age - current 2 year old foals - yearlings = Runners)

Second, I took a look at how many starts did the Runners have? It gave me an average starts per runner (does this index exist somewhere?). I found that many sires with 5 or more crops average in the 11-13 starts per Runner. Compare that to average earnings per starter, and you kid of get a "quality" picture.

Looking at many different sires, is it me, my calculations, or does EL PRADO seem to be better than most at his price range, or higher even? They race about 20 times per. So they seem sounder. Is this data flawed somehow?

I would love to hear how some of you sift through the data to get your answers, if you are so inclined.

Thank you for any thoughts/ input...

[bcassidy]

Dray33--I don't breed for the commercial market, so that leaves me out of answering your question-- commercial breeding is definitely a different game.
What I can tell you about El Prado is that he is a very good stallion for his stud fee, in my system he gets very good numbers and is very worthy of his 125k stud fee. I love his pedigree and think the only thing that might hurt him in the US is his ability to throw very good, if not, excellent turf horses--as you know, turf horses are not the commercial success here they would be overseas. I can't believe they don't shuttle this stallion, if he is fertile, and could handle the workload, he would kill them in the southern hemisphere.
As an additional comment, I predict he will be an outstanding broodmare sire.
In my system, I focus on one thing, can a stallion improve his mares and El Prado certainly does that. Once I identify those stallions I breed to them before the commercial market has found them and wait for the commercial market to catch up with my research. This system has worked very well for me but it is not the way to work when purchasing and selling exclusively in the open market. Hope this helped a little.

[bcassidy]

Dray33--just out of curiosity--what do you get for Distorted Humor or Elusive Quality. I would rank both of those stallions ahead of El Prado but only slightly. I would love to see either a DH or EQ foal produced from a EP mare..... That would be something special! Hope I get to see that one day.

[Mahubah]

El Prado's as good as any out there in his price range. I have a story on him coming up in The Blood-Horse.

[dray33]

Dray33--just out of curiosity--what do you get for Distorted Humor or Elusive Quality. I would rank both of those stallions ahead of El Prado but only slightly. I would love to see either a DH or EQ foal produced from a EP mare..... That would be something special! Hope I get to see that one day.

I love DISTORTED HUMOR, simply because I think he throws flat out runners. But thats me, I get attached to sires because of the name, conformation shots and mostly, the runners I see that I really like. Often it's nothing more. I know that is not very scientific, it is why I was search ing for a way to index quality based on what I thought constitutes quality. That being foals that end up racing, often, for good money. I was not too hot on Elusive Quality. This is what I came up with:

Elusive Quality:
Starters(/foals of RA):230
Starts: 2,439
Average Starts per Runner: 10.60
Average Earnings per Runner: $84,810 (Not too shabby, what do I know!)

Distorted Humor:
Starters(/foals of RA):296
Starts: 3,689
Average Starts per Runner: 12.46
Average Earnings per Runner: $82,377

One of my favorite sires is FORESTRY (I know, I know) but i LOVE him. I say he will get better with age AND throw distance champions. When looking up "newer" sires, I realized that without 5-6 crops, the numbers don't look good. His however we're better than GIANT'S CAUSEWAY and FUSAICHI PEGASUS thus far. I have had great luck with FORESTRY, my first pinhook EVER i sold DIPLOMAT LADY, the winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet, and I have one to race... her name is PERFECTLY NATURAL (I love her pedigree: http://www.pedigreequery.com/perfectly+natural ) (Inbred to the mare SEQUENCE, RAISE A NATIVE and BOLD RULER) and she is lovely... will be an early 2 year old it seems.

[Morningside]

i think distorted humor is the best stallion in the US right now, bar none. he throws runners, 15% SW, 2YOs, AND his first few books of mares were pretty modest mares... i would recommend him any day
elusive quality is ok, but 100K is too much. his %SW is ok, but his earnings indices are all skewed by smarty. i'm not hot on forestry - i think he's a 40K stallion.
as for el prado, very very solid sire. at 125K, he doesnt have enough commercial appeal for me to consider him a good investment. i would rather let someone else breed to him and buy the yearling for 100K-150K than breed to him myself. some of his stats are also skewed by his earlier books of crap mares. so i would image his average earnings will begin to climb and number of starts to decline.

[dray33]

Oh, and I like the numbers on DYNAFORMER too.

[dray33]

Like 'em even more today