Finish the sentence please...

[Danzig]

I'd have to go with Exchange Rate. He's improving his mares at a much higher percentage (43%) than the other sires listed, while getting nearly 10% SWs and 3%GSWs from foals produced. Additionally, your mare crosses very well with him.

[Bid]

Dray-No produce records yet, but now seeing the ped I'll bring up Perfect Soul that we talked about before. Maybe look at English Channel too. Distance, versatility maybe with the poly surface might be something to consider.

[ASB]

I personally feel like stamina on the distaff side is more important than breeding to stamina. If you're serious about breeding and racing two turn classic type horses, I would start by revamping your entire breeding program and broodmare band.

With that said, although Pleasant Tap is overrated on this board considering his accomplishments (good, useful stallion but not the best in his bracket), he fits For Free extremely well. He'll add stamina and some bone since most Forestry's are light on bone.

[bdw0617]

Regarding Pleasant Tap, I do not think it is fair to take a horse's top earner out of the analysis even if the earings are somewhat inflated because they came in restricted races. How would you account for all the state-bred earnings for sires? This is a jackpot game. If a sire produces a jackpot horse, especially when he produces more than one (see Premium Tap, David Junior, Tiago), the sire deserves credit.

The earnings for Tap Dance City aren't somewhat inflated, they're greater than Tiago, David Junior, and Premium Tap combined. They're so great that they skew Pleasant Tap's average earnings for all his runners upwards by $20,000.

If you're trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison, you have to take out the orange.

this is an interesting concept.

let's dive into why tap dance city is an organge.

sired by pleasant tap? check

is in fact a thoroughbred? check

runs in races where they run for money? check

... HE'S JUST GOOD.

YES IT SKEWS THE POT, BUT THAT'S WHAT GOOD HORSES DO. CURLIN SKEWS IT FOR SMART STRIKE, (sorry for caps), smarty jones skews it for elusive quality and so on and so forth.

why do you take out the best horse, simply becuase he did exactlywhat you want him to do?

also, as the poster eluded to, if you are going to take out really good horses that skew the pot so to speak, why stop there?

we shouldn't count the green money towards what forestry's numbers, becuase he really, really sucked. that's not a "true" indication of what foresty is capable of doing, so let's take him out.

let's take out eight belles for unbrided song becuase she broke down and she did not earn what she was capable of earning.

let's take out magnifcance for stormy atlantic because I think she was mismanaged for the last year of her campaign.

see where I'm going? you open up an entire can of worms. tap dance city is just a very very good horse that is sired by a very consistant sire.

Here's why Tap Dance City is an orange. The sole reason his earnings are so enormous is because he ran in restricted company in Japan. The purse structure there is entirely different than ours: a single maiden win can earn a horse $75,000, a decent allowance type horse can easily earn several hundred thousand in a year.

And yes, Curlin's win in Dubai skewed Smart Strike's numbers. But at least Curlin ran there in open company. All horses and owners from anywhere in the world were welcome to compete. Japanese racing and breeding is very heavily restricted--unless you're a Japanese citizen (not easy to accomplish unless you're of Japanese heritage and were born there) you're out of luck.

So Tap Dance City won his money in races where 95% of the world's TBs were ineligible to run against him. In my mind, that makes him an orange.

I am an Avaid JRA fan so I understand the way the purse structure works.. but I never thought about it in that concept. good point.

[dray33]

I did a few Truenicks for FOR FREE, and here are some results:

Candy Ride A++ no inbreeding 5 gen
Cryptoclearance A++ inbred to Dr. Fager 4x5
Exchange Rate A++ inbred to Northern Dancer 3x5
Holy Bull A+ no inbreeding first 5 gen
Grand Slam A+ inbred to Secretariat and Northern Dancer 4x5
Slew City Slew A inbred to Bold Ruler 5x5
Mutakddim A inbred to Buckpasser and Northern Dancer 4x5
Lemon Drop Kid A inbred to Northern Dancer 5x5

LOVE the Candy Ride cross here... Holy Bull, Exchange Rate and Lemon Drop Kid round out my top 4 choices.

[kimberley mine]

Dray, I'd knock Holy Bull off the short list and add Quiet American.

There isn't any inbreeding with Holy Bull, but you do get his close genetic relative Dr Fager within five. For some reason, Holy Bull isn't like the rest of the Tartan Farms tribe that likes a return of its own. That was tried with him a lot early on and it just didn't work.

Quiet American is the exact opposite. Give him more and he's happy--see Real Quiet. I think QA over a Forestry mare is an A truenick based on Fappiano/Storm Cat.