Wondering about value in terms of pedigree

[radrider]

Which one of the following for breeding would you choose and why?
a)Jolly Miss Molly - older Belong to Me broodmare
b)Wooden Angel - Langfuhr racemare
c) Little Ways - Salt Lake racemare

Any suggestions and comments would be helpful, thanks!

[franchino pamintuan]

jolly miss molly foaled 2000 by belong to me - la macarena from cozzene. 1st dam la macarena earnings $120,260.

wooden angel foaled 2002 earned $74,705 by langfuhr - boat hook from sauce boat. 1st dam boat hook earnings $85,800.

little ways foaled 2005 earned $9,703 by salt lake - tropez from woodman. 1st dam tropez earnings $10,000.

there are many factors to be considered in breeding. my priority is the broodmare should have many chefs de race in her pedigree + tail female line should be family of winners & producers.

[KBEquine]

Which one of the following for breeding would you choose and why?
a)Jolly Miss Molly - older Belong to Me broodmare
b)Wooden Angel - Langfuhr racemare
c) Little Ways - Salt Lake racemare

Any suggestions and comments would be helpful, thanks!

I don't know if you are breeding to race or sell & that'll make a difference. Right now we're in an economy where if you can't breed for the very top of the market & still want to breed, you almost need to focus on breeding the best racehorse you can, regardless of commercial appeal. While you can still hope to sell, the market's too unstable to predict or expect to make money & so you have to be willing to get the foal to at least the broke & galloping stage & possibly even farther, if you don't find a buyer willing to pay what you need to get at auction. (Not trying to preach to the choir; just mentioning the factors that effect my decisions on mares.)

When I'm looking at mares for myself, I pull a 4-generation unedited pedigree from equineline.com & look for what I call "the good, the bad & the ugly" in the family - you can see breeding patterns that do work for the family & patterns that never work, no matter how many times they have been tried. If the mare has raced, I also pull her race record with charts to see if she was raced badly or not to her strengthes & sometimes I'll ignore a so-so race record because I think she might have just gotten to the wrong trainer for her personality.

I didn't pull any of those reports on these mares & relied on old, edited pedigrees I could get for free, so I'm working with incomplete information - always a dangerous thing!

Plus, if I saw these 3 in person, I could come up with a completely different result. The paper limits the horses we look at, but the physical controls the final decision.

My preferences, in order:
Wooden Angel - I have a prejudice - I like Langfuhr mares & have one (who happens to also be for sale). Wooden Angel has the sire Far Out East in her pedigree & my Langfuhr mare is out of a mare by Far Out East, so I'm seeing similarities, except Wooden Angel has a better race record (because I think our mare's trainers concentrated too much on dirt races & not nearly enough on turf or synthetics to suit her style). But I digress.

In Wooden Angel you've got a proven race mare by a KY sire whose reputation as a broodmare sire is getting better. Her page is a bit gray for a pedigree page at auction, but her dam has produced several horses who've earned more than $100k each & raced for years, so the family seems to produce a race horse, if not a stakes horse. If you are breeding a racehorse for yourself & your state has a strong breeder's program, you could do worse than this mare. Also, I notice both of her $100k+ earning sibs are Mr. P sirelines & she is completely free of Mr. P., so there is a fairly clear & easy breeding strategy to try with her.

Jolly Miss Molly - 2000 model, unraced & I don't think her foals have set the racing world on fire, but she has a half-sib by Pleasant Tap who has earned almost $100k & one by Maria's Mon who'd earned almost $60k through its 3 y.o. year, so there are breeding strategies that worked for her dam & might work for her, too, but haven't been tried. I'd want more & more current information (I was looking at Jan., 2008 info) on her, but if I was breeding to race & thought I'd identified a good physical & pedigree match, I might take a chance. I don't automatically hold a mediocre produce record against a mare, if I think they've been breeding her wrong. I'd be more likely to hold it against her if I had good reason to believe she had serious reproductive issues, which I don't see here.

Little Ways - This mare is half to a stakes-placed mare & two other horses who have earned more than $100k. She's got blacktype under most of her generations & younger sibs who might make her page better (if you are breeding for the auctions). But she herself never broke her maiden from the records I've seen & that's always concerning - I'd rather have an unraced mare than one who raced & failed - I'd have to dig deeper into her family, her physical, and her race record to put her any higher on the list. Having said that - if I were breeding for the auctions, she might be higher on the list, if bred to the right sire, and if she is big & physically correct.

[winds]

KB Equine,

I worked for a gentleman who owned a filly who only beat one horse in her whole career and that horse broke down. She came from a good family and had a ton of talent, she just didn't want to run in the afternoon, though we never did try her on the turf.

Long story short, she produced 2 stake horses and some ok runners though we did breed to race not sell. Her name was Torelia ( she passed a few years ago ). We were advised to breed her and sell her, but we kept her because of her family and she did have talent ( though only in the mornings ). If you're breeding to race the third mare Little Ways would be ok to try.

winds

[KBEquine]

KB Equine,

I worked for a gentleman who owned a filly who only beat one horse in her whole career and that horse broke down. She came from a good family and had a ton of talent, she just didn't want to run in the afternoon, though we never did try her on the turf.

Long story short, she produced 2 stake horses and some ok runners though we did breed to race not sell. Her name was Torelia ( she passed a few years ago ). We were advised to breed her and sell her, but we kept her because of her family and she did have talent ( though only in the mornings ). If you're breeding to race the third mare Little Ways would be ok to try.

winds

Hi Winds -

You're absolutely right - it can happen. La Troienne is a good example, too, who helps prove your point. But my point is - those are good stories partly because those mares produced against the odds & against expectations.

[winds]

I understand.

winds