TRUE and E Nicks

[Shammy Davis]

JM posted:

There is certainly a statistical basis to both of the commercial nicking approaches. . . .

JM then posted:

There is certainly a statistical basis to both of the commercial nicking approaches. . . .

When did you start stuttering?

[Shammy Davis]

Patuxet posted:

Joltman hits the nail on the head when he points out that all that nicks services "can do is reflect the past, with the hope for the breeder that the trend is real and continue in the future." Or, as mutual fund prospectuses correctly warn, "past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Whether one puts much stock in nicks ratings or not, stallion owners and managers certainly seem to. They obviously take more kindly to mares with an A+ mating rating with their stallion and can make it a deciding factor in getting to a stallion -- and at what price.

I agree with both you and JM. It's just another tool. To disparage it as gimmick is off the mark. That's why every modern book I've read on the subject of breeding advises the unexperienced breeder to seek advice from industry professionals.

[Barcaldine]

Few real industry professionals---true horsemen---place any stock in the commercial nicking products. They realize that, like any marketing gimmick, these ill-conceived notions appeal mostly to drive-thru breeders, the kind who like simplistic answers to their mating questions.

IMO all Nicksters have done an excellent job in convincing some people that their work is meaningful. That doesnt mean, however, that it IS meaningful, just that some people like to think it is. Market breeders utilize commercial Nicks as a selling tool but few actually believe in them. It's all about perception, and the Nicksters should be congratulated for being able to sell their concoctions to enough gullible buyers to keep their cottage industry afloat.

It is my observation that horse owners/buyers who champion Nicking products are also easy-sells for all kinds of shortcuts. They're of the same cloth as the bettor who, when leaving the track, picks up on the parking lot that day's "Tip Sheets" showing nine straight winners---and believes it! The next day, of course, he's an eager customer for Dandy Dave's Daily Double selections which prove just as bogus. But he keeps coming back because he wants to believe in the fantasy.

[DDT]

Barcaldine

You want to talk about snake oil, how about bloodstock agents, how many owners get burned enough to leave the sport in disgust, sure there are some good ones, but they are far and few between. I take it from your posts that you do not believe in blood affinity, which is fine, you are entitled to your opinion, but it does not mean that your opinion is correct. For example, you do not believe that blood affinity had anything to do with the success of A.P. Indy with Mr. Prospector/Raise a Native line mares, it was just circumstance, right?

DDT

[Tappiano]

I don't know if it's on this board or another but there is a downside to these nicking systems. The lack of data on stallions who stand in Europe or down under can lead to bad results. I don't mean the cross itself is bad, but the same people who want to see that A are going to take some convincing that a D is not to be taken too seriously. A better answer would have been for these systems to say I as in incomplete data BUT here is the next generation.

The same farms who love these nicks are the one's who have to deal with all those D's if they decide to import a stallion because how are they going to show the customer that it's got some gaps.

I do agree they should only be a tool, or a guide, or, in my case, what looks great in my head matches their data.

What does one mean when referring to an unexperienced breeder? I have only ever bred one foal and will be sending my mare for a second (I hope) but I can guarantee I know more than 90% of the industry when it comes to pedigrees and I have no issue backing that up. I'm definitely a new breeder but NOT an unexperienced or even inexperienced one. I might not be a paid pedigree consultant but that's only a lack of opportunity not a lack of qualifications.

[Barcaldine]

DDT

I agree with you about many bloodstock agents, and pinhookers in particular. Our industry has lost many owners due to their practices.

I do in fact believe in blood affinities, otherwise known as nicks. I just don't believe in the Nicksters' commercial products. They are misleading much more often than they are helpful--much like some agents. Their methodogy is so flawed that their reliability as a tool is beyond circumspect. Their assumptions--including what has "worked" in the past will work in the future--are easily dissected. Their letter grades appeal to the horse owner like "thumbs up" reviews appeal to moviegoers.

Broken tools shouldn't be used simply because they are readily available.

[DDT]

Barcaldine

I would be the first to agree that the Nicking programs have many flaws and should be taken with a grain of salt. There are many aspects of this business that defy logic, take yearling sales for instance. Every year we have several seven figure yearlings when in fact very few high selling yearlings become superior runners, why do buyers continue to bid and buy these horses, because every once in awhile you get an A.P. Indy. There are a little over 61,000 horses running in 2011 and only about half of them will win at least one race. That means that 30,000 or more runners will not win a race this year. Why owners continue to race these horses is a question for the ages. I just think that calling the nicking programs snake oil is a bit much, that's all.

DDT

[Shammy Davis]

Barcaldine wrote:

Few real industry professionals---true horsemen---place any stock in the commercial nicking products.

Exactly what is your definition of a "true horseman?" There are lots of horse people walking the earth, each with his or her own experiences and knowledge, but I've yet to come across anyone who has identified themselves to me as "true horsemen." It appears from the context of your post that "true horsemen" are by far much smarter and wiser than say "the regular old run of the mill horsemen." Is that what you are saying?

As DDT points out, you have a right to your opinion, but as of yet I've seen little in your argument that supports your "snake oil" conclusion that breeders should refrain from using "nicking tools" when considering matings. You are assuming that whatever data is provided must be erroneous, but you've not given any evidence to why it is erroneous or specifically, based on what you know about the program, what data and results should be questioned.

We've got another long running thread on this board that continues to submit the "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" quality of information and without the contrasting views and links of other "regular old horsepeople" that thread would be based solely on the bottomless depth of ignorance and misinformation that is posted by its author. We don't need anymore of that quality of information.

[madelyn]

There are no published standards or tests to measure a horseman's knowledge by.. it's a business where the proof is in the pudding but it's always possible some stars got there by luck.. anyhow, here's my EXPERIENCE with nicking programs.

The nicking program takes the sireline of the sire, over the sireline of the dam. It then searches for stakes winners with the same sireline pattern. Depending on what it finds ( 0 zero SW - F all the way up to A+++) it rates the mating. It does not take into account any other influences in the pedigrees. It does not take into account the number of horses where those sirelines have been tried together, or not. It is a Very Narrow Perspective. It also goes back up to three generations which, to my mind, does not have the same validity as using just the sire and the damsire.

[Shammy Davis]

Madelyn: It is normally conceded that about 3% of all foal crops are stakes winners. Even if that is all the information you ascertain from a particular nicking program that would be nice to know when looking at similar matings. The weight you put on it is a matter of what you believe its importance is.

Your point is well taken, but my point is that there is a difference between one element of information and "snake oil" imagination. I think what some of us are trying to point out is that breeders can weigh the information as they want. I know of no breeding theory that does not have a narrow perspective. Dosage, blue hens, conduit mare, family, genetic cr*p shoot, and other forms of "luck" et al are all used to determine the probability of a mating producing a race horse by breeders rich and poor. Barcaldine's comment about "true horseman knowing. . ." needs further explanation.

I noticed you don't use the terms "snake oil" or "underhanded."

To put this all into perpective, I recall reading Colonel E R Bradley, an avid gambler, horseman, and breeder of significant stature, like to bet any takers at the Saratoga Yearling Sale that they could "not" pick a yearling that would win a race at two. An expert on probability, Colonel Bradley knew that no matter the knowledge and experience of the horseman, all the odds were in his favor. Like wise, any information that favored the odds of the taker could have been valuable. I suspect that breeders like Colonel Bradley, who acted on probability, were looking at all the information that was available at the time when it came to a particular mating.

[brogers]

The nicking program takes the sireline of the sire, over the sireline of the dam. It then searches for stakes winners with the same sireline pattern. Depending on what it finds ( 0 zero SW - F all the way up to A+++) it rates the mating. It does not take into account any other influences in the pedigrees. It does not take into account the number of horses where those sirelines have been tried together, or not. It is a Very Narrow Perspective. It also goes back up to three generations which, to my mind, does not jave the same validity as using just the sire and the damsire.

Madelyn,

You are right in parts of this, but wrong on others, at least in terms of TrueNicks.

"It does not take into account any other influences in the pedigrees." - that is true. The problem is sample size. Mares just don't breed enough foals and appear in duplication frequently enough. We do however have a product that we are working on that overcomes this somewhat and is very interesting. We hoped to get it out this year but we ran into a snag and we will try to get something out over summer 2012.

"It does not take into account the number of horses where those sirelines have been tried together, or not." - this is incorrect, at least in terms of TrueNicks. Using the complete database of the Jockey Club (the same one that powers Equineline, the Keeneland and Tattersalls catalogs), TrueNicks calculates the number of times that a nick has been tried. It then looks at how many times and the success of the sire/line has been bred to all other broodmare sire/lines and then how many times and the success of the broodmare sire/lines with all other stallions. Thus it is looking at the success of the cross, when considering all other opportunities using a vast database of foals, starters, winners and stakes winners.

eNicks doesn't do this. They only look at stakes winners as you have mentioned above.

"It also goes back up to three generations which, to my mind, does not jave the same validity as using just the sire and the damsire." - this is an interesting observation. Firstly, three generations is about as far as you want to go back. Any more and you are starting to get back to norms for the breed. However, what you are saying is that anything beyond the sire/broodmare sire is less in validity. There is a kernel of truth to that, but generally speaking true genetic affinities last a few generations at least. Fappiano did well with In Reality...so did Unbridled and so has Unbridled's Song. It doesn't work all the time but it works more often than opportunity dictates. Where it gets difficult is where you get a son of a stallion that doesn't act at all like a normal son. Take Forestry as an example, he doesn't act like a normal son of Storm Cat. Outside of Fappiano, he really doesn't like Mr Prospector line mares, yet Giant's Causeway and other sons of Storm Cat do. This is why using an up to date database is essential. TrueNicks judges Forestry for what he is doing and rates the Forestry/Mr Prospector nick as it should be, below average.

As a side note on this, at Performance Genetics we are just in the middle of looking at genetic based breeding outcomes and how one mating can, genetically speaking, be better than another. One of the more interesting things we looked at a whole lot of AP Indy mares and lined them up against Distorted Humor. Some of the AP Indy mares projected really well, but some projected poorly. What this tells us is that the latter group may be A.P. Indy mares in name only. They might not have got the AP Indy genes that Distorted Humor seems to like at all.

I don't know if it's on this board or another but there is a downside to these nicking systems. The lack of data on stallions who stand in Europe or down under can lead to bad results. I don't mean the cross itself is bad, but the same people who want to see that A are going to take some convincing that a D is not to be taken too seriously. A better answer would have been for these systems to say I as in incomplete data BUT here is the next generation.

That is a problem, but not one that TrueNicks suffers from. We get all the foals, runners, winners and stakes winners from the Jockey Club. They get all their overseas data from all the relevant racing bodies throughout the world and have so for many years now.

It is only a guide and a good starting point. We have said that from the first day we launched TrueNicks. After all, paper doesn't run very fast.

[Tappiano]

I would counter that there are very few US mares that nick well with the European based stallions because of the sample and the fact that for three generations you have stallions who never covered a US based mare. Add in the German bloodlines and now you have even fewer to draw from. This leads to a D rating because if there are any examples, there are so few it cannot be a true representation.

A US based Danzig line stallion yields an A nick but a Euopean based one yields a D. A grandson of Sadler's Wells in this country yields an A but in Europe it's a D.

[brogers]

I would counter that there are very few US mares that nick well with the European based stallions because of the sample and the fact that for three generations you have stallions who never covered a US based mare. Add in the German bloodlines and now you have even fewer to draw from. This leads to a D rating because if there are any examples, there are so few it cannot be a true representation.

A US based Danzig line stallion yields an A nick but a Euopean based one yields a D. A grandson of Sadler's Wells in this country yields an A but in Europe it's a D.

I don't think that is right. The database is worldwide so a US based Danzig stallion is treated the same as a Euro one.

Horses are, at least with TrueNicks, only going to rate a D if the alternates are better than the cross at hand. If there are only a few representatives of a cross, it would need the alternatives to this cross (how the sire has done with all other broodmare sirelines) to be a lot better for it to return a D.

Can you give me specific examples to test?

[Tappiano]

Try Galileo or his son Cape Blanco with Awesome Humor and then try Medaglia D'oro with Awesome Humor. These are enicks not true nicks since there weren't true nicks at the coolmore website for the stallions.

Pretty much every Forty Niner line mare is an A+ to stallions with Sadler's Wells in the pedigree in THIS country but not in Europe.

Does that work for an example?

[brogers]

Try Galileo or his son Cape Blanco with Awesome Humor and then try Medaglia D'oro with Awesome Humor. These are enicks not true nicks since there weren't true nicks at the coolmore website for the stallions.

Pretty much every Forty Niner line mare is an A+ to stallions with Sadler's Wells in the pedigree in THIS country but not in Europe.

Does that work for an example?

Tappiano,

This example pretty much illustrates the difference between TrueNicks and eNicks. Firstly, you can get the TrueNicks ratings for over 700 stallions (including Cape Blanco and Medaglia d'Oro for free by visiting TrueNicks.com - they are on a drop down menu on the right hand side).

Now here is Cape Blanco with Awesome Humor on TrueNicks

http://truenicks.com/free-reports/hypot ... me%20Humor

The mating is a D, based on Galileo and his sons with Mr Prospector line mares. Basically Galileo has been thoroughly underperforming with Mr Prospector line mares.

The same mare with Medaglia d'Oro is an A++

http://truenicks.com/free-reports/hypot ... me%20Humor

The reason for this is that the data is being calculated on Medaglia d'Oro with Forty Niner mares. I took a look at another son of El Prado in Kitten's Joy. He is an A+ with Awesome Humor

http://truenicks.com/free-reports/hypot ... me%20Humor

Again, he himself has a SW out of a mare by Ide, a son of Forty Niner, but this calculation is done on El Prado and his sons with Forty Niner mares so there are more stallions in the equation.

What the TrueNicks algorithm is telling you is that El Prado and Galileo are two different types of Sadler's Wells and should be treated as such. El Prado and his sons have done really well with Mr Prospector line mares, but Galileo (a shade early to include his sons) have not to this point. El Prado wasn't a typical son of Sadler's Wells in many ways and I guess from a genetic viewpoint he fit the North American mare by suiting Mr Prospector line mares (not that this was an exclusive reason for his success). You have to also remember that it is not like we have not had other sons of Sadler's Wells here - King of Kings, Powerscourt, etc.