I think I partly know the answer to this question, but what I’m looking for is an explanation.
Are “successful” mares and stallions any more or less likely to have successful offspring?
The reason I ask is this: at the moment, I have more broodmares than I have cash for breeding them. I’ve been prioritizing my mares that either already have strong breeding rankings (common sense) or who had successful careers. Does it make sense–within Final Furlong, that is–to prioritize breeding mares that had strong careers? Or does their personal success operate differently from their breeding statistics? Please & thank ye!
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Their breeding success typically operates very differently than their racing success, and sometimes it can come down to just hitting the right cross. I’ve seen plenty of MSW millionaire mares produce maybe one SP out of 8 foals, and I’ve seen terrible runners become blue hens. All FF horses get a randomized breeding potential, but I believe it can be based sometimes on their bloodline (Aka I always look at what half sisters or half aunts have produced and I’ve noticed if it’s bad overall, chances are my mare will also be bad).
Another way of looking at it is the stallions. Stallions now need those 7 SWs and you can still get bad, okay, and great producers. The RL studs don’t have FF race careers, and some do better or worse than their RL counterparts in the shed.
So long story short, a successful race mare doesn’t mean successful broodmare. For me, if a mare doesn’t have a black type foal by the time her oldest is 4 (presuming all her foals up to that age are active) she tends to get the boot.
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Thank you! Vocabulary question: what’s a black foal? (Assuming you don’t mean the color. )
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“Black type” means stakes, so if they’re a stakes winner or stakes placed they’re considered “black type.”
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Yeah, I think FF is similar to RL. Of course, a stakes winner bred to a stakes winner could produce a stakes winner (or a total dud). I think a good example of this is Zenyata. She’s of course had some trouble carrying a foal, but none of them have been great racers. There’s also Tapit, one of the greatest sires right now, he only raced a handful of times before being retired to stud.
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