Bustino's Breeding Bits

I'd love Pyledriver to win the Derby. He obviously stays 12f but it's hard to understand why. His sire, Harbour Watch, ran only as a 2yo but as a son of Acclamation you'd expect him to be a miler. Pyledriver's damsire is Le Havre who stayed further but not much and his great grandsire was Kings Best, who although he sired a Derby winner, would be expected to get 9f or maybe 10f at a pinch. But he's well bred coming from a good Aga Khan/Boussac family and maybe his stamina comes from the Aga Khan's Kahyasi and Doyoun. Plenty of mongrels have won the Derby but Pyledriver isn't a mongrel by a long way.

The expectation seems to be that Kameko's stamina will find him out, we just don't know by whom. So why won't Kameko get the trip? Ask the man on the Clapham omnibus and he'll tell you it's his sire. I find that surprising. His sire is Kitten's Joy. One of the things that may surprise some is that he stayed 12f. He won a Group1 12f race and was second in the Breeder's Cup Turf. US horses rarely run over 12f, 10f is the classic distance in the USA. He was pretty good at 10f but he definitely got 12f. Being by El Prado who was by Sadler's Wells (he was SW's best US racehorse), who was out of a Sir Ivor mare would make you think this is perhaps not so surprising.

Kitten Joy's dam is by Lear Fan, who raced in England and was pretty classy. He finished 3rd in what was probably one of the best 2000G of the last 50 years. He never ran beyond 8f. His sire won the Derby but his dam was by the sprinter Lt. Steven, who did however win over 8.5f and was placed 2nd in the American Derby over 10f. But going further back there was more stamina, including Triple Crown winner War Admiral.

Kameko's dam, Sweeter Still, is by Rock of Gibraltar who was a miler through and through. By Danehill (who sired Derby and Arc winners) out of a Be My Guest mare it's probably not surprising he was a miler. Sweeter Still is out of a Belmez mare. You rarely see Belmez in a pedigree but he was a colt who won his only 2yo race and then beat the Derby winner in his Derby Trial only to injure himself. He missed the Derby but came back and won the King George beating his excellent stablemate Old Vic. He was ideally suited by 12f. Sweeter Still won over 8f and was placed over 9f. Like a lot of US horses she never raced over further but there's reason to believe on her pedigree she'd have got 10f. Her great grandsire was the Nijinsky colt Caerleon, who won the Prix du Jockey Club when it was still run over 12f and was 2nd in a good Irish Derby.

In judging a pedigree it's always difficult to know what the influences will be. A straight analysis would say Kameko should get 10f without any problem. But if Belmez and El Prado turn up he'll get further. If Lear Fan and Rock and Gibraltar turns up then he'll struggle. We'll find out on Saturday.

In Kameko's favour is his 2000G run. He travelled better than any horse in the race. He won despite having to switch outside the placed horses. He also won in a pretty fast time. If he can show that class, have a bit more stamina and get down the hill (which is often the key destroyer of a borderline horse) he could make us wonder early Saturday evening why we doubted him.

 

Last year's top first season sire, Night of Thunder (Dubawi) is continuing the good work this year and had a good week with the success of the smart Thunderous in the Dante. NoT hasn't quite got a Group1 winner yet it must be only a matter of time. The word used about this sire's offspring is tough and that's a useful competency to have.

Just bubbling under the top first season sires last year was a son of Dubawi's first classic winner Makfi, and that was Make Believe. He's had an even better week with the success of Rose of Kildare who readily took the Musidora, just 5 days after finishing 3rd in a Group3 at Epsom. She is the epitome of tough as this was her 16th start. Amazingly she cost only 3,000gns as a yearling and must be worth nearly 7 figures now. If you look at her pedigree you see you are into Lord Derby breeding as this filly comes from the family of Ouija Board, Australia, Roseate Tern and Teleprompter: the latter was a particularly tough horse. Of course Make Believe had already gone beyond Night of Thunder when his son Mishrif won the Prix du Jockey Club last Sunday.

It's too early to say who's going to be the surprise sire of this season but New Bay (Dubawi) has started very will. The expectation was probably that he'd be a 2nd season sire as he was best as a 3yo and won the Prix du Jockey club. He has had few runners, as one would probably expect, but his strike rate (winner to runners ) is above 50%: very impressive. He comes from a robust 'sire' family with his close relatives being Oasis Dream and Kingman. He has a lot going for him.

Maybe he won't keep this strike rate up but what is certain is that the Dubawi sire-line is doing very well.

 

Currently Mehmas who had about 140 foals and New Bay had about 80 are joint leaders with 6 wins each.

 

That Mehmas is now running away with the First Season Sire championship is no surprise as he had so many 2yos running this year. What may be a surprise is some of the quality coming through. He has probably the speediest 6f 2yo in Supremacy but one cannot be anything but impressed by the win of Minzaal at Salisbury on Sunday. There are others too that look more than just fast 2yos.

 

Coolmore have purchased the British bred/trained but French sire Wootton Bassett. This son of Iffraaj has the potential to fit the bill as an outcross for the Northern Dancer rich Coolmore mares. He is inbred 5X4X5 to Northern Dancer with one line of Mr Prospector.
His finest son was of course Almanzor, while this year he has been represented by the admirable The Summit. He started his career as a €5,000 per nomination sire.

 

According to my calculations he now has 25 winners and New Bay has 8. If he carries on at this rate he will break all records.

 

A famous breeder was once asked what would be the optimum distance of a foal produced from the mating of an Ascot Gold Cup winner with a 5f sprinter. He succinctly replied somewhere between 5f and 20f. The breeder was right of course, as there are often turn-ups in the case of breeding and anyway his range covered all possibilities. But there is a theory that one can use to predict the likely distance from what is sometimes called Galton’s Law, which often turns out to be a good predictor.

Before going into that I’d like to say a few things about horseracing and the attitudes of a lot of people. I have been following racing over more than 50 years and it has changed enormously, yet I don’t believe horses have changed. I don’t think racing has changed wholly for the better in that it is not as competitive as it used to be. I think the culprit is the Pattern. An illustration of how the pattern has reduced competitiveness can be found if we look at Magical. She won a Group 1 in July that was little more than an exercise gallop when 50 years ago definitely, 30 years ago probably she’d have been running in either the Eclipse or the King George etc.. Yet she won a Group 1 race that I am asked to accept is of a high level, which few attain, which is the equal of similar Group 1s. I can't accept that and I think Group1/Grade 1 inflation has whittled away at competitiveness such that great races are few and far between.

I believe another effect of the Pattern is that it has made racing prescriptive. Not only racing but racing commentators have become prescriptive. If horse A wins race X his long term target is race Y and he won’t be aimed at race Z. The comments that prompted my note and these statements were made by those sages Quarter Moon and Grendel. I am always pleased to read their posts but they’ve caught the disease of becoming very rigid and their posts that prompted this missive were those relating to Minzaal. They are already prescribing that he will do this and he won’t do that and that his aim will be the Commonwealth Stakes at Royal Ascot next June. I feel the Pattern has caused that to be the case and guides their thinking. Formerly the leading sprint at Ascot used to be the Kings Stand Stakes run over 5f, and open to 3yo and upwards. Then in 2002 we got the Cork and Orrery Stakes (6f) upgraded from a Group 3 to a Group 1 and called The Golden Jubilee Stakes, again for 3yos and upwards. To cap it all we now have had the Commonwealth Stakes introduced as a Group 1 over 6f for 3yos only. Are there all these wonderful sprinters out there to populate these races? I don’t think so. When in 1990 Dayjur won the Kings Stand we all knew we were seeing something special. Have we got a clue now? Yes we’ve got ideas and clues but that’s all. There are now rarely great Group 1 sprints at Ascot.

So going back to the posts in question: basically both decided that Minzaal is a sprinter and should not be considered as a possible miler and that he should be aimed at next Junes 3yo Group 1 sprint. They could be right. My perspective is different, because of different experiences pre-pattern. The best winner of the Gimcrack was probably a horse called Mill Reef. In terrible going he scooted to a ten length victory in a time that would read well on good ground. His three races up to then had been over 5f, 6f and 5.5f. His next race after the Gimcrack was over 6f and he finished off his season winning the Dewhurst. He had no problems winning the Derby and the Arc the next year.

Now I’m sure Minzaal will do neither of these things, but as I said after his win I do think he’s very capable of getting further. The danger for those who love racing is that it will be prescribed for him to run in the Middle Park and then in 6f sprints next year. How boring. Quarter Moon underlined his view by saying he has one sign of stamina (Sadler’s Wells) in his pedigree. It’s now almost predicated that staying horses to be (only run over 7f+ as 2yos) and those that run over less are doomed to be sprinters.

So let’s look at that pedigree. He’s by FSS Mehmas who is by the fast horse Acclamation, which supports QM’s case. Look at Mehmas though. He ran over 7f and he ran well enough to be second in a Group 1 race behind Churchill. Having won the July Stakes and Richmond Stakes, he was only to have one more race after his 2nd to Churchill, in the Middle Park when he wasn’t fast enough to beat Blue Point and the Last Lion. He had shown some precocity and his owners decided there was money to be made sending him to stud. This sending of 2yos to stud is a recent phenomenon and this side of the pond started with Teofilo, who has been a terrific sire (look it up, until Frankel came along he was the most successful son of Galileo at stud). He was followed by Dark Angel, who has got those fast horses Harry Angel and Battash, but also offspring that stayed much further than the 6f Dark Angel won over. He is similarly bred to Mehmas being a son of Acclamation out of a Medicean, but the similarity stops there. So let’s look at Mehmas’s pedigree. Sure he’s by Acclamation but as said his dam is by Medicean who easily stayed 10f and the granddam is a half-sister to Coronation Cup winner Warrsan. She’s also half-sister to the top class Luso (by Salse) and the useful Cloud Castle and Needle Gun. These are all middle distance horses and though Mehmas’s granddam is by Soviet Star I would compare him stamina-wise with Salse. Looking at it like this it would be a surprise if Mehmas didn’t get further than 7f if he’d continued to race.

So let’s go back to Galton’s Law, which relies upon the diminishing impact of successive generations. Though you can go to the 10th (or bigger) generation if you want but it is usually sufficient to do it to the 4th and to make a correction. For example with Mehmas it would say his first generation supplied two figures. Let’s say 6f for Acclamation and 10f for his dam. It would then average these figures (so 8f) then divide them by 2. This would give a figure of 4f for the first generation’s influence. It would then go to the next generation and do the same. This amounts to 6 for Royal Applause, 5 for the dam of Acclamation, 10 for Medicean and 10 for Lunda (Warrsan’s half-sister). That gives you 31 in total which you divide by 4 to get the average which is 7.75. You divide it by a further 4 to give the influence figure which is 1.94. You then do it again for the next generation of 8 horses (dividing the average by 8) then the next generation (which you divide by 16). You add the 4 figures for each generation and add 1/16 of this figure to the total (this is to round up to a whole 1). The third generations influence is 0.96 and the fourth generation is 0.54. This gives a total figure of 7.44, to which needs to be added 0.46. This gives a likely stamina index for Mehmas of 7.9f. Looking at his whole pedigree I’m not surprised at that, yet most people will look at Acclamation and just say sprinter.

We need now to look at Minzaal, and specifically his dam, Pardoven. She is by the miler Clodovil (who was reasonably stoutly bred) out of a Sadler’s Wells mare, and in fact her pedigree is stuffed full of milers and horses with even more stamina. I therefore find myself asking why should Minzaal be predicated to be a 6f horse?

I think we’ve got into this way of thinking and as I said earlier the often ridiculous Pattern has enabled this by allowing horses to reach a theoretical peak without taking on the best of their peers. I think that’s a shame. I hope Minzaal goes some way to prove this perspective to be wrong.

 

Mehmas has just scored his 40th win. That's an impressive score even if he covered more mares than any other first crop sire.

I think it's almost certain that Mehmas will break the record for wins for a FSS. As regards leading 2yo sire Mehmas lies 2nd behind Kodiac, but he's only 3 wins behind him.

If you look at the European FSS, then Mehmas leads that with 43 wins altogether.

In France, where you have much less 2yo racing, Goken still leads the way with 17 wins. Not bad from just 24 runners.

 

The Feola family refuses to die, even if it's not looking very well in the Royal Stud. This season the main flagbearer has been Hukum who probably found the Leger a bit far. He could still improve next year over 12f.
Last week two 2yos from this family won good races at Newmarket and Newbury. The first was Charlie Hills Mutasabeq in a maiden at Newmarket. He was 5th favourite in a field of 7 yet despite running green won pleasingly. He is a colt by Invincible Spirit out of that excellent filly Ghanaati, who of course won the 1000G and Coronation Stakes. He's likely to be suited by 8f and will have to improve a lot. Ghanaati is a daughter of Giants Causeway and a mare called Sarayir, who in turn is a daughter of Height of Fashion.
A more prominent performance on Saturday was the victory of Love is You, who won the Listed Radley Stakes over 7f at Newbury. She had already won a decent Ascot maiden in September over 8f. She is by Kingman out of a really good filly called Fallen for You who also won the Coronation Stakes. However if you look at Love is You's 3rd dam you realise she is a full-sister to Highclere the dam of Height of Fashion. Highclere won the 1000G and Prix de Diane and was out of a filly called Highlight. She was an average filly who managed to win two small races and come 4th in the Princess Royal Stakes. Off to stud after 3 very ordinary foals she appeared a duffer. Her 4th foal at least won a small race as a 3yo (though as 7yo he won the Schweppes). Her 5th foal was better still but just a good handicapper but by this time her 6th foal had arrived, Highclere. Strangely enough she was probably by the cheapest stallion so far used and that was Queens Hussar. A year later a full-sister, called Light Duty, arrived who was good enough to finish 2nd in the Ribblesdale and Yorkshire Oaks whilst winning a listed race. It is through Light Duty that Love is You descends.
Both these 2yos look more like milers than stayers, though both could get 10f. This great family of Deep Impact, Nashwan and Highclere (amongst others) generally show improvement with age. It would be no surprise to see at least one of them at Royal Ascot next year. Just a pity that they're not Royal.

 

The Champion First Season sire is decided by the number of wins by FSS during the GB and Irish turf season (though includes AW wins). The season ends very soon and for the last 3 months it has been obvious that Mehmas would win it.
Despite having most horses representing him this has still been an impressive performance. He has now had more winners as well as wins than any other FSS sire. He also has had more 2yo winners than Kodiac, who has had more 2yo runners than Mehmas. He did this despite his first 20 runners not winning. Also impressively his 2yos have won more money than Galileo's.
Well dones are due to Kodi Bear, New Bay (few runners) and Belardo. If there was a sire who might make a breakthrough as his horses become 3yos it might be Territories. But they were all well behind Mehmas who won more races than Kodi Bear and New Bay together.
How will he do next year?

 

Have talked about the FSS table, but what about the Second Crop Sires? These are last years FSS but with the first crop of 3yos.

Last year the leading first crop sire by wins was Gutaifan, followed by Night of Thunder and Cable Bay. Here's the Second Crop Table year to date

1st Golden Horn 56 wins against 9 wins last year 13th
2nd Gleneagles 46 wins, against 22 wins last year 7th
3rd Muharaar 45 wins, against 12 wins last year 11th
4th Night of Thunder 44 wins against 31 wins last year 2nd
5th Make Believe 39 wins against 16 wins last year 7th
6th Gutaifan 34 wins, against 34 wins last year 1st

Big improvement by Golden Horn, so as I said surprising that his 2021 covering fee has been halved. Improvements from Gleneagles and Muharaar, while the rest were solid. Cable Bay finished 7th. Of course this is by wins and by money earned Night of Thunder was tops.

Third Crop Sires. So they have their first 4yos, as well as a crop of 3yos and 2yos.

1st Kingman 74 wins, against 80 wins last year 1st versus 22wins in 2018 3rd
2nd Australia 58 wins, against 65 wins last year 2nd versus 15 wins in 2018 7th
3rd No Nay Never 53 wins against 57 wins 3rd versus 31wins in 2018 1st
4th Toronado 38 wins against 43 wins 6th versus 15 wins in 2018 8th
5th Slade Power 35 wins against 48 wins 5th versus 18 wins in 2018 6th
6th Garswood 33wins against 26 wins 13th versus 5 wins in 2018 22nd

In general you'd have to say the second crop year is a bigger indicator for the future than the first crop results. The top three are very solid with Kingman proving impressive. Toronado looks good value and as he now stands in France is liable to slip out of this table as this table is based on UK and Ireland only. Garswood's rise up the tables is impressive as he was an also ran with his first crop. It might be explained by the fact that he's a good producer of hardy middle-order handicappers.

More research needed which I might do sometime.

 

None of my thinking is based on the Pattern. I predict a horse's likely optimum distance based solely on the visual clues from the races it has run in. I would give a little nod to pedigree in the more obvious cases particularly where a horse may be stepping up markedly in trip but generally I go by the way a horse performs at the distance it has been running over previously and then apply that to a scenario where they would run over further.

Looking at Minzaal, he was impressive looking in the Gimcrack but I was sceptical that he had improved by 26 lbs on Racing Post figures, from 88 to 114. My feeling was that it wasn't a great renewal of the Gimcrack and it hasn't worked out at all well subsequently.

Minzaal went on the Middle Park and finished third. He was keen several times in the race and had to be restrained by the jockey. I always feel it is a bad portent for being able to get a mile when the horse wants to be going faster than the jockey would like him to at 6F. Minzaal passed some of those falling away in the final furlong but he made no meaningful headway on the 1-2 in the final 100 yards and his earlier keenness probably meant that his own tank emptied at that stage.

Looking at Minzaal, I see no evidence to suggest that he will benefit from a mile. He was fast enough to win over 6F at York and we often see 5F youngsters winning over 6F at York. For some time now I have believed that you need a really speedy filly to win the Lowther, probably the reason why so few go on to win the Guineas the following season and why some don't even bother trying.

To some degree I feel that a horse can get away with running at less than optimum distance when they have a huge advantage in class but to win even a moderate Gimcrack I would say that a colt has to have a pretty strong affinity with the sprint trip. Looking at the Middle Park, I am dubious that Supremacy is a 118 horse and none of the 1-2-3 appeal to me as wanting, or needing a mile.

The times have changed and there are far too many weak quality Group races out there now. If I had to blame anyone it would be the media for over-hyping anything that carries a Group 1 tag and next in line is the assessors who award crazy ratings just because a race is a certain Group level. We have seen Group 3 horses winning Group 1 races and while we all know they wouldn't have won that race in an average renewal, they still get a rating commensurate with the Group 1 status.

I read somewhere recently that we probably haven't seen the winner of either Guineas, or the Derby and Oaks yet. I would tend to agree with the latter Classics but the Guineas would be hard to win on probably a second career start. It has been a mediocre 2YO season in general and that is reflected in the openness of the betting for each classic. Minzaal is 33/1 for the 2000 Guineas and that is because he is unlikely to be a miler based on everything we have seen so far, and the fact that he probably comes from a sire who was precocious as a 2YO and whom was retired after his 2YO season may suggest that the father's progeny may inherit that precociousness.

The one thing we can be sure about is that the Pattern has absolutely zero influence on my thinking. All my input is based entirely on my own opinion and honest appraisal of the horses in question.

 

In 2 weeks time the Flat turf season starts. Though the Lincoln Handicap captures most attention the important 2yo season also starts. Hand in hand with this is the First Season Sires championship. Last year it was won by a distance by Mehmas (and it’s 2yo wins, not winners or prize money that decides the champion: though Mehmas would have won whatever the yardstick). The most interesting sires this year are probably Churchill (Galileo), Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) and Almanzor (Wootton Bassett).

The latter is unlikely to be a leading sire in his first season as he was very much a 3yo and anyway a large proportion of his produce will be to staying mares and running in France. With Caravaggio being credited with 131 foals it’s no surprise he’s near favourite to be FSS champion. Similarly his Coolmore stablemate Churchill had 124 foals and is similarly priced. Surprising to some may be that the current favourite Profitable (Invincible Spirit) especially as he was a fairly ordinary 2yo. He was a good horse afterwards but will he be a Mehmas or Muharrar?

A better prospect for champion may be Cotai Glory (Exceed and Excel) who was a better 2yo and has as many foals as Profitable. He’s also from the female line that produced the super sire Miswaki. This looks an open year with plenty of other possible such as Aclaim (Acclamation, who was the sire of Mehmas and Dark Angel), Ribchester (Iffraaj), Ardad (Kodiac) and Galileo Gold (Paco Boy). The latter is probably the forgotten horse here. Will he be this year’s Night of Thunder?

Unfortunately the produce of these sires has to run against the highly consistent produce of Kodiac as well as last year’s big hitter Mehmas: not so easy. It will fascinating to see whether mehmas can produce another big score with his 2yos and even more interesting to see if his 3yos train-on.

 

El Kabeir could be an interesting one Busty. Produce hasnt gone for fortunes but well up there in the numbers game and might produce offspring with plenty of pace.

 

You're right Stick. Apparently he has 110 foals, so well up there. Just an unknown quantity as he only raced in the US but another sire by Scat Daddy (like No Nay Never).

 

The first 2yo race kicks off the turf season today. The Brocklesby Stakes features 2 FSS today: Cotai Glory has Forca Brasil (Boughey) representing him, while Ardad has Vintage Clarets (Fahey). Last years Champion FSS Mehmas has Makalu (Ryan).

 

The good form of Mishriff (by Make Believe) continues with his Sheema Classic win at Meydan. His long term aim is now the Arc.
He’s done a wonderful job for his sire Make Believe, who still stands at a covering fee of just 15,000euros. He’s also help build up the canon of Dubai-line sires.
There may be a lot of things that will make Mishriff attractive as a sire but two stand out for me. The first is there is no sight of NorthernrDancer in his his first 5 removes: something almost unseen these days. This will make him attractive to breeders with mares chock-full of ND. The second is that he comes from the family of two popular and successful stallions, Invincible Spirit and Kodiac. Mishriff’s dam is a granddaughter of those two sires' dam Rafha. While close family ties do not guarantee success there have been many examples of close relatives with ability being more than useful sires.

The other thing about Mishriff seems to be that he’s a hell of a battler with a great attitude.

 

There is a lot of milers in that pedigree Bustino:Make Believe, Makfi, Ravens Pass, Bahri, Elusive Quality, Habitat + Dobawi, Dubai Millennium, Green desert, Green Dancer, Kris, if you go up to 10f max. That's just from memory

3 generations back we have Arc winner Suave Dancer who goes back to Nijinski and Alleged (and therefore Ribot)

Do you reckon that little sprinkling of stamina will be good enough for an Arc?

I saw a headline "Magnificent Mishriff silences stamina doubters with stunning Sheema Classic win". But the Arc is a completely different kettle of fish. I see he is joint fav with Tarnawa at 9/1. I think I would rather be on Tarnawa at present. If Mishriff impresses over 12f in a G1 in Europe I might change my mind

 

Agree with you totally Ron. He appears to have an 8-10f pedigree with perhaps an emphasis on 8f. The fact remains he's looked better at 10f than he did at shorter distances, and that he's won over 12f. Not sure how difficult Longchamp rates against Meydan, but I'd reckon more difficult. I'd certainly think he'd get 12f at Epsom, so maybe the Coronation Cup will be a target.

 

Caravaggio is the first new sire to get a winner with the victory of APO'B's Tenebrism at Naas. No doubt she'll be favourite for the Albany at Royal Ascot.