NEWS
University of Louisville: an academic approach to identifying elite broodmare prospects
Posted: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 5:35 PM
by Robert L. Losey, Ph.D.
A significant number of studies have reported through the years that graded stakes winners produce a much higher percentage of high-class runners than do mares with lesser race records.
Dan Rosenberg, formerly president of Three Chimneys and currently founder and proprietor of Rosenberg Thoroughbred Consulting, commissioned a study to answer questions related to why this occurs: are graded stakes winners better producers because of their racing class, because they are bred to better stallions? Or perhaps is it because graded stakes winners have better pedigrees than other mares in addition to being graded stakes winners?
This study addresses these questions as well as related questions such as whether there are other types of mares (especially speedy mares who did not win stakes races) who offer unusual opportunities to produce high-class runners.
We have done at least two things that previous studies have usually ignored:
1. We have based our statistical analysis on a sample of mares that all have high-class pedigrees.
2. We have adjusted for the quality of stallions bred to mares by limiting our sample to mares bred to stallions of similar quality.
The results have varied from the expected (graded stakes winners are the best prospects for producing high-quality runners) to the surprising (fast maiden winners produce a surprising percentage of high-quality runners). We also discuss listed stakes winners as producers (they appear to be over-valued and overbred by breeders), and non-winning mares (it’s hard to justify having them in a high-quality broodmare band), and six other categories of racing class as well.
Hopefully readers will find the results useful and thought-provoking. We invite readers’ comments and questions, as well as suggestions for future research of interest to the industry.
To read the complete paper, which includes many visual representations of the data, click here.
Robert Losey is professor of equine management at the University of Louisville; he welcomes e-mail
READER COMMENTS
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Posted by: Bob (one of the authors), Louisville, KY on October 17, 2011 at 03:46 PM
Doc makes a valid point. But obtaining data regarding the quality of the breaking and training of a horse would present problems. Finding out who broke the runners in this study would probably require thousands of inquiries, and still a sizeable amount of info might be unavailable. "Grading" trainers so that the data could be used in a statistical analysis, and more especially, grading those who broke a horse, would be a can of worms.
RL
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Posted by: Jeff, Custer, KY on March 06, 2011 at 05:50 PM
I totally agree with Doc from Austin. Take a superior horse (as far as bloodline goes) and put them in the hands of unexperienced people and you probably wont get much. Take an average horse and put him in the hands of a group of very skilled veterans and you would have more than the other senario. Yes bloodline plays an important roll on the track (moreso in the auction ring) but the hands that train and shape and take care of the horse play just as big of a roll in the horses success if not bigger
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Posted by: Doc, Austin, TX on March 05, 2011 at 09:51 AM
Refreshing to see empirical work. I wonder why the authors did not address the issue of the effect of the party that "broke" the horses, the trainers of the horses or the jockeys riding the horses. Are they assuming these parties have no effect on the racing performance of a horse?
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Posted by: Bill Smart, Evansville,, IN on March 04, 2011 at 09:54 PM
It took a "significant numbers of studies" to determine THAT!
CHEEZ, I educated myself on that theory forty years ago by reading Thoroughbred Times breeding catalogue and looking at the black-type on the mare's side and the greatness and breeding background of the sire. Example: Secretariat's sire and dam.
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