Hot Danish, Sniper’s Bullet, Dariana and Melbourne Cup winner Shocking.  These four Gr1 winners represent just a few of the eleven Gr1 winners in the latest season to be born after their dams had a year off. 

From a pool of 54 Gr1 winners in the 2009/10 season, 20% of these were empty mare foals - in other words their dam had an empty season prior to their birth.  The high number of Gr1 winners whose dams had an empty year in the previous season has led to the belief that if your mare misses, slips or is given a year off, then she is more likely to leave a stakes winner in the following season. 

The recent success of Gr1 winners Denman and So You Think got the B&R team thinking about whether there is any truth to the myth about foal order and Gr1 winners.  It is often cited that if a mare hasn’t left a good one in her first four foals, then she probably isn’t going to. 

So You Think is the tenth foal of his Gr2 winning dam, Triassic, and is also her first stakes winner.  She doesn’t meet the myth’s criteria of leaving her best foal in her first four foals; although her other six foals to race are all winners including HK$2million earner Hip Hip Hooray. 

Denman is the 11^th foal of maiden winner Peach.  She meets the myth’s criteria as her second foal is Gr1 VRC Sires Produce winner Preserve.  Denman is the third stakes winner for Peach whose second stakes winner is her 9^th foal, the Listed winner Rio Oso.  All of her nine foals to race are winners.

Due out in the August issue of Breeding and Racing (www.breedingracing.com); an analysis of the Australian impact on the Global Sprint Challenge.

How have we gone?  Super.

The idea was thanks for an Australian who took on England and won: Choisir.  Takeover Target won the first Sprint Challenge; and Australia has done better than opportunity in all eight races.

A pdf version can be seen here.

A pdf version can be found here.

This article is a discussion of the impacts of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/09 on the number of mares that may be bred in the 2009 season.

A pdf version can be found here.

The conclusion we can make from our investigation is that fillies and mares aren’t getting stronger, although they appear to have an advantage in set weight racing for 2 and 3yos. This advantage disappears as all horses age and race under the weight for age scale. The alterations to the Australian weight for age scale, and especially to the weight differential given to females, complicates our results. This is a question that will need revisiting when we have ten years worth of data (post 2008) under a uniform weight scale and gender allowance across all racing.

A short version of the article can be found here.

The conclusion is:

Click here to see pdf version of this story.

The idea is to compare the spring 3yos over the two classic distances, 1600m and 2500m.  In order to find out if Oaks winners are indeed special, we need to compare their breeding record against two control populations.  The most obvious source is to look at the general racing population, but a more subtle comparison is with mares equal in racing class and maturity.

By looking at the winners of another spring classic race, but over a different distance, we remove factors of comparison such as racing quality and class.  We can also presume that the winners of each of these races are equal in maturity (both winning a Gr1 in the spring) and are subsequently given an equal opportunity at stud when they retire.

According to Andrew Lemon, author of The History of Australian Thoroughbred Racing, the VRC Oaks initially struggled to gain enthusiasm with the racing fraternity.  The first two events, held in 1859 and 1860, caught the attention of few trainers. There were 11 nominations for the inaugural event held at Flemington by the Victoria Turf Club, but by race day only one remained.  Birdswing won 'in a walkover' to take the £188 prize.  The following year, rival club, the Victoria Jockey Club held the Oaks again at Flemington.  They had three acceptors for the race that the club was trying to establish as the premier Classic race for fillies in Australia.  Again, only one filly faced the starter and Flying Colours cantered around the course to take home £215.  Things picked up in the third running of the Oaks in 1861. The Turf Club announced a new major handicap race, the Melbourne Cup. This gave more prominence to their spring carnival.  Five fillies took starters orders in the third running of the Oaks, and the winner was Palestine who beat Medora by two lengths.  Medora went on to run in the inaugural Melbourne Cup, but fell. The two rival clubs merged in 1864 to create the Victoria Racing Club. The Oaks has been held every year at Flemington since 1859 and the 2008 running will be the 150th time that the best 3YO fillies have contested this race.  It took some persistence, but the VRC Oaks can now claim to be one of the most highly prized Classic races of the Australian racing season.

The VRC Oaks is run at Flemington over 2500m in early November. In 1946, to complement this race and complete the set of Classic races held in the spring, the Victoria Amateur Turf Club (VATC) ran the One Thousand Guineas over one mile in mid October.   As well as complement the VRC Oaks, this race was introduced by the club (recently renamed the Melbourne Racing Club) to give the spring carnival a boost after the end of the Second World War.  The first winner was Sweet Chimes who went on to win the VRC Oaks. It was seen as an ideal preparatory race for the best fillies, in the same way as the Caulfield Guineas was developed as an equivalent top quality race for 3YO colts and geldings ahead of the Derby. In that post-war era, there was a growing recognition among the racing clubs that there should be more classic races for fillies in order to encourage the local breeding industry.   The MRC One Thousand Guineas has grown in statue throughout its history to equal its older counterpart.

In order to find out if VRC Oaks winners make great broodmares, we need to understand the benchmark for all broodmares.  In a separate study using data from Arion Pedigrees, looking at nearly 30,000 foals over the five year period from 1992, it was discovered that it is terribly difficult to breed a Gr1 winner.  Of all horses born, less than half a percent win at the highest level, and only 2.3% become stakes winners.  Further to this, only around one third of horses born win at least one race, so the odds are well and truly stacked against breeders.

Table 1:  Data from a wider population study, showing break-down of foals by racing outcomes.

This article looks at the winners of the MRC One Thousand Guineas and the VRC Oaks for the period from 1979 to the present.  In 1979, the Group racing system was introduced, and both the VATC One Thousand Guineas and the VRC Oaks were given Gr1 status. 

During the 29 year period under study, there have been 9 mares who won both of these races, but we have included these in the tallies for each race.  These mares are:  Brava Jeannie, Rom’s Stilletto, Tristanagh, Richfield Lady (died with no progeny), Arborea, Northwood Plume, Magical Miss, Special Harmony and Miss Finland.

Table 2: VATC One Thousand Guineas winners and breeding records.

The record of One Thousand Guineas winners is much better than that of the general population.  The majority of the foals bred make to the races (77%) and over half of the foals born from these mares won at least one race.  This record could easily improve further as the younger mares have more foals to the races, and indeed would look much better if Shame’s first foal Evander (by Octagonal) had succeeded in the AJC Spring Champion Stakes instead of running second.  Shame has a ¾ brother to Evander called Demerit (2006 by Lonhro) waiting in the wings. 

Two winners of the MRC One Thousand Guineas in our study timeframe died without progeny – Lady of the Pines and Richfield Lady.