Breeding season is upon us. Breeders will have their reasons for selecting a particular stallion for their mare, including consideration of successful crosses, weaknesses of the mare and known strengths of the potential sire.
Cost is another key consideration, including whether a return on investment is reasonably likely by breeding to that stallion. Breeders with the intention of selling the foal may place higher importance on its commercial appeal to prospective buyers. Sires fitting the mould of adding commercial value in today’s climate include Somebeachsomewhere, Bettors Delight, Mach Three and Art Major.
In this article I really want to unpack and review the stallion statistics. This article is for those of us who may be interested in being a little more scientific about the decision.
I have focused on the 2 and 3 year old statistics. However, if you are keen to know the sire’s ability to throw horses that can keep going in the open classes then you would need to look at very different sets of figures. Those figures are out there and can just as easily be compiled using basic maths.
Commercialisation of Stallions
Owners of stallions attempt to boost the commercial chances of new sires or less commercial sires through attracting good mares. In the USA, unlike Australia, there are lower proportions of hobby breeders. Stud farms mostly supply foals to the market. Some USA stud farms are highly commercial enterprises that aim to fetch the highest prices for their foals. The importance of the broodmare cannot be understated in helping the stud to secure that reputation and those higher prices.
Owners of stallions can pay considerable fees to the more commercial stud farms. There will probably be a suite of package options for owners of sires that may be more effective than other options in helping to increase the likelihood of commercial success. For example, I’ve read that some sires in the USA have secured packages that include being served to the absolute cream of broodmares in order to increase likelihood of commercial success. That said, if a sire has had every chance to prove himself against the best mares but does not produce those elite performers, then the market soon wakes up to this. Furthermore, the commercial sires have this status because they are usually ‘proven’ and actually do produce those elite performers.
The best mares can increase the chances of a sire gaining commercial status, as these will most likely produce foals that will win the most prestigious stakes and group races. Some sires probably could have made it as commercial sires, but lacked opportunity to really prove their worth due to few, if any, opportunities to be served to these broodmares. Consequently, sorting out the degree to which the sire is contributing to his progeny and their success, and the same for the mare, is a challenge for breeders. To really judge the actual contribution of the sire, we probably need to also consider foals from those less commercial mares. However, I have not delved into that level of detail in this article.
There are some statistics available in Australia through HRA, through the USTA and through some of the stallion stakes programs in North America. I‘ve utilised those figures in order to run a number of additional calculations to assess sire performance.
When interpreting the figures in this article, keep in mind the limitations of the data. Sires with small crops are not included in the analyses. So, using the methodology employed in this article, I can only compare stallions with a certain minimum number of foals in their crop. Secondly, the size of a foal crop can make a significant difference. A couple of standout horses that earn mega bucks can skew the results remarkably by increasing the average significantly for all horses in that crop. Thirdly, the data was selected at a particular point in time. If the data had been grabbed at another time, then the figures might have changed somewhat. So, I recommend questioning and challenging the figures and recognizing that it must be contextualized against the parameters and those limitations.
USTA Statistics
The USTA has its own top 20 lists. There are 2 list types including (1) leading money winning sires and (2) leading sires average earnings. Sires with more foals on the ground will usually be on top in the leading money winning category. Those sires also tend to be the commercial sires that are served to higher proportions of commercial broodmares. For those with an interest in comparison of commercial sires then these statistics should be of significant interest. However, for those of us who can’t afford to try those sires or for other reasons, the ‘leading sires by average earnings’ can provide a measure of a sire’s contribution to his progeny and assist us with our selection.
On the 4th of September 2016, these were the top 20 USA sires of 2 year olds by average earnings that had a minimum of 15 foals. The sires that are bolded and underlined with a star are standing or have stood in Australia or New Zealand. The USTA only provides the following data: 2014 foals born, starters, earnings and average earnings (all foals). I have calculated the data in the remaining 2 columns. Measures of interest are colour coded to assist us with rating performance. The horse that rates ‘1st’ for that measure is coloured ‘blue’, 2nd is ‘red’ and so on as shown below.
The only column that is not a measure of performance in each table is the 2nd column from the LHS, which provides a count of total foals or starters. That column is also colour code to assist with interpreting performance, whilst keeping in mind the crop size.
Table 1: Top 20 USA Leading Sires by Average Earnings per foal in 2016 – 2 year olds
In Table 1, the foals born column shows that the total number of foals born in that same year. That Somebeachsomewhere, Bettors Delight, American Ideal, and Art Major have the largest foal crops in 2014 should come as no surprise, as they also enjoy commercial sire status in Australia. These sires are more likely to be served to the ‘better’ mares. However, even though these sires have the highest numbers of foals, and their progeny are highly regarded, only one of them, Somebeachsomewhere, actually does well on the other performance measures. Sportswriter’s and Mcardle’s 2 year old statistics are impressive with their starters at the race track coming 2nd and 5th on the measure of average earnings per 2 year old starter.
Some other stallions that struggled to get mares in Australia including Art Official, Santanna Blue Chip, and Big Jim and which, like Australia, also have the smaller 2 year old crops in USA have done remarkably well to make it into the top 20 in the USA. Both Art Major’s sons have rated higher than him in terms of average earnings per starter, but their father has higher proportions of his foals that have made it to the race track as 2 year olds.
‘Percentage of foals to starters’ shows the proportion of the crop that matured as 2 year old starters. That measure may also be an indicator of the quality of the mares served to that particular stallion and/or it may also show whether the stallion can throw 2 year old starters. Obviously, to test these theories out will require unpacking each sire’s respective foal crop further, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Interestingly, the non-commercial stallion, Charley Barley, consistently beat all other stallions on all of the key performance measures, even with his small foal crop. Note also that Charley Barley descends from the famed Golden Miss – this line has produced a number of highly rated sires. His service fee in the USA is only $1000! Also of interest is that the 2 year old statistics for the full brothers Bettors Delight and Roll With Joe 2 year old crops had remarkably similar performance for these measures.
So, how about the 3 year old North American sire statistics? Again, I have calculated the figures in the 2 right hand columns using the data in the other columns in Table 2.
Table 2: Top 20 USA Leading Sires by Average Earnings per foal in 2016 – 3 year olds
The five stallions in the top 20 list with the largest foal crops in 2013 were Somebeachsomewhere, Mach Three, Big Bad John, Rocknroll Hanover and Well Said. From these five, the only sire that made the top 5 for ‘Average dollars per starter’ was Somebeachsomewhere.
Mach Three and Rock N Roll Heaven both made it into the top 20 for 3 year olds by average earnings per foal, though neither made it into the equivalent table for the top 20 USA 2 year olds. The data could indicate that these stallions’ progeny are more likely to be race mature as 3 year olds. Charley Barley does not feature in the top 20 by average earnings per foal – he didn’t have the minimum requirement of 15 foals.
Sportswriter’s 2 year olds rated very highly, however, he does not feature in the top 20 in the USA with his 3 year olds. I am suspicious of this finding, because I was unable to find Sportswriter’s record in the USTA stallion showcase at the time. This could indicate that his data was unavailable for inclusion in the 3 year old sire statistics.
Somebeachsomewhere’s 3 year olds outperform on all measures including the percent of foals to starters and average earnings per starter. Roll With Joe’s comes 2nd for all measures, and outperforms his older brother, even though Bettors Delight has a larger foal crop. American Ideal and Bettors Delight 3 year old crop have similar statistics, though Bettors Delight has slightly higher averages per starter and slightly higher proportions of foals that have made it as starters.
Canada & the Ontario Sires Stakes Statistics
The Ontario Sires Stakes provides excellent information on stallion performance which can easily be broken down further by gold points, grassroots points and so on. In this instance the various statistics that I have calculated are presented in graphs. Some stallions were excluded because they had fewer than 20 starts, making it problematic to compare performance.
The x axis of this display shows the sire and the number of starts his progeny have had at the time I grabbed these data on 6th September, 2016. The sires with progeny that have had the most starts (and the most starters) in the above display are Mach Three (215 starts), followed by Sportswriter (148 starts) and then Bettors Delight (130 starts).
In terms of wins to starts ratio, Bettors Delight and Sportswriter come out on top at 18% followed by Big Jim and Camluck at 12%.
In the Ontario Sires Stakes, the fastest and most talented horses should run in the Gold series. This can be a potential indicator of a sire’s ability to ‘upgrade’ his progeny. Big Jim comes out on top, with 47% of points scored being at the Gold level or a ratio of approximately 1 Gold point for every 2 Grassroots points. Bettors Delight has the next highest rate of conversion with 43% of all points being gold, and Up The Credit comes in a close 3rd with 42%.
The third measure provides a measure of wins and placings (ie 1st, 2nds & 3rds) to starts, with Bettors Delight coming out on top with 48%, and both Shadow Play and Big Jim scoring equal second with 45% wins and placings to starts.
Many of us are keen to know earning averages. The display below shows the average earnings of each sire per start. Bettors Delight comes out on top with an average of $7,015 per start, Big Jim comes second with $6128 per start and Up The Credit comes third with an average of $5,474 per start.
We can breakdown the figures further by age and sex, which really helps to get a much better picture of the sire than the aggregated list which mish-mashes both 2 and 3 year olds together, and hides/dilutes other information that can interest prospective breeders. Given the higher average earnings for the 3 sires highlighted above, you would expect that these sires are strongly represented with leading horses by age group, but as you can see below that is not necessarily the case. In the graph below, I have selected the top 5 two year old colts and the top 5 two year old fillies based on their OSS earnings.
Sportswriter is represented by 3 horses (1 colt, 2 fillies), Big Jim by 2 horses (1 colt, 1 filly), Mach Three by 2 horses (1 colt, 1 filly), and one horse each is represented by Classic Card Shark, Shadow Play and All American Native. The horse that comes out on top is Sportscolumn by Sportswriter having earned $131,250, followed by Streakavana ($105,000) in second and Soiree Seelster ($100,100) in 3rd, who are both by Big Jim. In the case of the 2 year olds, the best horses on 6 September were not by the most highly regarded commercial sires, but the new sires who probably had fewer top shelf broodmares. In this instance, the success of these sires’ 2 year olds is rather impressive, and may provide an indicator of their potential siring ability.
The figures for Big Jim in North America seem to be impressive, and yet his siring potential was not ‘trusted’ by breeders in Australasia where he has received very few mares. Consequently, it is difficult to assess whether that ability could have been observed here, even though he has had a couple of impressive 2 year olds in his small first crop and he tops the first season 2015-16 sire list for average per starter. The Australian figures for the likes of Big Jim are difficult to hang your hat on with such small foal numbers. This highlights that breeders should really utilise the available information: run some simple calculations, and delve more deeply into the figures.
That said, even though a sire may perform rather well in North America, this may not translate to breeding prowess in Australia. The stallions Roll with Joe and Sportswriter both have impressive statistics in North America, and these stallions have received reasonable numbers of mares in Australia. So, let’s have a look at the Australian figures and how these and other stallions compare with the more commercial stallions.
Stallions standing in Australia – the statistics
Table 3 displays the top 20 stallions with 10 or more starters in their 2 year old crop during the 2015-2016 season in Australia. Again, we need to consider the limitations of this display, as stallions with small crops will rarely make it into the figures because they don’t have the requisite 10 starters.
Table 3: Top 20 stallions with 10 or more 2 year old starters in 2015-2016 season in Australia
The sires with the largest 2 year old starters were Art Major, Rocknroll Hanover, Courage Under Fire, Somebeachsomewhere and Bettors Delight. Mach Three had the highest average per starter with an average of $19,532, followed by Sportswriter in 2nd and Somebeachsomewhere in 3rd. Bettors Delight 2 year olds had the highest average per race start with an average of $3,678, followed by Somebeachsomewhere in 2nd and American Ideal in 3rd place. Bettors Delight was again victorious with 55% of his starters getting either a win or place, followed closely by Somebeachsomewhere with 53% and Mach Three with 51%. Winners to starters was again won by Bettors Delight with 12%, followed by Somebeachsomewhere and Rock N Roll Heaven tying in 2nd place with 10%, and Grinfromeartoear, Courage Under Fire, American Ideal and Sportswriter tying in 3rd place on 9%.
When I consider these figures, this tells us that Sportswriter had some rather impressive 2 year olds that boosted the average earnings per starter. These figures also show that there are a number of sires in the lower service fee brackets with a comparatively high winners to starters figure for their 2 year olds. If we dig deeper we find the following in the Top 20 two year olds for 2015-16:
- Mach Three and Sportswriter were represented by 2 ‘top 20’ horses each.
- Rocknroll Hanover and Bettors Delight were both represented by 3 ‘top 20’ horses each.
- Somebeachsomewhere was represented by 4 ‘top 20’ horses
- For A Reason, American Ideal, Armbro Operative, Art Major, Roll With Joe and Rocknroll Heaven are each represented by 1 horse in the ‘top 20’ two year old performers.
To get a better indication of performance should involve an assessment of their 3 year olds. In the case of Rock N Roll Heaven he matches Bettors Delight with a staggering 5 horses in the top 20, whereas Sportswriter has none in the ‘top 20’ 3 year old list. This could indicate that Rock N Roll Heaven may sire horses that tend to be race mature at 3 years of age. Roll with Joe did not have a 3 year old crop in Australia in 2015-16, so it is not possible to judge this unless we turn to North American figures.
Conclusion
This article has limitations and does not help us to judge the newcomers such as A Rocknroll Dance or Pet Rock as there are no statistics for their progeny. Nor can we judge stallions with small foal crops, many of whom are our colonial stallions.
This article does shine some light on stallion performance based on available statistics for 2 and 3 year old starters. It’s shown that we can be harsh on some stallions when it seems that a number of their statistics are up there with the more commercial stallions. It has also shown that there may be some younger sires that appear to be doing rather well with their foal crops. If you have an interest in sire statistics, then I recommend going a few steps further including inspecting the sire in the flesh and drilling down to see the quality of the mares sent to that sire.
This article was not able to include many stallions with small foal crops. To do so requires a more complex and time consuming analysis, whereby like mares are compared against each other ie mares by the same broodmare sire, by winnings, by the number of group and FFA winners in previous 2 generations. Let’s hope that HRA ACTUALLY RESPOND to repeated email requests so that such an analysis is easier to undertake – acknowledgement would be at the very least respectful and polite!
Danielle Helbers
South Australia
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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