Harness Racing is a strange business and at times things happen that are just hard for me to get my head around. I can promise you that parts of this story that l’m about to share may not be well received at some stud farms, however, I do think it’s important for people to look at the facts and make up their own minds.
The knives seemed to be out for Roll With Joe at the moment and l get the feeling that Alabar have some very difficult decisions to make about the future of this exceptionally well-bred stallion, who’s also a former race track star in his own right. The biggest question for Alabar? Is he still a commercial proposition to shuttle to Australia/New Zealand for this season and into the future? Considering his brother will have a fee of $25,000 less discounts for this up and coming season.
So before l try and answer that question to the best of my ability, let’s take one small step back first to look at far bigger issue for the industry, that includes other stallions and studs worldwide.
Stallion owners as a general rule in this country (and all over the world) hate any talk or open discussions about a stallion’s fertility and for far too long the industry has been held back because of the lack honesty and wiliness of authorities to help mare owners really understand the true nature of this problem. While I’m the first admit and acknowledge it’s unfortunate timing and a tad unfair that l bring this up while sharing information about one particular horse, however something has to happen in this area and things need to change fast.
One other point before l go any further…some studs in the past have had a horrendous record of reporting true and honest data in relation to stallion returns and again the authorities have set up a system where these cheats have been able to manipulate results to trick and deceive the mares owners – the very people that have supported them for years. It’s a despicable act and l wish l could name and shame them in this piece. Please note Alabar, who will feature in this opinion piece are NOT a company l’m making reference to about manipulating stallion returns.
Ok, back to Roll With Joe.
Most people will be aware he had a very disappointing year with only 50% of the mares he served by the end the season achieving a positive result. While plenty of people may have differing views on why this happened, for me, having a horse with his history and then trying to cover 155 mares in this country and 26 in NZ was a clear mistake. l have no doubt (if he returns) these numbers or mistakes will never be repeated by his owners and managers.
Fertility issues are one thing, however the real reason for this piece, is that l believe people have the wrong understanding of this stallions true value to breeders and yearling buyers in this country.
Yes, it’s difficult to defend his breeding record on both his fertility and progeny results at this early stage, when breeders keep wanting to compared Joe to his older brother. Remember Bettors was born back in 1998 and now has just north of three thousand foals on the ground in AUS/NZ alone. While many people believe, Bettors is the greatest sire we will ever see and if that’s true, let’s please annualise the numbers and see how Roll With Joe compares at this early stage of his career to his super star brother, remembering Joe only has 373 live foals in AUS/NZ
Bettors Delight was the sire of 82 live foals born in AUS in 2013/2014 season, his top 5 progeny in earnings so far are listed below.
Interestingly Roll With Joe had a very similar number of foals born in AUS in 2013/2014 season, his top 5 progeny in earnings so far are listed below.
Now the results above give Bettors Delight a slight advantage at this stage ,however if Bettors is the greatest stallion in the world (which is hard to disagree with), Joe’s not doing too bad here, in the head to head battle. So let’s take a look at the NA data for the same year.
Bettors Delight was the sire of 100 live foals born in NA in 2013 season, his top 5 progeny in earnings so far are listed below
Roll With Joe Had 89 foals born in NA in 2013 season, his top 5 progeny in earnings so far are listed below.
The results above show Bettors did get one additional super star for a slightly bigger crop of foals (11 more), however to me, Joe has done a fantastic job here and is in striking range of his brother. Somebeachsomewhere dominated this crop (2013) and I can’t see any stallion getting close to his efforts – even Bettors is unlikely to get close the Beach’s prodigious results that year. For the non Joe believers please see the list of stallions below for their best progeny in NA for the 2013 season. So far, every single one of the stallions below had more foals born in NA 2013 than Roll With Joe, yet he still out-performed them.
To me the table above clearly shows Roll With Joe was and is a leading sire in 2013 in NA. People should take note of this young stallion as he will continue to outperform those stallions with higher profiles and much higher services fees than his. He will be a name the NA will remember for years to come.
The Bettors Delights 2013 NZ top 5 foals below are the biggest challenge to Roll With Joe and it will always be his biggest Achilles heel down here ie his inability to serve the numbers of mares his brother can. Bettors Delight was able to serve more than 300 additional mares in NZ in 2013, and worse than that, l believe, these NZ mares as a group are a far superior genetic match than the mares available to both brothers in Australia.
So the bottom line for me is that if Alabar (and breeders with the right mares) have put a line through Roll With Joe, they are both making a massive mistake and l for one will find a way to support this horse if he is given another chance to shuttle down here.
That said, if I owned or had control of the horse, or if Alabar were interested in my view, (which I can assure you they won’t be), my recommendations follow:
- Set a fee that is both commercial and fair to the mare owners who support him and that of the connections of the stallion
- Cap his book to 90 mares for the season,with an understanding that a maximum of 5 orders per shipping day will be honoured.
- If it is all about the viability and future of the sire he should be standing in New Zealand (with better mares available for him) and with no shipping back to Aus until fertility results are dramatically improved over more than one season.
With the above measures in place I would be far more comfortable sending the correct mares to Joe than trying my luck with the latest so called untested superstar of the track. Roll With Joe is a tremendous looking 16 hand stallion that won more than $1,800,000 on the track, and now has progeny that are leading the way in NA. At service fee of around 25% of his brothers, I can’t think of a better priced stallion available in our market.
To me, this champion horse still needs to be supported, with so much yet to offer – l hope Alabar makes the right call on his future.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
