Bloodstock News

Does anyone have the correct total prizemoney levels for 2009 for Cape Cross, Danehill Dancer, Montjeu and Galileo? The Racing Post have one list on the front page but in the bloodstock section the totals are different.
 
What I'm concerned about is that the really rubbish sires, with fees under £2,000, might not be retired and will be kept creaking on, producing duff animals, because they'll be the ones that small breeders will gravitate to for their poor mares. I've always advocated a shake-out of sires whose stats show they're not contributing to winning progeny, but as all ownership is very subjective, it is no good relying on their owners to let them go. They have to be disincentivised (! sorry!) to keep them on active duty, as do the lousy mare owners. Perhaps sales houses could be less greedy in accepting anything that's entered, and play a part in reducing rubbish through the ring.
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I agree Bad stallions should be removed from service however the fee does not dictate a good or bad stallion. It just gives an indication of their commerciality. There are plenty of bad stallions standing over 2k and visa versa.
 
Shadow Leader said:
I'm not quite sure I understand your post, crazyhorse - was that directed at my post? Are the stallions I named (along with others) really rubbish and churning out duff animals? I'm not arguing the point as to whether or not there is money to be made out of selling them; that's a different topic altogether. I'm saying that I fail to see why stallions who stand for under £2000 should be automatically pigeonholed as 'really rubbish' and insist they only churn out 'duff animals' and as such, they shouldn't be allowed to stand.
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i know where you come from and hope I did understand your post (1+2) correctly, and certainly do not think that way either. but for all the hoitytoity bloodstockagents that sort of stallion certainly is "really rubbish" etc. was at baden two years ago where our boarding stud had a lovely filly by pentire, that I mentioned to an english couple i met at the paradering. they went to see her and liked her but happend to mention this to me right when they met me with their adviser, from coolmore, of all. well, he slagged pentire off, and the rest of the page, I might add, with even harsher words then kri or you used.
 
crazyhorse said:
i know where you come from and hope I did understand your post (1+2) correctly, and certainly do not think that way either. but for all the hoitytoity bloodstockagents that sort of stallion certainly is "really rubbish" etc. was at baden two years ago where our boarding stud had a lovely filly by pentire, that I mentioned to an english couple i met at the paradering. they went to see her and liked her but happend to mention this to me right when they met me with their adviser, from coolmore, of all. well, he slagged pentire off, and the rest of the page, I might add, with even harsher words then kri or you used.
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Pretty typical. Millkom sired a Grp 1 winner and champion 2yr old 'Milk it Mick' from a crop of 6 foals !! I think he stood for £800. Big studs have stallions who have covered hundreds of well bred mares and never produced a Grp 1 winner and wouldn't if they had a 1000 mares. Knowing how many mares a a stallion has covered, how many foals ran and won etc and having an idea of the quality of mare is a better way of judging a stallion than his price tag.
 
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Yes, I understand that people can get quite snobbish about stallions, I can see what you meant now (I can be a bit slow in the uptake sometimes!) What I was talking about was pretty much what Sheikh has just said and I agree with him completely. Cheap doesn't always mean crap!
 
Shadow Leader said:
Cheap doesn't always mean crap!
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Yep, agree too! I can see the point about rubbish stallions not helping the overproduction, but so hard to tell. See More Business was sired in a year when Seymour Hicks had only 7 mares. It's not a science, and anyone who tells you that is under an illusion. I kind of like it that way too - means there is still some magic that money cannot buy and science cannot harness. :)
 
Dylan Thomas said:
Who is to say what stallion should be pensioned off its actually impossible
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I tend to agree but their should be some kind of grading published for conformation, wind etc. Obviously the qualities of the sire and what it throws are 2 different things also.
 
I didn't say that sires under £2,000 were rubbish. I said that "the really rubbish sires, with fees under £2,000... " which is not the same thing at all. Sires who are rubbish and very expensive don't get re-visited - they throw a crappy seasonful of poor progeny and that's that. They either slide down the fees scale (and still remain rubbish, thus becoming what I mentioned) or they're 'disappeared'. I'll reiterate, for those who seem to manage to miss the meaning of plain English: if you have rubbish sires who also happen to be cheap, they are the ones who'll continue to be visited by smaller-time or financially-strapped breeders. They can't afford to visit the expensive ones, whether they're also about to be shown up as rubbish, or are the right-hand of God. Thus, the pool of rubbishness, which is what should be culled, more than just numbers per se, will continue.

Of course issues such as retiring sound in wind and limb, not being a bleeder, etc. should be taken into account when breeding from a stallion, but then, that's what responsible, commercial stud owners do. The amateur (I don't like the term 'hobby') who doesn't really know what they're doing, but just feels like having a go, will probably chuck any old mare to anything they can afford, regardless of whether the stallion came off the track sound or not. Hence the need to cull rubbish sires as much as rubbish mares. Rubbish doesn't mean simply producing very few winners: it also includes producing animals which prove to be unsound, untalented, and too poorly-conformed to be able to run effectively. And there are plenty of those around from all dimensions of the fees tables.
 
And the debut performance of DUBAI CREEK by him at Epsom yesterday won't, either! 290,000 guineas - although that's probably teeth-picking money to Sheikh Hamdan, and a very uninspiring run. Not quite as bad as UNCLE KEEF, 100,000 guineas by SADLER'S WELLS, though, on his debut. Walked out of the stalls, jumped the road, stayed resolutely out the back in spite of Richard Mullen's consistent but futile efforts to engage him. DC's already gelded and I suspect that next time around, 'Keef' might have lost his colt status, too!

Money no indicator to performance, I'm afraid.
 
Does anyone know what is the reason for the difference in the sires table in the Racing Post today and their website.

For example

Danehill Dancer (web site)
65 winners of 81 races £3,456,476

Danehill Dancer (paper)
76 winners of 102 races £3,625,787
 
Pity didnt get G1.Seen there 1 of the last foals by storm cat entered in keeneland should be interesting enough.and that great mare AZERI there to
 
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