I'm not talking about breeding back to Storm Cat; I'm talking about breeding the mare back to, say, Slew City Slew or Alphabet Soup or Cryptoclearance. If the mare matched up best with one of these, getting her back to them can be a battle.

He had one, now named The Leapord, sell for something like $2,500,000 --- and I believe another highly touted one drop dead after a workout at the FT Feb sale.

But yeah, he was a much better value at $35,000 in '96, while already established as a very good stallion...than he is at $500,000 right now.

The real exciting looking freshman and sophomore stallions have to become very attractive, when the most proven and dependable sires at the top have their stud fees set so tremendously high.

Maternal mitochondrial DNA ... the dam (dogs, horses, pigs, flying zebras) contributes just a little bit more ...

The mare does contribute more genetically. And it is a very important bit of genetic information. Information that would greatly affect stamina, the genes associated with cellular respiraton. Its in the mares egg already in her mitochondria. I have seen a few papers on this, but I was suprised there were not more, suprised. There has to be more work on this that is not published with all the money that goes into breeding. Or maybe not, since the market seems to be driven in ways I do not fully understand.

Theoretically mares should play more of a role in stamina. Theoretically, but I would back this guess with some convinction because those genes in the mitochondria code for some very important enzymes that affect efficient use of oxygen by muscles. I do not have any numbers to back this up. But the mare side should be super important.

This is why I would have asked why not 50/50 from a genetic standpoint. Its is not 50/50 genetically.


posted earlier in the thread.

The old horseman's saying is, "Stamina from the mare, speed from the sire".

In pure bred coursing dogs (performance, running dogs), the maternal line is incredibly important to me, for at least 3-4 generations, but further back than that, also. Again, the tail-female line.

I'm basically looking for a sire that is safe enough to not screw up what's there, by adding health and conformation problems :p It's difficult in a small numbers "purebred" breed, consisting essentially of dogs inbred within the US for a hundred years, that are rarely actually tested for performance nowadays.

Sounds not so different from the Jockey Club Stud Book, and the history of a horses' lifetime racing career, really.

I'll take a proven performance-laden pedigree over a hot, young, popular sire. I look heavily at coefficients of inbreeding, and I breed on paper via pedigree analysis, then try to find a sire suitable (see what males are out there from what I want)

But with dogs, vs horses, you get several chances within a litter to see what comes through.

The guys that breed longdogs and lurchers out on the prairies of the west, strictly based upon performance - the non-pedigree performance dogs (greyhound, saluki, borzoi combo types) - interesting that they don't characterize it as scientifically as I do, but they do essentially the same thing. It works.

It worked for the Hancock family, too.

I'm a bit slow some times, sorry ... exactly what you said :) I'll look and see if I have anything interesting regarding non-published work hiding in my file cabinets.

I think Pais makes an excellent point, also, one that must be considered.

No, I mean breeding for horses who can stand training, walk into the gate more than four or five times in a 12-month period - preferably for more than one 12-month period - without breaking something, and win good races (note the plural usage) against high-class horses.

Unfortunately, as previously noted, breeding racehorses is slow and uncertain; breeding bloodstock is relatively quick and sure

The old horseman's saying is, "Stamina from the mare, speed from the sire".

I will attempt to decipher the following from a paper that lends more credence that good runners are more influenced by females from a stamina and speed point of view.

Muscle biopsies contained large accumulations of mitochondria with bizarre cristae formations. Biochemical analyses revealed a very low activity of the first enzyme complex in the mitochondrial respiratory chain (NADH CoQ reductase). The exercise intolerance and muscle stiffness in this horse were attributed to a profound lactic acidosis resulting from impaired oxidative energy metabolism during exercise.

The bolded statement is referring to a single gene in mitochondria, therefore inhereted from mom, that was producing the enzyme called NADH CoQ reductase, one of a number important enzymes important in exercise found in mitochondrial DNA.
In this case, the enzyme was of form that caused a severe lack of ability of a horse to exercise. So in my mind, there have got to be forms of various enzymes in mitochondria that should enhance the ability to exercise. It should be easy to find these forms. So one might have a dud of a mare that could not run due to some injury (nongenetic), yet she might carry an outstanding set of cellular respiratory genes so that her progeny should be able to run fast for long distances (given the right musclature and other things that go into running).
The genes in the mitochondria have to play a large role in the very basics of running. Of course various genes that control muscle conformation, etc... are a 50/50 proposition from dad and mom.

I would love to know what goes on in big breedng operations and if they have some sort of research projects along these lines. I have found nothing about it. Seems to me it would be pure folly not to put some money in to this research.

While we're on the breeding topic, could someone with some knowledge/experience in the field answer something for me?

On the ride home from Belmont I talked with a handicapper who speculated that Rags' connections will never pay a stud fee for her- stallions' connections will be lining up to offer free seasons. Does this happen (I assume as a potential way to increase the stallion's value)? And would it happen with top stallions, too, or only ones that stand to get an increase in value?

it does happen...though I wouldn't say they will never pay a fee on her.

an example of how the deal might go...from an actual situation last year...

a mare who had thrown a graded stakes winner was offered a free season to storm cat with the agreement made that the next season she would be bred to giants causeway...regardless of if she had a foal or not....


they took the deal and she came up barren to SC last year...this year she went to GC as promised....not the best deal for the mare owner necessarily, but great for the stud farm that wants to improve a stallion's book, if they have access to shares in some of the big guys.

Deals on stud fees are as old as the breed. The advertized fee is just the start of negociations in many cases. Many will give a discount if your mare is a proven producer of class animals, or if she is a newly retired SW from a good family. Obviously, this isn't usually true of the very top rank of stallions who don't need to prove themselves, although the above example is another type of deal that goes one. J.T. Lundy was addicted to trading seasons to Alydar for horses in training, stallion shares, lots of other things, which is another reason Calumet went bust.