Racing ability of broodmares of great horses

[The Indomitable DrugS]

I just started looking a few minutes ago - but a lot of the ones I looked at haven't been much. Secretariat's dam got drubbed in her only race - and John Henry's dam was getting slapped about at River Downs.

Here are forms of a few:

* Dam of Dr. Fager starting for a claiming tag for the 1st time:




* Dam of Seattle Slew was beaten a couple times for a maiden claiming tag:



* Dam of Man O' War beat double digit lengths in a maiden race at some track I've never heard of:



* Dam of Native Dancer was a respectable racer - but no star:

[Indian Charlie]

You gotta admit though, the track name that the dam of MOW lost at as a maiden claimer is freakin awesome!!!

I hope it was in NJ.

You should check out the dam of Melair.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

You gotta admit though, the track name that the dam of MOW lost at as a maiden claimer is freakin awesome!!!

I hope it was in NJ.

You should check out the dam of Melair.

It was a MSW - but yeah - I knew you'd like the name of that track.

No luck getting PP's with Melair's dam - the dam of Swaps ran 8 times and never hit the board... only can find a few result charts for her though. Not much for West Coast stuff sadly.

[Port Conway Lane]

Google came up with a few hits.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5-x-7-HORSE-RACE...-/220735248221

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...D8415B838DF1D3

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...D8415B858DF1D3

[trackrat59]

I often thought about how Somethingroyal had only raced once. It's interesting that what makes these mares so super special is the ability to pass along greatness even though they were not runners themselves.

It seems that there are many more mares like this than those that were great runners and passed their abilities directly along to their offspring.

Makes me think about Zen and Rachel and what their abilities will be as broodmares.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by trackrat59

Makes me think about Zen and Rachel and what their abilities will be as broodmares.

The odds are against them.

While no great horse, the dam of Hard Spun was interesting. She was drubbed at Penn National in her debut. She couldn't beat a goat on dirt. Ran like five times on dirt, and never did better than a 40 Beyer. She improved from a 16K claimer on turf to briefly being a stakes class Turf horse.

Considering Hard Spun won both of his synthetic races nicely - he would have probably absolutely loved the turf.

The dam of City Zip and Ghostzapper was claimed in her final start. A lot of claiming mares produced well.

[Port Conway Lane]

Originally Posted by trackrat59

I often thought about how Somethingroyal had only raced once. It's interesting that what makes these mares so super special is the ability to pass along greatness even though they were not runners themselves.

It seems that there are many more mares like this than those that were great runners and passed their abilities directly along to their offspring.

There are at least as many unraced,non-winning mares bred than there are race winning broodmares. It doesn't mean they are better producers.

Take the dams of the last twenty horses of the year.
2 were unraced
2 were maidens
5 were winners
8 were stakes winners
1 G1 winner
1 G2 winner
1 G3 winner

Over half of these broodmares were stakes winners. Stakes winning broodmares are outnumbered at least 10-1 by all broodmares yet over half of the last twenty HOY are represented by stakes winning mares.