The worst pedigree wins the Derby

This pedigree analysis is slanted as well. If a horse that is not supposed to get the distance and does, then one goes back and reanalayzes and finds that a distant relative did fine at distance. Yea, thats the ticket, that explains it.

And if a horse that by whoevers method, is supposed to get distance and turns out to be a sprinter, some go back, and find a sprinter somewhere in the line... ahhh yes, there it is, his great grandmother.

The really good tools to analyze this stuff with some degree of certainty are not here yet.

Every advertisment I look at for breeding in the DRF boasts about Grade I winner. Then the foals run poorly and the "new" horse now advertised by the breeder(farm) is one that had progeny that are grade 1 winners. Nothing about how many broke down, % that never even made it to the track, just the success stories. Quite amazing and so inexact. On most of these horses we have no idea what the rest of their foals have done

For those of you who remember Alvin Robertson, a very good basketball player, defensive allstar, apparently often in trouble with the law. His daughter plays on my daughters HS basketball team. Alvin was 6'3", a fantastic athlete. His daughter is 5'5". My daughter is 5'7", taller than my wife and I. Alldistrict as a 10th and 11th grader. Alvins daughter has not made it to the varsity yet. Genetics is a crazy thing.

I have read Dr. Romans site and it is a very noble attempt to put some rigorous statistical data together to try and make sense of a very difficult thing. So climbing on each others pedigree experts seems like a tenuous duty.

I have beat this to death in the past so I will stop. I will go with Somer's breed the best with the best (and I will add hope they have as little genetic background in common as possible) and hope for the best. The trouble is determing the best.