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Friday, February 26, 2010

Mediocre foals. Thou art mine, and I liketh it not.


My first few years in PF, I just dabbled in breeding.  I usually produced just one or perhaps two foals a year.

Since I ratcheted up production to four per year, and then upwards further to ten per year, I have had the distinction of producing middle-of-the-road racers.  Their not worthless, but their certainly not overly successful either.

How about ShatterstarNightwing x Shattered Record is a nice match of two successful racers.  I get a nice AR and have high hopes.  He is now a 4yo with a record of 18-5-4-0 and just over $500,000 in earnings.  Acceptable, but not anything to crow about.

Sabretooth?  I had lower expectations because the breeding pair of Predator x Monsoon was not as compelling.  He has actually surpassed Shatterstar somewhat on the scale of mediocrity though.  A record of 18-3-4-3 with career earnings of $800,800 is actually not half bad.  He represents the best that I've been able to produce since my very first foal, Nova.

Domino (War Machine x Sharp Cat) 19-3-4-4, $172,575 and Tombstone (Vampirical x Shadowcat) 18-1-3-2, $172,300 round out my very average 4yo crop.

You see what's going on here?  None of them are completely hopeless.  You know, no 13-0-0-0 record or anything like that.  And yet, none of them are really good either. 

My next crop, who are currently 3yo's,  follow the same pattern.  Huntress (Big Easy x Shadowcat)  started off with a bang, winning her first race.  Since then, she has regressed a bit and sports a record of 8-1-0-3 with earnings of $116,100.

Starfire, a full sister to Shatterstar, and seemingly talent-laden, is currently at 9-0-3-2 with microscopic earnings of $86,250.  She's on-the-board in over 50% of her races, but hasn't won and her purses are pathetic.  Average, but not hopeless.

The sky was the limit for Ultron (War Machine x Nova) but he too has succumbed to the middle of the bell-shaped curve.  His record of 9-0-2-2 and earnings of just $39,000 leave much to be desired.

The past season I produced four foals and the jury is still out.  Nebula (Dubai Gold x Nova) is the only one who has raced and she finished a respectable 3rd.  Not great, not hopeless.  Too soon to tell really.

Going forward, I have a much larger population of foals to test.  Next season, I'll have 9 and in 2015 I'll have 11.  Hopefully, I can break out of this mold of mediocrity.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was just talking to Crystal about this the other day ive bred alot of foals and i still havnt bred anything thats earnt over $2M ... Maybe i should start using crap stallions because the good 1`s dont seem to be working for me ;)



Foxie

Jim Webber said...

I feel your pain Foxie. But unless Laurie's breeding program does not calculate as advertised, I'd stick to the good studs.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter what you breed to who. You arent in the clique so you'll never get anything good.

Jim Webber said...

LOL. No I guess I'm not. Which is OK because I hate cliques.