Behind Some Fine Yearlings, Are Low Earning Mares

Original article written by Marzy Dotes posted 13 years 2 weeks ago

It’s that time again where one of the most powerful players in the SIM is a woman.

Not from inside the breeding industry where quite a few women have been successful in their operations but someone who spends her mornings on the racetrack. That would be assistant trainer to the masses, Mary Weather who strikes both joy and fear in the hearts of those who bring yearlings for her inspection. She once again engaged in her annual exercise of pronouncing judgment on thousands of yearlings after casting a cynical eye on them as they gallop around the track, beginning when the clock struck midnight during week one.

Now Cinderella watched as her fancy coach turned into a pumpkin led by a pack of mice at that hour but for the yearling crowd, it’s a time to shine or to stumble, or to do as many do, bewilder Mary Weather by being “nice” or “hard to tell” in terms of what their future may or may not hold from this tiny snapshot taken early in their lives.

It’s not the ultimate predictor of a horse’s talent as not all horses who wow in the morning do that in their races and some who underachieve in front of Mary Weathers have gone on to win some of the top races including at the Steward’s Cup. But it still attracts a lot of attention and often decides which horses stay in a stable, are sent to the sale’s page or even green pastured just based on one gallop. If Mary Weather enjoys that sense of power that comes with her words, she doesn’t say, she just continues lining those yearlings up and pronouncing judgment on them before sending them on their way. And currently, there are over 300 yearlings up for sale at a variety of prices, most of them likely after being galloped before being consigned.

It’s exciting for newer breeders faced with a steep learning curve including in terms of finding and acquiring good broodmares to actually hear from the training guru that they have a horse in their barn that wowed out on the racetrack. My first horse that scored that praise was a Steward bred purchased for $125,000 named Fanning the Flames who was by marathoner Worth the Effort who meshed well with Symbol mare, Fading Fire. Fanning the Flames has won several stakes and has earned more than his purchase price so far having just turned four. He finished out his season with a second place finish in the Panama International just behind Battlehorse with a 81 speed figure. Like many race horses, he’s had his ups and downs and there are many of the same challenges faced when campaigning a horse like him as there are for horses who gallop with other comments.

My first homebred that galloped a Wow was a palomino quarter horse filly by Goldmine out of Fiona Springs who worked very well in the mornings in comparison to other offspring by Goldmine but until they hit the racetrack, borrowing from Mary Weather’s words, it’s hard to tell what will happen with them as so many people have discovered.

Still like everyone who stays up at midnight waiting for Santa to arrive in the form of Mary Weathers who doesn’t really look the part, I galloped my yearlings and got a couple of WOW horses, both of which brought a smile to my face for a different reason than just their high grades from Mary Weather which may or may not mean very much when stacked with the other variables that make a racing career. Like many people, I had read with interest the latest installment of the ongoing debate on whether certain mares should be allowed to breed and if so, which ones and whether or not there should be restrictions against allowing mares to breed who don't earn a certain amount of purse money.

As a newer breeder and still very much a novice, I like many others would be forced out of breeding by any restrictions on purse money because it’s very difficult for most new breeders to have access to mares who earn a lot of cash on the track. And even when you have more money to spend, it’s often hard to find quality broodmares because breeders tend to hold onto them rather than put them up for sale unless it’s for quite a bit of money or done privately. My broodmare band isn’t huge but only about 12% of them reached the latest proposed benchmark in earnings of $75,000. Those that did included a trio of unproven stakes winning or placing mares who had just retired and the remainder were mares who have vexed me in the breeding shed so far despite some of them having six figured earnings.

In contrast, it’s been the bulk of lower earning fillies and mares including the unraced "create a mares" (which are often used by newer breeders) who have produced the better offspring both in terms of gallops and even performances overall. Take for example, Lt. Thrace, the mare in my barn with the highest earnings. However, so far her staple seems to be producing yearlings who gallop “hard to tell” and so far haven't performed very well. However, claimer, Attractive Risk who’s won about $30,000 has had winged yearlings two times in a row since I purchased her. So which mare has the "right" to produce and who would decide?

This is how it works out for many breeders particularly those with mares who aren’t stakes winners on the track and may even have been claimers and there’s many reasons for this, including how effectively the fillies and mares are campaigned on the track. Are they running at their best distances, best surfaces (particularly tricky with some of those of dual or triple surface backgrounds) the right equipment, right campaigns and other factors that might cause a talented racer not earn very much on the racetrack. Many mares with higher earnings do well in the shed even consistently but that’s not usually because of earnings per say but because how they acquire those earnings by winning and placing in stakes mostly graded and facing tough competition. A mare could conceivably earn more money than another, by winning lots of higher pursed allowance races or picking up checks as “fillers” in undersubscribed stakes races. This is true with mixed breeds as well but the purse money amassed even through rigorous campaigns by future stallions and broodmares isn't as much as with thoroughbred racing, but the stallions and mares are still successful at siring and producing good and even great horses even with lower career earnings because of that competition factor that still takes place.

Still, what really struck as being interesting where the yearlings who galloped WOWs and where they came from particularly on the female side. And this isn’t an endorsement of any breeding strategy as being successful because at least in one case, I did everything I could to try to get rid of the mare short of green pasturing. The mares themselves just weren’t that great on the racetrack but obviously they had some potential for producing much better in the next generation inside their bloodlines. Still, some might say because of their lack of substantial career earnings they shouldn’t be bred at all no matter what their bloodlines but these mares produced yearlings that wowed Mary Weather.

One yearling, a quarter horse was B Ball Dashin who’s by a newer routing sire Driven Dashin who is doing fairly well with nine runners with six winners including stakes winner, Driven Back who’s by one of the top Dbacks fillies, Dbacks First Filly. I bred another daughter of Dbacks who wasn’t nearly as successful only winning one start out of eight and earning a meagerly $11,680 on the racetrack during two years campaigning. She was purchased for $100 from her breeder and finished 10th in her final race. Still, crossing the lines of two very nice routing quarter horses appears to be quite successful, enough perhaps to overcome one of the contributors to that gene pool being a low earning mare.

A mare who never would have made the most recent $75,000 cut suggested to determine whether female horses are allowed to be bred or not. And for the mixed breeds, that standard would make continuing the evolution of those forms of horse racing much more difficult as many sires including both Dbacks and Driven Dashin didn’t reach even $300,000 in purse money partly because purses for quarter horse racing weren’t quite as high as thoroughbreds certainly not in the day of the former sire who is now 10. Other disciplines like chasing and even some in thoroughbred racing like all weather would be greatly affected by restrictions placed on stallions and mares based on purse earnings accumulated during their race careers. For the disciplines that are still growing, they need to pass through the evolutionary stages that led to greater successes in thoroughbred racing as it's a necessary part of that process.

It got more interesting with the other mare Hafi Adai, a daughter of Original Tough Guy and Loki Dynasty mare Chamorita. Now Original Tough Guy is a wonderful dirt miler racer and sire, a super stud at a great price. Chamorita earned over $100,000 on the racetrack most of it routing and placed well in some stakes. Her offspring so far haven’t broken $50,000 in earnings and most of them were below $20,000.

Hafi Adai won a single race out of 14 starts and nearly broke $14,000 in earnings and perhaps part of that might have been a failure to test different type of equipment in hopes of improving her performance. For many newer people, equipment can be difficult to navigate in the beginning and that might lead to fillies and mares not racing up their potential because in many cases, equipment can make a big difference in improving performance. It could have been that or other reasons why she didn't race very well.

Still, Hafi Adai spent time on the sales page with thousands of other horses of all different ages and backgrounds. She went with hundreds of other horses to the new racing venue in Alaska named Dropping Downs, where she failed to hit the board in her one race and wasn't claimed.

Some mares you just can’t get rid of and that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. In this case, she was retired at five and was bred to Voracious who has combined nicely with other mares sired by Original Tough Guy and her yearling galloped Wow. Still as has been stated, there's a long way to go for these yearlings before they reach the ultimate proving ground, the racetrack and begin their careers.

There’s probably many other accounts of similar horse being produced by mares who didn’t win that much during their careers on the racetracks, that could and have been shared. This serves to remind people of the importance of keeping an open mind on what a broodmare can do if given the right opportunities to do so even for the novice breeder.

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