Too much for in-breeding?

[Stormy Peak]

She wasn't born with 2 heads, so that's a plus

So, any general opinions on having more than one sire or dam show up on both top and bottom?

I sometimes get a sire on top and bottom but she has two that show up on both sides.
I am hoping that with such strong broodmares such as Banner, Shetaan, Fight and Defend shoring up the really nice mare Global and my own decent broodmare line of Foremost, Forgave and the unproven star-broodmare, Forgiven, that this filly will prove to not only be a nice racer but a really good broodmare.

http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=693026&

Stormy

[Madelene Gilbert]

I actually really like inbreeding coming from separate lines. For instance, although you've got Trafalgar on there twice, you're approaching him from two separate sons. Same with Vernacular and, although it doesn't show up, Banner (through Global).

I mean, it's not like you're pulling Ara breedings and sending mares to their great-grand nephew or anything.
http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=682712
http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=684561

[Stormy Peak]

Interesting pedigree...not a lot of branching going on but what's there is sure twisted up around the others. It actually is interesting in that one doesn't see the inbreeding with what is shown, you have to open up Magician/End of the Line and Onceuponasummer/Sun Flare to see how things are woven together.

Stormy

[Madelene Gilbert]

I know! You have to know the families to get where the in-breeding comes from.

I also want to say that I had a horse with plenty of black either in the foal's pedigree or the hypomate. Can't remember what the horse was though, still looking!

[Kris Bobby]

How do you know she doesn't have two heads???

[Ara Davies]

I actually really like inbreeding coming from separate lines. For instance, although you've got Trafalgar on there twice, you're approaching him from two separate sons. Same with Vernacular and, although it doesn't show up, Banner (through Global).

I mean, it's not like you're pulling Ara breedings and sending mares to their great-grand nephew or anything.
http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=682712
http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=684561

Those are strange choices because the SIM doesn't see them as inbred at all. I do have this one though, that's 3x3 to both Loki D and Worth Every Moment:
Crystal Maze (Messiah - Crystal Quest, by Sun Raider)
He only galloped allowance but he has time to improve. He has a full sister that's a foal right now.

And then this one I'm particularly proud of:
You Are I Am - Chambray, by The Awakening
She's 2x3 to Awake As I Am, and then I got another line in there to AAIA's sire Loki Dynasty, so she's also 3x3 to Loki D. Actually if you look through my current crop it's pretty much all inbreeding to Loki D, Worth Every Moment, and Banner if I was able to manage it in any way. And actually, now that I look at it, this pedigree is the exact same situation as the pedigree in the OP, with the inbred horses being in the exact same spots.

In the old SIM where I felt a lot more competent in breeding, pretty much everything I had was inbred and I was very successful with it. In the new SIM for some reason I got the impression that the entire breeding algorithm had changed, so I assumed my old methods wouldn't work anymore and pretty much went to randomly picking stallions. A few weeks ago it was brought to my attention that I was a moron and nothing had changed in how the SIM looked at breeding in fifteen years, it was just we get to see a little more of the data now (bloodstock agent rating, nick ratings, etc). Which means what I did in the old SIM should still work, so my entire foal crop now is bred exactly the way I would have bred it back in year 10 or whenever. It is BEAUTIFUL, even if the foals end up sucking I can still have these ridiculously pretty pedigrees to look at.

I even wrote up a paragraph of notes for each foal on why exactly I chose the stallion in question, and they pretty much all look like this (in reference to this foal):
"Pedigree analysis: The SIM doesn't recognize it, but this colt's pedigree is absurd: he is 4x4x4x4 to Loki Dynasty, with Awake As I Am (twice!), Notorious, and Chancel all being foals of that sire. The SIM *does* recognize the 3x3 inbreeding to Awake As I Am here. Newsroom is unproven as a sire yet but he has one of the absolute top possible pedigrees in the SIM, including a brother who is a proven sire, so I don't think it's much of a risk. "

If you hadn't gathered this yet, basically my ideal horse in the SIM would have so much Loki D in his pedigree, he would be more Loki D than Loki D himself. If anyone could manage that it would be me.

Needless to say I approve highly of the pedigree in the OP.

[Cleo Patra]

So back in 2012, Em was swamped by something (can't remember exactly what the circumstances were) and I helped her breed a large percentage of her turf routers. Gojira was one of them. I found out during that experience (and she has said it publicly since) that inbreeding to blue hen mares 3x3, 3x4 or 4x4 is a really great idea. Gojira, for example, is 3x4 to Kismet (and we all love Kismet!).

I've also heard Em talking about whether it is a good idea to inbreed to stallions, but I can't remember exactly what she said about that.

[Madelene Gilbert]

Lol Ara I picked those because you're the only person I know who would breed a female back to a successful son of the same family that close. Even if no black type (inbreeding) showed up.

[Ara Davies]

I have a theory as to why it sometimes might seem better to inbreed to a mare than to a stallion. There are only so many stallions that get bred, and the overall quality of those stallions tends to be pretty high. So if you look at the pedigree of the foal, you're going to see 5, 6, hopefully all 7 male ancestors in the first three generations being very high quality horses.

However, just about any mare gets bred, so the overall quality of the mares used for breeding is far lower than for stallions. In a foal's pedigree, you'll often only see 2 or 3 mares (if you're lucky) who are of the same quality as the majority of the stallions in the pedigree.

So if you choose to inbreed to a stallion, presumably it's a GOOD stallion, but that second appearance of the good stallion is very likely just going into a slot that would otherwise be filled by a good stallion.

But if you inbreed to a mare, again presumably it is a GOOD mare, that second appearance of the mare is very likely to replace what would otherwise be one of the many mediocre mares that often appear in pedigrees.

This effect is something that really would only show up in the population as a whole; for each individual mare however, I'd look at all your options and consider the specific situation. Sometimes inbreeding to a good stallion might work out (before the random slide, at least) better than inbreeding to a good mare, if the good stallion brings in more high quality ancestors/descendants (whichever is relevant in the particular case) than the mare would.

[Ara Davies]

Also the SIM doesn't care in the slightest about anything further out than 3x3, it's just that me and Em like pretty pedigrees that are 3x4 or 4x4 or whatever to cool mares for aesthetic reasons, kind of like liking a horse because of its headshot when that has nothing to do with what the SIM thinks of the horse.

[Stormy Peak]

Ara, thanks for the insights on breeding....and in-breeding. I hope my experiment with in-breeding to get that turf router filly ends up to be a successful one. I wasn't sure if I should have done it, but in looking at the pedigree...I thought it looked cool...and decided to give it a try.
I wish the Sim could be influenced a little by the 4th gen. back...as you said, in looking at some of the lines that get shunted into history...the pedigrees would look way more cool if they could stay there just like you see them in a hypo mate.

Stormy

[Madelene Gilbert]

You know, I just thought about something. Em has always said that inbreeding to blue hen mares was a really good idea. I'm wondering if, since 3x3 pedigrees DO matter, and mares DO have a "slider" or chance to throw better random slides, if that slide chance isn't inherited. Obviously blue hens are going to be mares who have those higher slide chances. Wouldn't it make sense that you want to get as much inherited chance as possible in a pedigree?

[Ara Davies]

I don't know that being a blue hen really has anything to do with the slide chance. I assumed it had more to do with the mare's raw ability, before the slide. So you can get a blue hen that's extremely consistent, and then another that is less consistent, but both have the capability of producing top foals. I see what you're saying about a less consistent mare having a higher top level of foal she could produce since her range would be greater, but I really don't think the bloodstock rating takes that into account. The more I look at it, the more I think that each piece of data we can get on a horse (gallop, broodmare rating, nick) is just a single number, a very small part of the whole, and we've been blowing these numbers way out of proportion. I think the consistency is an additional number on top of the broodmare rating number that we just don't get to see.

What I would honestly like to know more than anything else about the algorithm is what on earth is going on with Alix von Hessen. She is one of the most consistent mares I have ever owned, since all of her sons were fantastic (even the two I didn't manage to run much, they both galloped stakes during the time I wasn't running them, oops) and all her her daughters were terrible. She got the broodmare rating "could produce a good foal once in a while" which means her raw numbers aren't that great, but it couldn't have just been the random slide that made the sons great because random chance wouldn't give a boost that huge to every single son she produced and not to any of the daughters. I'm assuming the algorithm has her down as extremely consistent in her random slide, but there's obviously another number in there that's giving a huge boost to her sons, and I don't understand this number at all. I have a feeling that if we understood all the options that went together to producing such a weird mare we'd understand a LOT more about breeding. One day I'm going to find out. Maybe I can get Emily to tell me on my deathbed at least.

Anyway I think I'm going to avoid future inbreeding to Alix because I don't understand whatever extra stuff is going on with her at all and I'm afraid of ending up with a double dose of it in my broodmare band and nobody needs that headache.

[Alysse Peverell]

All the cool kids breed to significant broodmares.

http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=143476

[Ara Davies]

Oh you mean like this? http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=690158

And this http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=690391

There is a trend, see if you can guess it.