Linebreeding to "very old" horses

[Ash Tarasin]

How do you generally feel and think about linebreeding to "very old" horses? The kind of brilliant horses that became cornerstones in pedigrees of their respective breeds and divisions but are now 35-40 sim years old. For which reason would you do it? For which reason would you chose against it?
Would the Sim hamsters have mutated so far away from these horses that we would be at disadvantage line breeding back to them even if the closer horses in the pedigrees were still fairly young and succesful both on and off the track?
What are your different experiences with different divisions?
(For DR I would not consider Maryland Million "very old", Clearly Best and Wonder would be closer to the kind of horses I am thinking of)

[Tim Matthews]

I usually think it's good. (Take all this with a grain of salt. I'm bad at breeding lol.)

As you suggested, the argument against it would be as follows: horses are generally getting a lot better recently - this is evidenced by speed figures and workout times. A lot of the foundational horses came from an era where anything sub 58 was incredible for 5 furlongs on dirt, and you could win a major G1 with a speed figure in the low 80s or even 70s. It's clear that horse ability numbers have gone way up since then (almost alarmingly so: what happens when they get *too* fast? When they hit the ceiling? But that's a different subject).

So the logic would be that you want as many young, fast horses in the pedigree as possible, and therefore you'd rather inbreed to a younger horse than an older one. Call it "accelerationism." It makes sense, but in reality, a horse with an older pedigree seems just as likely to become a superstar as a horse with a younger pedigree. After all, the young superstars have to come from somewhere, so there must be something in the older generations' numbers that makes it worth it to inbreed to them. I think this strategy is borne out empirically.

There must be something inherently *good* about these older, foundational horses. If there weren't, it wouldn't be worth breeding older mares, and younger sires with new, fast pedigrees would quickly overtake the old guard. But this is not the case. For instance, Blue Bayou has one of the oldest pedigrees you can find for an 11yo, but he was brilliant on the track and is much more worth breeding to than, say, The People's Horse, who has a much younger pedigree.

[Laura Smith]

I agree with Tim and am glad he did all that typing so I don't have to.

I'd still go out of my way to make a cross of Right Hand Man, Adjust the Sound or A Bus if I could find it. Even more so now that those names are off the page in most pedigrees- I love to see a re-infusion of the "old guard" into modern bloodlines.

[Rochelle Bos]

I’ll also put this here from when I asked Em a bunch of questions for an article

What are the benefits of using Real Life stallions?
The Steward: Way back when the SIM opened, real life horses were obviously the way we had to start from the ground up. But a lot of those bloodlines, like AP Indy and Silver Charm, are now 10+ generations back on our SIM horses. The SIM moves way faster than real life, so you can still get top bloodlines, the very same ones from the old days, up close if you use real horses. So if you add back in those bloodlines and cross them with the bloodlines the SIM players themselves have developed, then it can be potent, and fun.

[Ash Tarasin]

You are bringing up a lot of important and valuable points, Tim. Thank you for taking your time to pen them down.

The "breaking" point where an "old brilliant horse" simply isn't brilliant anymore compared to younger generations may be different between different divisions, and also between different horses for various reason. Some older lines may simply not go very well together with "modern lines" if the traits they used to excel in aren't found so easily in "modern generations" anymore, making them hard to strengthen and double up upon. Making the risk of ending up with a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of horse bigger. Though rewarding if it pans out. (late edit: This is me continuing to think about these things, I didn't mean to make it sound like I am sitting on any answers because I obviously don't)

Branched off question
What does linebreeding 3-3 actually do? Are we "solely" locking in desirable traits in two of the eight last spots of our three-generation pedigree or does the numbers accumulate as well? In theory, would it be equally good to keep two very similar (great) horses on these two spots as it would be linebreeding to the same horse? Is linebreeding to the same horse simply an easier way to rise the chance of getting the traits you want in your foal?

Branched off question 2
This question in part builds on the quote you shared, Rochelle. (Thank you for sharing.)

What if we were to linebreed to one of the old RL stallions of the SIM. Should I take for granted that their numbers were adjusted to be on par with horses 10 or more generations back?

A recent addition to the game is Pinatubo, known to offer very high nicks. What if I were to linebreed back to his sire Shamardal who was added to the Sim back in year 20. On the one hand he is the sire of an extremely high nicking stallion (would he be able to if his numbers looked like the majority of horses born 30 years ago?), on the other hand his highest earning offspring would have been 37 years old today. What kind of numbers would I be doubling up upon? Should I treat the added RL stallions and the SIM horses added around the same time the same way? Or are they genuinely different?

And Laura (thank you for your input as well), what is it that makes you wish to be able to reintroduce Right Hand Man, A Bus and Adjust the Sound back closer into your current day pedigrees? Are there traits you have identified and appreciate with these three stallions that you think may be lost (or not showing as much) today, that you would like to reintroduce? Their general brilliance?

(I am using my phone and it is taking me ages to type. I apologize for all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors I have missed to correct)

[Tim Matthews]

What if we were to linebreed to one of the old RL stallions of the SIM. Should I take for granted that their numbers were adjusted to be on par with horses 10 or more generations back?

What kind of numbers would I be doubling up upon? Should I treat the added RL stallions and the SIM horses added around the same time the same way? Or are they genuinely different?

All interesting questions. For what it's worth, Em bred a foal this year that was 2x3 to Symboli Kris S, who is 50 years old https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1277988

I would assume the numbers you're trying to double down on would be the same as in-game studs. Speed, stamina, precocity, longevity, dam ability, sire ability, etc. (Perhaps some of these aren't "inbreedable" traits.)

It's especially confusing, like you said, with RL sires that originally came into the game in one division but now have RL offspring at stud that can do other divisions. I believe Em answered a question like this in a thread or podcast (not sure exactly where though). IIRC, she said the older RL horses have to have their numbers adjusted in order for them to make sense in current pedigrees - though, again, I could be misremembering. (That would raise the question: Does this mean descendents of the original RL stud have also had their numbers adjusted, given the fact that their pedigree *changed*?)

If it's not the case that older RL studs have their numbers adjusted, then theoretically you could be breeding an AW sprinter that is inbred to love a long turf route, and nothing else. Or you could be inbreeding to a horse that simply has much lower background numbers than a contemporary 3rd generation horse. That's unless it ends up being true that these background numbers remain relatively stable over generations, which would explain why it's desirable to inbreed to older horses (if it is desirable at all).

What does linebreeding 3-3 actually do?

My understanding is that the traits (including negative ones) that are inbred are more potent or exaggerated than if you simply had 2 good horses in those spots.

[Nena Olson]

The thing to remember is that older lines sometimes don't hypo as well as 'new' fancy lines. That doesn't make them any less good though! I think it was when I stood Storm The Bow that I was told this.

His dam was a daughter of Atlas and his sire's dam was a Conduit mare, which are both very old lines. Therefore, Titanic (who is a daughter of Storm the Bow) never hypoed very well but obviously that didnt mean much as she produced pretty good foals Now that she is pensioned (RIP) it will be interesting to see if her daughters do as well with newer lines mixed in.

[Erin Sanderson]

I would like to point out, in regards to horses getting faster, I don't believe they've necessarily gotten as much faster as times and speed figures would indicate. Remember when fitness stats were introduced to us around year 44, and we could finally see if our horses were fit or not? Suddenly, I had horses that had presumably never actually been fully fit in their careers making big workout time/speed figure jumps once Mary Weather actually indicated that they were truly fit. That doesn't mean that we haven't improved the horses in the SIM, far from it, but it may be a more mild improvement than what raw numbers would have you believe.

Now, as far as linebreeding, I do it frequently, but if I do, I want to see it pretty close, within the first four generations. If it's further back, off the hypomating, it doesn't make much difference in my mind if it's there or not. I've had a good bit of success by picking and choosing which horses, almost always mares with a couple notable exceptions, that I inbreed my foals to.

When you double (or even triple) one horse's influence in the pedigree, you aren't just doubling down on the good traits. You can pick up the less desirable ones as well (years ago, a good example would have been the brilliant but fragile brothers Saga and Braveheart). It's a risk you run when inbreeding in the SIM. Conversely, if you choose to not inbreed as you mentioned above, you can do your best to "stack" the pedigree with as many similar, brilliant, top producing horses as possible, which is also fairly effective.

Years ago, Gibraltar was my first major experiment with inbreeding to a true blue hen mare (he was 2x3 Banner through half brothers Trafalgar and Atlas). He was an exceptional racehorse and sire, despite a fairly weak female family, which I attribute to the double Banner influence. I now have a very nice just-matured freak in training that is 3x3 to Gibraltar, one of my few deliberate cases of close inbreeding to a stallion: Byzantium.

One of my more current cases of linebreeding to a mare is Castles Crumble. Oh, and his grade one winning sister Kingdoms Fall. They are 4x4 Sway, the mare that is the foundation of my most successful female family. Crossing this female family back on itself has worked so well in the past (also with horses like champion City of Dust) that I have done it over and over again over the years. This year, I got something extremely nice: Can't Take the Sky, a son of Castles Crumble. He has 2 daughters of Sway in the first four generations, one of them is her best daughter and she appears twice (Accused Dreamer). This colt is a FANCY freak and I can't wait to run him. The downside to continually crossing this female family back on itself is that, although they are very sound and often brilliant, they are late maturing and have a lot of stamina. I have to cross it out to faster, more precocious stallions before coming back to the well.