BSA and Nicking

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Gwen Morse
Grade 3 Winner
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BSA and Nicking

Post by Gwen Morse »

I feel like I've picked up too many mares and so I'm trying to constructively cull a little. Most of the mares I've picked up for breeding have fairly weak dam sides, so we're not talking about royal pedigrees. Let's be diplomatic and call them starter broodmares.

I have a mix of BSA levels on the mares: a few Stars, several Formidable, and some Unpredictables who have stakes dam lines and/or previous foals who galloped well. I've spent the night pensioning and GPing the mares who nicked B so that's done.

How do I have mares that range from Unpredictable to Star, who all get the same nick ratings (A- with the division super sire(s), and then B+ with most sires who are left, and then B or B- with the el cheap-o sires). I thought the nick was a comment on the potential of the cross between a particular stallion and mare. Shouldn't an Unpredictable mare be bad enough, or a Star mare good enough, that they wouldn't get the same nicks with stallions across the game?

Thanks to the slider we can breed without really understanding what the scores mean (random luck and all that), but I'm trying to get a better idea of what I'm doing.
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my swap mares: https://tinyurl.com/35jk5aah
Regina Moore's new player articles (not mine) https://www.simhorseracing.com/featurer ... pleID=5100
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Regina Moore
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Re: BSA and Nicking

Post by Regina Moore »

In American racing, from a handicapping perspective, there's something known as "cheap speed". A horse that looks impressive in the stats, because he always goes to the front and sets a fast pace -- he's speedy! However, you can almost always count on him to fade in the final yards and lose the race. He's really not that good, despite being able to outrun his foes early.

So, when Almost Every Mare nicks well with a particular stallion in a particular division, I think of that as a "cheap nick". You know darn well that not all those mares are going to produce a top quality foal with that stallion. It seems to me that if a mare and/or stallion has a certain key super sire in their pedigrees -- especially if both do -- then the nick automatically comes up high. But that high nick has nothing to do with how the foals are going to turn out -- just like a horse having brilliant speed at the beginning of a race is no guarantee that it's going to be able to stay in front until the finish.

That's about all I can offer on the subject, because I don't know how BSA and nicks are programmed. I mostly cull by results -- in other words, I try to give mares a chance for two or three foals (without necessarily breeding every year, or I'd have too many foals), and no matter their BSA or the nicks they're getting, if they can't produce anything decent from two or three attempts, I'm not interested in using them anymore.

The good thing about deciding to sell a star or blue hen mare is that you can always find a buyer, no matter how bad their foals are. So, if I had a blue hen mare and a formidable that were nicking and producing similar quality of foals, and I didn't like those results, I'd sell the blue hen, because I would likely get decent money for her. (Unless she's really old.) Nobody will want the formidable, because they're so readily available.

Though it doesn't answer your questions directly, I strongly recommend reading Cleo Patra's outstanding article on breeding.
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Laura Smith
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Re: BSA and Nicking

Post by Laura Smith »

I think there are a few things to consider here... Good observations, though. I like when newer breeders start thinking critically and realizing that nicks are not the be-all and end-all. I see too many despondent posts on gallop day every year, complaining about an A+ nick that's a claimer. Nicks can be roughly correlated with foal quality (if you plotted, say, 1000 DR foals, hypo grade vs gallop level, I'm sure you'd see a trend, albeit with a ton of outliers) but a nick is by no means a guarantee of good-ness.

The BSA comment reflects the horse's breeding "ability" in the same way that the gallop comment reflects its racing ability. This is derived from the horse's pedigree and is, I'm quite sure, also subject to a random slide in the same way that racing ability is. However, a horse's breeding ability can't change like a gallop comment can.
My theory (totally unverified) is that this number (the breeding ability) is the horse's potential chance (probability?) or ability to pass on ITS OWN quality. If this is true, this could be why you find a random BH out of nowhere, with no pedigree to speak of, and you get excited because of the comment but then she's useless, because she's very good at passing on her own quality, but unfortunately she doesn't have any in the first place. Also why a well-bred, fast racemare might get a mediocre BSA comment but still be able to produce some quality foals -- maybe her pedigree/"genes" are so good that she can overcome whatever negative effect her bad "breeding numbers" have, or maybe she produces a good baby once in awhile against the odds (if it's a probability thing.) Anyway, just me hypothesizing.

The nick is (direct Steward quote here, from years and years ago) "how that family tree, the sire and dam, crosses with the sire and dam of the stallion you're nicking with." This makes sense, and I believe it, but I also believe that there's some representation of possible foal quality at play. As you said, a top-of-the-line stallion will nick better with almost every mare than a middle-of-the-road stallion. This is the case even with full brothers (great example: Gentle Soul vs. Bells on Sleighs.)
As much as hypos aren't the be-all and end-all, they are useful, and their two areas of usefulness (for me, personally) are to get a rough idea of quality, and to determine distance/surface suitability.

Incoming stallions are often largely assessed, and their fees set, by their hypo quality. This might seem overly simplistic, and it is, but stallion hypos are a generally good predictor of performance.
This is a double-edged sword. It can be easy to get too caught up in the hypo thing and only ever breed the crosses that hypo the highest (obviously doesn't always work) -- there's a lot else at play besides the hypo grade. My best TS mare has 25 flat A crosses. She's been bred to flat A crosses nine times and A- twice and has produced everything from two productives to two freaks. The two freaks, and a stakes, are all from the same sireline. Two A crosses and an A- (the A- is a superfreak.) I can conclude at this point that that isn't just luck and that this mare actually does cross particularly well with this particular sireline. So hypos are great, but you still have to research and discover the best crosses for your mare, even if the hypos aren't always helpful in winnowing out the differences.
The other side of that sword is that if you are heavily enough involved in a certain division, you might come across a mare that's a good "indicator" i.e. perfectly situated on the spectrum so she nicks highly with the very best tier of stallions, moderately well with the pretty good ones, and average with the average ones. This is a good mare to hold on to and assess newly retiring stallions with (hypo her to all the promising incoming stallions, and you'll see if there's an immediate standout.)

I agree with Regina: I generally cull based on performance. Unless a mare has a pedigree to die for, or is a sentimental favourite, if she hasn't produced much for me in three foals, she's out. I'll breed B+ crosses, no problem, because the majority of TS stars and formids run B+ to A-, but I don't cull based on hypo alone unless a mare gives me multiple flat Bs with stallions that average better than that.

I don't know if that answered your questions, but I had two gin and tonics on an empty stomach between the time I started typing this and the time I finished, so I apologize if I went out on a tangent at all. What can I say... it's gin and tonic weather.
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Gwen Morse
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Re: BSA and Nicking

Post by Gwen Morse »

Regina Moore wrote: 3 years ago
So, when Almost Every Mare nicks well with a particular stallion in a particular division, I think of that as a "cheap nick". You know darn well that not all those mares are going to produce a top quality foal with that stallion. It seems to me that if a mare and/or stallion has a certain key super sire in their pedigrees -- especially if both do -- then the nick automatically comes up high. But that high nick has nothing to do with how the foals are going to turn out -- just like a horse having brilliant speed at the beginning of a race is no guarantee that it's going to be able to stay in front until the finish.

That's about all I can offer on the subject, because I don't know how BSA and nicks are programmed. I mostly cull by results -- in other words, I try to give mares a chance for two or three foals (without necessarily breeding every year, or I'd have too many foals), and no matter their BSA or the nicks they're getting, if they can't produce anything decent from two or three attempts, I'm not interested in using them anymore.
That cheap nick explanation makes a lot of sense.

I want to get to the point of culling by results, but I'm so new that my mares either have no results, or I don't need to be as picky as a top breeder. A late blooming productive who could peak into an allowance runner is a great result for me but would probably be a disappointment to someone else.

I know you already understand this because the articles you wrote on newbie mistakes with "bad" horses that aren't so bad are what made me realize those productive racers from a discount sire can be profitable.
Regina Moore wrote: 3 years ago Though it doesn't answer your questions directly, I strongly recommend reading Cleo Patra's outstanding article on breeding.
I have and I agree it's outstanding. It focuses on breeding high quality horses (aka: the best to the best). I know I sound like a broken record, but what the sim needs is short on articles on how to ... enh ... make the best of the worst ;). Not the literal worst, but the not-so-hot mares new breeders get their hands on. Everyone starts out with mares of dubious quality until they breed up/buy up better ones, but there's almost no explanation/advice on what to do during those seasons. Your article "Lets Figure Out This Breeding Thing" is the only example I can find that gives any explanation about it.

I have a good understanding of probability, so I can explain how to breed 50 or 100 (or more) dubious mares, that's just statistics. What I'm not good with is how to breed 1 dubious mare, or (even harder for me) choose between 2 different dubious mares intending to only add 1 to my band. The more little pieces of the puzzle I understand, the easier it will be to answer these questions.
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my swap mares: https://tinyurl.com/35jk5aah
Regina Moore's new player articles (not mine) https://www.simhorseracing.com/featurer ... pleID=5100
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