Hints, allegations and things left unsaid

[Jon Xett]

With apologies to Collective Soul (the 90s band) for using their album title for this Forum post:

With regards to current SIM studs, there are a lot of hints allegations and things left unsaid as far as their worth and ability.
I will only speak about 2 or my own studs, past and present, with my questions about a SIM stud's ability to consistently improve a mare to follow.

Dave Matthews Band has been a popular sire. He is the sire of 4 Louisville Derby winners: Ziggy Stardust (Y56), Best Revenge (Y57), Crimson Horizons (Y58) and most recently, Mace (Y62). Dave Matthews Band saw a lot of really impressive mares but because of his high hypo ratings across all levels of mares, he was sent to a wide variety of dirt route mares from hens to stakes to formidable etc. With his chart topping high percentage of freaks and low claimer percentage, one might assume that he is a stallion that could improve a mares progeny across all mare types.

*I do not feel that Dave Matthews Band improves mares significantly from their mare levels that are below the stakes rating by giving high and unexpected high progeny ratings. Comparing all gallop results over the years and comparing mare records and earnings, Dave Matthews Band, in my opinion, would not be considered to be the type of "no brainer" sire that improves all levels of dirt route mares despite his impressive statistics as a stud.*

I fully realize you cannot compare old SIM to new SIM, however, I had a dirt route stud in Year 11 that players hinted and alleged that he could improve a lower level mare and sire outstanding racers and future broodmares and sires. Fighting With Wit was wildly popular in old SIM and there was a lot of evidence at the time that he would improve a mare.

My question to you is who are the current sires across all thoroughbred divisions that you feel consistently "Improve a mare" and why do you use these "no brainer" studs regardless of mare rating with the hope for breeding a future star racer, amazing broodmare or super stud?

jX

[Danny Derby]

*I do not feel that Dave Matthews Band improves mares significantly from their mare levels that are below the stakes rating by giving high and unexpected high progeny ratings. Comparing all gallop results over the years and comparing mare records and earnings, Dave Matthews Band, in my opinion, would not be considered to be the type of "no brainer" sire that improves all levels of dirt route mares despite his impressive statistics as a stud.*

[Ren Marston]

This is probably a self absorbed post to write but if I were to answer this question I'd say one example of a stud I think improves mares preformance in the shed would by my own stud, Astro. I have bred alot of my own mares to him that have decent lines, even really nice lines, but are usually rated formidable and haven't the best produce records and have only bred productives and solids and Astro will consistently produce an Allowance by them, or even a stakes.

[Shannon Hunt]

I disagree with your assessment of DMB, however to answer your question in good faith - From Now On. I give him garbage, he gives me gold. Okay, not every time, but for the majority of mares I've bred to him, his get are in the upper tiers of that mare's offspring gallops. I have a mare who has 12 foals by now, so she's seen quite a few different stallions... she's seen From Now On twice, both of those are stakes. She also has stakes by James Dean and Gladiator. Her other foals have been by studs that have been at a similar level in popularity (one was a "dud stud" but the rest are all highly respected sires of sires), and she gets productive/allowance with those guys. So he's definitely producing above par for me, keeping up with some of the greats. Is From Now On going to dramatically improve every mare he sees, maybe not. Is he criminally underrated? Absolutely.

[Danny Derby]

This is probably a self absorbed post to write but if I were to answer this question I'd say one example of a stud I think improves mares preformance in the shed would by my own stud, Astro. I have bred alot of my own mares to him that have decent lines, even really nice lines, but are usually rated formidable and haven't the best produce records and have only bred productives and solids and Astro will consistently produce an Allowance by them, or even a stakes.

Fack it, just because the chutzpah on this impressed me so much and I'm feeling loopy to begin with today.

https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1661978&

[Ash Tarasin]

I checked my yearlings and runners for horses with higher gallop comments than their dams.
The stakes dams had to have freak foals, and the allowance dams had to have stakes or freak foals.
No freak dams where included, nor any stakes dams with stakes offspring. I didn't care about bloomers and progressives, I just looked at where they were right now.
These stallions has improved result in relation to the mare, for me. Karazhan has to be seen in the light of having bred more foals for me than any other stallion.

Private Affair (Dave Matthews Band damsire)
Karazhan (Dave Matthews Band damsire)
Poet's Corner (Karazhan damsire)
Karazhan (Conquerer damsire)
Ziggy Stardust (Slickrock damsire)
Karazhan (Allonsy damsire)

Written between the lines here is that there are a lot more stakes produced by allowance mares, than freaks by stakes mares. My stable is small (32 TB DR bred last year - which were the only ones I looked at), and expensive outside studs usually see the better mares, which makes it harder for them to have a sporting chance to improve anything.

DMB saw a number of allowance mares (on A- and Anicks) from me (due to Jon's generosity) and improved more than 50% of their foals (dam-foal gallop comment relation), so I wouldn't say he wouldn't improve lesser mares. (I said I wouldn't mention because that wasn't the spirit of your post, Jon. But now I did it anyway. Dave Matthews Band deserving praise doesn't lessen the need for recognition of good (but stealthy) other stallions.

[Andrew Chillin]

Yes dmb ain’t even special. You heard it here from the best, his owner. Time to pension.

Out of style was a huge game changer for me. Dude has such good pedigree, he’d shid our blue hens like nobody’s business. It’s too bad they were all allowance runners. He’s not really that good. I wish I had father Ralph or just victory to spit of fillies for me.

[J.P Dogood]

This made me really think so I went and looked at all the mares I have bred in the handful of years I have played this game. Out of a total of 322 horses bred by me, I have more bred to DMB than any other sire (minus the few studs I have gotten my hands and and bulk bred to).

Of those 5, I have sent him a stewardbred hen who had an allowance LB foal that never bloomed, just turned 5 and still hasnt won a race,
a blue hen stakes producer leased to me by Jon for the breeding, believe it was productive,
a lower talented blue hen out of Justine O'Neil, had a whopping BSF of 70, then produced nothing in the breeding shed,
a star bm gave me a productive prog with no breeding shed comment,
and lastly an allowance LB out of my prized G1 winning Blue Hen.

Of the 3 that have run, 0 have won...

I love DMB and Jon has been very generous to me giving me access to all these slots and reduced fees and I try to return the favor by boosting his stats but I just churn out productives and allowances. To answer the original question I rarely breed to the same sire more than a few times but I find way more success (i.e stakes/freaks) from mid to low end sires. Pricey sires tend to give me more allowance with a sprinkling of productives that cant get out of their own way on the track

[Kelly Haggerty]

Storm. Even as a 12yo his claimer percentage is crazy low and he has produced one DC. If he weren't improving his mares this would be a lot different.

[Lily Wilkins]

Poet's Corner, who Ash also mentioned above, has consistently given me foals who were pleasant surprises given the type of mare they came out of. Most notably, I got a Freak from him a couple of seasons ago out of a B+ Formidable mare cross. Definitely an improvement made on that mare!

Owligator's freshman season, I threw a bunch of "Iffy" mares to him and got some pretty nice babies as a result. I currently have a Freak 2 year old filly in my barn by him, out of a Formidable mare without much pedigree to speak of.

Other studs who i've noticed seem to improve mares are:
Mr. Wonderful
Private Affair
Slickrock - I underrate him and don't use him as much as I should, but when I do, I almost always get something I like.