A thought on hypos and stallion/mare quality

[Andrew Chillin]

Plenty of A's in TS (no A+ to my knowledge), which in itself then puts more weight to other factors. Keep in mind that the game itself is geared to have no more than 2% Freaks (per the Steward). Also I am of the belief that we get more from Late Bloomers/Progressives than previously. I typically breed about 120 -140 TS. I get about 1 Freak out of the box every 2-3 seasons. However I get several that upgrade mid-season at 2, and more that upgrade at 3 and mid season at 3. In total I might get 4-6 out of a "Crop" (some are just good Allw types and some are legit Stakes performers). And I am breeding about 70-80% straight A Hypo's. Do I hypo every one? Nope. I typically use Hypo's for newer Studs and newer mares. My bottom line is Hypo'ing is a great tool, to be used as part of the breeding equation. How much? I really don't know.
As a side note on Hypo's...A+ is relatively common in Mixers/Standardbreds and Chasers. To my knowledge you can very very rarely get A+ with TB Turf Milers/Dirt Routers/AWS and maybe AWR.

Kent

I have seen A+ in TM, Dr, TR, Aws, awr. Some are in my barn

[Gwen Morse]

So I am totally confused, if you tell me that, for example, in Turf Sprinters, a Hypo A is not important, and with a Hypo B+ you can have better results based on pedigree and other things, then I would say in my humble opinion that the Hypos then what are they for? It is supposed that if I do a hypo and it gives me B+ and another gives me A, I will choose A a thousand times or so I thought but now you tell me that this is not important then I have really lost all the desire to keep playing this game because if you can't trust the hypos you will trust

It's not that a hypo is completely useless. It's that it's only a small part of breeding. When you have a mare, the more bits of information you collect about her, the more *hints* you have about how she *may* *potentially* *possibly* do if all the stars align.

Hypos are one piece of information.
Blood Stock Agent rating are another.
Stats in the Stud Book for a stallion you're considering is another.
Female family (all SWs? All dams of SWs?) is another.
Gallops of a mare's foals is another.

In my opinion, hypos are supposed to help you compare mares to each other, and compare stallions to each other. This is why when new studs are announced, there's often discussion in the thread about how they nick with certain (top) mares in the division. Before there's any foals you can decide if you want to use that stallion knowing that they hypo A+, flat A, or A- to 'top' nicking mares (if they're B+ then people don't usually announce them).

As a mare owner who uses multiple hypos on my mares, I do it to judge their quality relative to each other. A mare of mine that hypos flat A with high/mid/low quality stallions will get sent to pricey stallions. A mare of mine who barely manages an A- to the top stallion in the division, B+ to most of the rest of stallions people use, and flat B to my uninspiring home stud might be pensioned without breeding her.

It's not that the second mare can never produce a good racer, it's just that her chances are a lot smaller than the "A to everyone" mare. For the first mare she's just a little more likely to produce a foal who can earn back some or all of a high stud fee.

If you're already using hypos and happy with the result there's no point in changing what you do, or quitting the game. Nothing has changed.

[Art K Stables]

I don’t think it’s a small part , but it’s not everything, a star mare or blue hen who doesn’t hypo well usually isn’t very good

[Laura Smith]

As usual, I agree with Kent.

For my part (and I speak almost exclusively of TS here), I use hypos to assess where in the market a new stallion belongs, and to place the potential quality of a mare, based on how far down the stallion quality tiers she gets before her A's turn to A- or A- to B+/how she nicks with stallions of known quality vs. one of unknown quality or vs. how other mares of known quality nick. Like others, I find that a quality horse's hypos won't vary enough between different sirelines etc. to judge an actual "nick" (like, a mare that's A to Talus is probably also A to Mattawan and Mahler and Tragically Hip etc etc. and those horses all have vastly different pedigrees) so I find myself these days using hypos to get an overall picture of potential.

Of course, this isn't everything. Some of the more obscure sirelines will hypo below average but produce well, especially as damsires. And I'm sure we've all had those mares who hypo out of this world but produce next to nothing (this thing hypos flat A with $3,500 stallions, and I don't think she's capable of anything less than an A- with anything that has any scrap of TS ability, but she sure hasn't produced like it...)