Where are all the full siblings?!

[Gwen Morse]

As the SIM's most pathetic breeder, I thought I could 'hedge my bets' a bit and repeat breedings on my best owned or leased mares that produced Stakes or Freak offspring for other people. Nope. Most turned out solid or claimers. Is there something in the game where a match only works once? Or am I just pathetic and can do the same breeding as other people and get duds? The world may never know.

Breeding for Intermediate players can be very rough, you're doing better than you think you are.

As far as repeating breeding goes, in my experience it depends on the quality of the mare.

If a mare has 5 foals and one is a stakes or freak and the rest are productive down to claimer, repeating that one breeding likely won't get you another stakes or freak. That first high-galloping horse is what we in the sim call a "lucky slider".

If you're using a good quality mare who is a reasonably consistent producer, in my experience, it doesn't really "matter" whether you use a new stallion or a stallion she liked in the past. A consistent mare who has a 50% stakes gallop average can get those gallops from going to the same stallion six times or to six different stallions. It may not be the best idea to repeat six times for other reasons (such as possibly flooding your broodmare band with too many full sisters if they're all fillies).

These aren't the elite horses Hannah was asking about, but I've had some success with repeat breedings:

1) You know this one already: Nightwatch x Home Of the Star: a freak (plus a bonus allowance filly). Sent back to Nightwatch the second season and I got a second freak.

2) Brilliance x The Other Me: This was a stakes gallop. When I leased this mare Brilliance had pensioned so I tried to get as close to replicating that breeding as I could. I went to Ivor (a Brillance son) and got a freak.

3) Federico Tesio x Sky Safari: Another lease mare with a bunch of stakes and allowance gallops. I bred a full sister to one stakes gallop and got my own stakes gallop.

4) Superbia x Shining Step: two allowance gallops - one from Superbia - when I bought her, I sent her to Superbia to try again and got my own allowance gallop.

5) Be Right There x Bronx Governess: She came to me with one allowance gallop by BRT from her previous owner. I sent her back and got my own allowance gallop.

6) Dream Police x Bethpage Black: I sent her to DP and got one allowance gallop. Send her back and got a second.

One of these examples isn't a true full sibling breeding. I have others, this is what I could find with a quick check.

Before he pensioned I used to send a group of my Fearless Spirit daughters to King Moonracer every season. I ended up with a mix of allowance and stakes gallops from doing this.

[Rebecca Rose Hepburn]

I like breeding full siblings and sending mares to studs with similar lines as their best foals, which is why my breeding barn really needs some outcrosses throw in there. Sometimes full siblings work, a lot of times they don't.

Memento Mori went to Distant Dream three times, all three foals won stakes races and two have produced very nice offspring for me. I have a pair of full siblings running right now in Lightsong and Swordheart. Lightsong's won 2 mil and was 2nd in both the Derby and an SC race last year; while it's far too early to tell his little sister Swordheart might turn out to be a better horse than him based on her two races so far....and their yearling full sister is a productive galloper. She may really improve when she's older and a peak but it's just as likely that she'll never win a race. In the end you can have the strongest possible cross in the game but the random slide is king, you need it to be on your side more than anything else in the end