Festivus Gallops

[Eric Nalbone]

Mission accomplished. I bred this year with the intent to get a bunch of colts that could be Derby prospects, and got what I was hoping for.

8 freaks, including the Napoleon sons of Schuylkill and Goldfinch that you immediately start thinking about 10 furlong races for since it's been too long since Tahoe. There is a Duke of Edinburgh freak colt, a Warder freak filly, Warder's full sister is a freak, there's a freak St. Marks Basilica from a mare I bought on a whim at auction for $225k this year, Signaling's half sired by Equinox is a freak, and a really fun freak by Marvel in his last crop.

The new boys foals all galloped well, Fuel and Pittsburgh's massive crops all turned out nicely it seems for many people, and then there are 33 stakes to sort through.

[Stormy Peak]

Another crappy year. I bred 44 horses...
TWELVE of them are already Peaked...turf routers mostly, including my only freak and 2 of my 3 stakes- might as well call them different careers by the time they get to race.

I had 12 allowance horses and 3 of those are peaked. I can only hope that of the rest a few of them my go on to be stakes types.

At least I didn't have any different careers other than my freak and stakes peaked routers.

Stormy

[Brian Leavitt]

Mission accomplished. I bred this year with the intent to get a bunch of colts that could be Derby prospects, and got what I was hoping for.

My inability to breed derby prospect colts continues. Though tbh I think me breeding so many mares this year hindered my quality a bit.

Have no problem producing dirt router filly freaks, got two of those lol.\\

Overall results for the Corgi Crop:



3 freaks:
Corgi of Fire and Corgiriders of Pern - Freak late bloomer TB dirt route fillies
Into the Corgiverse - Freak progressive paint mid (the first mixer yearling that I've had gallop freak in several years!)\
14 stakes - including two late bloomers from homebred TR stallion Catjam, a dual-surface/distance yearling from Marowak, and two different horses with tri-surface potential!
61 allowances
68 productives
16 solids
6 claimers
5 different careers (all steeplechaser prospects)

I think the most disappointing thing were the gallops of Marowak's foals. I think I need to institute a new policy of just racing any colts I have until their legs fall off instead of just retiring them at 5, even if they're freaks with the breeding shed comment lol.
Also I am never breeding a crop this large again! Gonna do a herd reduction sale and a broodmare lease this year haha

[Tim Matthews]

Another crappy year. I bred 44 horses...
TWELVE of them are already Peaked...turf routers mostly, including my only freak and 2 of my 3 stakes- might as well call them different careers by the time they get to race.

I had 12 allowance horses and 3 of those are peaked. I can only hope that of the rest a few of them my go on to be stakes types.

At least I didn't have any different careers other than my freak and stakes peaked routers.

Stormy

Don’t be down on the peak comment. 12/44 is a pretty low percentage since roughly 1/3 of all horses bred should be “peak” at birth. Just means the gallop comment won’t go up (probably). Plenty of peak horses go on to have long, special careers

[Nini Panini]

Those extra comments like peak, longer career, breeding shed, heart etc for the most part have little to no merit in my opinion. I hope no one lets any of those get them down.

[Nicole Marie]

Those extra comments like peak, longer career, breeding shed, heart etc for the most part have little to no merit in my opinion. I hope no one lets any of those get them down.

I agree - I had a horse peak as a yearling (freak), get downgraded to stakes at the gallop adjustment, and he ran his best speed fig at 3 and at 4 was only one point below that top figure. I know they don't all hold their peak for a long time but in my experience quite a few of them do.

[Laura Smith]

Bred 118, 1 freak, 12 stakes, so I'm okay with that.

Freak: Talus
Stakes: Clear the Air x4 (!!!), Talus x2, Crystal Ocean, Emaraaty Ana, Into the Mystic, Nations Pride, Tizerkane, Tragically Hip

[Laura Smith]

I think the most disappointing thing were the gallops of Marowak's foals. I think I need to institute a new policy of just racing any colts I have until their legs fall off instead of just retiring them at 5, even if they're freaks with the breeding shed comment lol.

Don't get too down. Sometimes a new sire just gets the bad end of a bunch of slides and it skews his first year stats. In TS, I always look at the %alw if the % stakes is low in the first year - keep supporting him next year and I bet it'll even out. Happened to Clear the Air and so far (knock on wood) his numbers this year are way better.

[Erin Sanderson]

Spent $11 million breeding almost 340 foals across all breeds and got a whole 6 freaks. I am not at all pleased considering the massive investment.

[Andrew Chillin]

Spent $11 million breeding almost 360 foals across all breeds and got a whole 6 freaks. I am not at all pleased considering the massive investment.

Lol

[Erin Sanderson]

Spent $11 million breeding almost 360 foals across all breeds and got a whole 6 freaks. I am not at all pleased considering the massive investment.

Lol

And?

[Nicholas Johnson]

Bred 46 foals;

2 Stakes and 14 Allowances; my Blue Hens need to be spoken with.

Stakes:
https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1815713
(Testing the Waters x Racing Tall)
- Pine Mountain's half-brother

https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1836674
(Pine Mountain x Destiny Smiled)
- A leased mare did well.

[Eric Nalbone]

Spent $11 million breeding almost 340 foals across all breeds and got a whole 6 freaks. I am not at all pleased considering the massive investment.

If you saw a known freak on the sales page for $1.8m ($11m/6), would you buy it? I would, assuming it's a thoroughbred. No questions asked.

I'll put my money where my mouth is - if anyone wants to sell me a yearling thoroughbred freak for $1.8m, I will allocate $20m to buying horses for the next week, no questions asked or pedigree considered, any dirt or turf division (no AW please), as long as it's a guaranteed yearling thoroughbred freak that has been galloped. DM me if anyone wants to take me up on the offer if anyone has a freak for sale they'd like to move for $1.8m. My own numbers ($15.5m for 8) mean I actually paid $1.9m per freak.

There's one freak on the sales page for $6m, and a bunch of stakes for between $1m-$1.2m. I don't think your investment is crazy, especially if one or two of those six become a good broodmare or stallion.

I expect my inbox will be quiet!

[Stormy Peak]

The peaked routers.
It will be 26 Weeks before they get to race as 2 year olds...so at most they will get about 4 races.
Then it's another 16 weeks as 3 year olds limited mostly to 1 1/16 mile races when a lot of them will want to go longer, and they can only do that if they race older horses...or wait until the 1 1/8 mile races happen for 3 year olds later in the year.

So, by the time they are 4 and can run in the longer races, and if being a freak...can run in the Big races, I've found Most of them are already on the downhill side of peaked and can't compete against those late bloomer stakes that just turned peaked or even freaks that peaked say Wk9/10 of the prior year.

Some of them might do better than that, but I haven't seen it.

Congrats to those who did get a router freak peaked yearling that survived to the end of it's 4th year at a peak level.

It just makes me sick though that 2 of my 3 stakes are peaked as well as my only freak.
Other than John Wick my late bloomer freak yearling from last year -- this has been the theme for my stable for 4 seasons or so. I just can't seem to get a freak or stake router that isn't a yearling peaked. And not having any competitive older horses in the big races for some season now, also shows to me that the yearling peak thing is detrimental to running them as 4 year olds.

Stormy

[Eric Nalbone]

The peaked routers.
It will be 26 Weeks before they get to race as 2 year olds...so at most they will get about 4 races.
Then it's another 16 weeks as 3 year olds limited mostly to 1 1/16 mile races when a lot of them will want to go longer, and they can only do that if they race older horses...or wait until the 1 1/8 mile races happen for 3 year olds later in the year.

So, by the time they are 4 and can run in the longer races, and if being a freak...can run in the Big races, I've found Most of them are already on the downhill side of peaked and can't compete against those late bloomer stakes that just turned peaked or even freaks that peaked say Wk9/10 of the prior year.

Some of them might do better than that, but I haven't seen it.

Congrats to those who did get a router freak peaked yearling that survived to the end of it's 4th year at a peak level.

It just makes me sick though that 2 of my 3 stakes are peaked as well as my only freak.
Other than John Wick my late bloomer freak yearling from last year -- this has been the theme for my stable for 4 seasons or so. I just can't seem to get a freak or stake router that isn't a yearling peaked. And not having any competitive older horses in the big races for some season now, also shows to me that the yearling peak thing is detrimental to running them as 4 year olds.

Stormy

Can you lean into this if it's consistently happening with your broodmare band? Like go try to win SC Juvenile Turf races and Bunbury/Bunburette and London Derby, etc and if they last to be older, so much the better but if you could lean into trying some of the precocious turf routers you would be onto something!