Hmmmmmmm...

Susie Rydell · Post by **Susie Rydell** » 18 years ago

Anyone have any suggestions for a Fighting With Wit mare? Her only runner is a stakes placed winner by Pricess Forever.

Ara Davies · Post by **Ara Davies** » 18 years ago

Okay, I know I bring Atlas up in every thread but when I was looking at your mare's pedigree I ended up on a trail that led to Glorious Song so I wasn't even TRYING this time. *g* But actually I'd like to put in a good word for Exit (Loki Flame x War Song). He's a full brother to Banner (and therefore Atlas's uncle) and won the Two Thousand Guineas and the French Derby. He did only run on turf but since he's from the Glorious Song family I have no doubt that he'd have succeeded on dirt.

Why I recommend him:
1. Your mare is out of Surfside, a daughter of Seattle Slew. Exit --> War Song --> A.P. Indy --> Seattle Slew. In addition, Slew's half brother Seattle Dancer appears in your mare's third generation.

2. Foal would be 4x4 to Seeking the Gold through Sahara Gold and Flanders.

3. Foal would be 4x5 to the genetic full brothers Storm Cat and Battle Cry. Of course Atlas would bring in an additional cross to Storm Cat and hey you can never have too much Storm Cat. But I'm trying to recommend someone else for once so yeah. Oh look, Starlet Storm (Flanders' dam) is by Storm Bird, too.

I sure hope it was After the Fiasco you were talking about because otherwise I don't think any of the above applies.

Eric Nalbone · Post by **Eric Nalbone** » 18 years ago

Generally, FWW will cross back to mostly anything. I like the Silver Charm cross, especially FWW x Mirror (full to Symbol) = Saga (KY Derby winner, maybe FWW's best son?). So, Zinfandel, Briliancefindsaway (particularly appealing given your mare's past success with Priceless Forever), Storm A Fortess, Loki Dynasty or Atlas (and other sons of Conduit) all would be pretty. Reinforced by the fact that Mirror, who crossed so well with FWW, crossed to Priceless Forever to produce the stellar miler Icon, so the Slew connection that Surfside brings in is working.

For my part, I'll be sending my very good FWW mare, Parade, to Empire Maker this year, I like that cross.

I also like the idea of Sunday Silence stallions to FWW mares, so if you pick out one that you think will sire long dirt, thats an option, and a very appealing one at that. My BC Classic/Dubai World Cup/Travers Stakes winner, Prefamageps (FWW's 2nd best son?) is FWW x Starstuddedsilence, who, if I'm remembering right, was a Sunday Silence mare tracing to My Flag. She crossed back to FWW time after time for some really nice horses (Prefamageps, Dreams Realized [UAE Derby, Jim Dandy, etc.], Regime [don't remember off the top of my head, something nice though]).

Anyway, hope that helps.

-Eric

Ronda Figal · Post by **Ronda Figal** » 18 years ago

Man I'm so impressed with your memory Eric.. I can barely remember waht i did last weekned and your remembering top crosses for 3 years past....

Susie Rydell · Post by **Susie Rydell** » 18 years ago

I love you both! Thanks SO much!

Susie Rydell · Post by **Susie Rydell** » 18 years ago

Hey, Eric... I was actually thinking of using a Silver Charm-line sire for one of my other mares who'd done well with Charm himself, and just ralized you didn't mention the one I had in mind. Any opinion on Onwardsilvercharm?

Eric Nalbone · Post by **Eric Nalbone** » 18 years ago

I've always liked him in general, but never loved him as a sire. His pedigree (Caro in the female family) is very solid if you get the right cross, and he's one of the few Silver Charm line horses that I regard as generally sound. The tradeoff is that I never really saw the same brilliance out of his foals as you could get with a Symbol foal or a Silver Valor/Briliancefindsaway foal.

Onwardsilvercharm is one of the true 1 1/4 Silver Charm line horses, which is not the case with some of the other most prominent representatives from that line. Symbol in particular has thrown a ton of sprinters, and I've had a lot of success using Silver Valor in miler-type pedigrees (Symbol also works in those situations). Conduit was the other brilliant 1 1/4 mile horse from that line (he's by Symbol). So, my first word of advice would be that the horse is likely to be a little bit of a later bloomer; Onwardsilvercharm didn't really come into his own until he was an older horse if I remember properly, and his offspring are the same. Unfortunately, I've never once seen him pass on anything near his talent to his offspring, and it wasn't from lack of mare support, as he got fantastic mares. Without looking at any of his foals in detail, just do a horse search on his offspring. You'll find two millionares and a lot of horses earning between $200,000-$600,000. I'd expect more from him, and certainly there are Silver Charm line stallions that delivered more (7 millionaires or so from the first 75 horses that show up when you search for Symbol offspring).

As far as the pedigree is concerned, I have no qualms with the cross of a Mr. Prospector line mare to a stallion with Caro in there (see Unbridled's Song and Red Bullet as reasons why Mr. P/Caro is nice), so thats fine.

So, from a pure-paper standpoint, I can't really recommend against the cross except to say that it just doesn't appeal to me, based on my observations about what you're likely to get from Onwardsilvercharm. It'll look pretty and all, it just probably won't run, which I think defeats the point!

I assume you're trying to breed Flanders, since she produced Royal Moment to the cover of Silver Charm, and my recommendation for her would be to wait until the end of the year and breed her to Saga (Fighting With Wit), who will retire after his 4yo campaign. In the interests of full disclosure, he's owned by me, and I'll put a few more suggestions at the end of this for horses that aren't owned by me, but here's the reasoning:

The SIM as we knew it had four prominent lines, and in order of soundness (as ranked by me, nothing official!), they were Battle Cry, Gentlemen, Event Of The Year, Silver Charm. The most successful Battle Cry-line stallion was Fighting With Wit, and while it didn't produce horses known for their soundness, the Silver Charm x Lady's Secret cross by far produced the best racehorses and best producers from the line. Mirror has thrown star after star, and perhaps her best offspring was Saga, by FWW. He's also probably the most sound offspring of Mirror, and the most talented son of one of the last great SIM sire sensations, Fighting With Wit. He's ALSO a 1 1/4 horse, with very few of the stallions still standing with Silver Charm in their first two generations are. The inbreeding in the cross is minimal (4x3 to Storm Bird, 5x4x4 to Secretariat), and you wind up with something relatively sound as compared to what you might otherwise expect from a Silver Charm line horse.

Other suggestions would be Konstantine (Conduit x Forever Risk), who was a stellar miler, though he and Atlas (another fine suggestion) would show Silver Charm 4 generations back, which might be a littttle far if the primary motivation is Silver Charm. Konstantine was a miler, and a lot of the Forever Risk horses seem to lean in that direction. The same is true of Icon, a Priceless Forever x Mirror son who was a stellar miler, but I wouldn't recommend him for Flanders unless you have the patience to train a horse that, as many of the horses I tended to breed, seemed to be constructed of eggshells. They're a bear to train and have to be sparingly raced, so if you have options to bring in a little bit more soundness, I'd recommend jumping at the chance. Lastly, the good miler Anthem would be a nice fit.

Hope that answered some questions.

Eric Nalbone · Post by **Eric Nalbone** » 18 years ago

P.S. Sorry about the length of the post! I got a little wrapped up in it, as you might be able to see.

Susie Rydell · Post by **Susie Rydell** » 18 years ago

I so don't think there's a thank you I could give that would do justice to the amount of thought/time/space you put in to that! I really, really appreciate it. Thank you SO much!