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Jean Diaz said:

> Yes, Secretariat has developed quite a reputation as a
> broodmare sire (Smarty Jones' grandsire, Gone West,
> is out of a Secretariat daughter).
However, since Gone West is Smarty Jones' grandsire on his sire's side,
he could not have inherited his X chromosome from Secretariat (he got a
Y chromosome from Gone West through his sire, Elusive Quality).  Having
a quality broodmare sire on a horse's sire's side is irrelevant, unless
that horse is a mare, which Smarty Jones isn't.

As an aside, while Secretariat was a "disappointment" as a sire of race
horses, this is more because he didn't produce horses as good as
himself, not because he didn't produce good horses.  His Stallion
Production index was 3.43 (average is 1) and he produced 9% stakes
winners, which is great by any standards (and probably a higher
percentage than he is a broodmare sire of, but I don't have that
statistic available).

I mention all of this for several reasons, one of which is that when
looking at pedigrees, it is important to be careful while doing so (e.g.
if one wishes to trace X chromosomes of a male horse, you can't do it by
looking at the pedigree of his sire).  And additionally, to point out
that received wisdom ("Secretariat was a disappointment at stud") may
not be warranted when actual performance records are analyzed.

Yes, Secretariat is the broodmare sire of more top performers (135
stakes winners by 2000, which is the Stallion directory that I happen to
have handy) than he is the sire of top performers (56 stakes winners);
however, he is also the broodmare sire of more horses (I don't know the
number, and I have never seen it reported anywhere although I am sure
the Jockey Club could come up with it if they wanted to) than he is the
sire of horses (658).  However, I am not totally convinced that
Secretariat is a better broodmare sire than he was a sire (although he
has appeared higher up more often on the Broodmare Sire List than he has
on the General Sire List).

In the TB world, they have been collecting statistics and keeping track
of pedigrees for centuries, so it is possible to actually link pedigree
to performance in an pretty objective way.  If we want to be able to do
this with endurance horses, we are going to have to collect a whole lot
more information about both pedigree and performance before we will be
able to do so.

It is entirely possible that the reason that CMK horses appear often in
the pedigree of arabian endurance horses is because arabian horses of
CMK breeding are generally not very successful in the show ring and/or
race track and consequently are more likely to even START an endurance
ride because they don't have any other viable career :).

Owners of valuable "top pedigree" show horses are unwilling to "risk"
their horses at endurance rides.  It is possible that if they chose to
do so, that these horses would easily defeat the "crop outs" that we are
currently using for the sport :)  Not saying that this is the case, just
that we don't have enough data to say that it isn't.

kat
Orange County, Calif.


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There is something so magical about being out at night after being on the
trail all day on a long 100 with miles left to go. 
~  Tom Noll

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