Dormant branches wake up/active branches go to sleep?

Just been having a look at the immediate and wider maternal family of last Saturday night's Australian Oaks winner Shake It Mama (2008).
She's a half sister to another very smart filly in Fususi (2003) & their dam is in turn a half sister to the dam of another very smart one in Lady Octavia (2004).
What's really interesting to me about this immediate family is that Black Type winner wise it basically went to sleep for 50 odd years or so before waking up around 2006 onwards, initially courtesy of the 2yo & 3yo efforts of Fususi and then Lady Octavia & now Shake It Mama, this while in those same 50 odd years other branches tracing to the same source continued to produce a number of good horses.
What is perhaps even more interesting is that now it looks as though, just as the branch that has produced the classy trio of Shake It Mama, Fususi & Lady Octavia has awoken from its slumber, the other branches that continued to produce now appear to be slowing down & looking for somewhere to take a nap themselves.
Over the years I suppose we've all readily accepted that for various reasons sirelines can ebb & flow success wise. Makes me wonder if some maternal lines are doing exactly the same thing?

A lot of maternal line's seem to go dormant and in my opinion it come's down to sire selection by breeding to 1 or 2 that don't suit and keeping the fillies by them and breeding on to unsuitable sire's again. They seem to come back to life when the family find's a sireline that suit's it and so the merry go round begin's again until that bad choice or unlucky choice happen's and dormant again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Hando

A lot of maternal line's seem to go dormant and in my opinion it come's down to sire selection by breeding to 1 or 2 that don't suit and keeping the fillies by them and breeding on to unsuitable sire's again. They seem to come back to life when the family find's a sireline that suit's it and so the merry go round begin's again until that bad choice or unlucky choice happen's and dormant again.

Further to that Greg, in my humble opinion, Sires contribute two major attributes, conformation and attitude. (I know this sounds silly but I believe, more often than not, foals get their mothers temperament but the sires attitude, to work in particular)

Conformation is of course a major issue, either enabling or hindering the fulfiment of potential, similarly attitude, I'm not about to name names on this forum, but some Sires ( and some high priced ones amoung them) throw a lot of stock that have a poor attitude to their work and despite having excellent conformation will never reach their full potential because they are basically lazy.

That's very interesting you'd seperate temperament and attitude Dan. Doesn't sound silly at all. In fact it makes a lot of sense. I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of that too btw.

Can you set out to wake them from their slumber?

Or is it just luck?
Re: families/branches thereof that go to sleep or wake up, I meant to add yesterday...
...if you have a look at the damline of Meadow Skipper, more specifically that which starts with his dam, Countess Vivian, that's also somewhat of a 'been snoozing' family.
Despite the many opportunities no doubt afforded much of it when resident at Armstrong Bros. when you look at it overall, really top shelf horses production wise it seems to have been largely 'asleep' for some time up until the 1:48 & $1.2mil earning Aracache Hanover was foaled back in 2007 & then again just a few weeks ago when the 1:47.4 & now 847k earning 2009 foaled Thinking Out Loud stepped up & won the 2012 NA Cup.
Maybe what Greg suggested is right on the money and in this case the family having been bred to the likes of lesser lights such as Airliner, Steady Star, Horton Hanover, Armbro Omaha, Legal Notice & so on whilst largely in residence at Armstrongs kind of de-railed there it for a piece? Certainly it had some flourishes when bred to Most Happy Fella, Abercrombie & so on during the same period (the $1.4 mil + Armbro Dallas for example) & more recently it has once begun to produce some good $ winners to infinitely better sires such as Artsplace, Real Artist, Mach Three, Dragon Again, Bettor's Delight & so on.