G'day Flashing,
I used to think that way but no longer.
Sires that produced the complete opposite to that which their race careers indicated changed my views entirely.
Here's part of an article (part for the sake of size & relevance I clipped off some bits on TB breeders & the TB Breeders Cup politics of the time)
Written in The Bloodhorse Magazine from back in Feb. 2005, it is compelling reading.
John Gaines: In His Own Words
By Dan Liebman
Posted: Monday, February 14, 2005 9:04AM
After taking over a highly successful Standardbred operation begun by his grandfather in 1925, and moving it to even greater heights, John Ryan Gaines established a Thoroughbred division of Gainesway Farm in 1962. He wasted little time in becoming one of the industry's most important and forward-thinking figures. Gainesway Farm became a true "stallion station," with Gaines never owning more than 15 broodmares, but instead concentrating on the stallion end of the business. He acquired, syndicated, stood, and managed such well-known stallions as Lyphard, Riverman, Blushing Groom, Vaguely Noble, Bold Bidder, and Broad Brush.
Gaines became a leading consignor at major Thoroughbred auctions and adviser and partner to some of the sport's leading owners and breeders. Though owner of a relatively small broodmare band, he has owned the dams of champions and twice had mares he owned-Cosmah and Glowing Tribute-named Kentucky Broodmare of the Year.
In 1989, Gaines sold his Gainesway Farm to Graham Beck, but just a few years later, missing the business he loved so much, re-entered the game, though on a totally different level. Gaines now operates John R. Gaines Thoroughbreds and owns more than 100 mares. His son and daughter are partners in the operation, which is managed by Olin Gentry. While most young horses are sold as yearlings, John R. Gaines Thoroughbreds has been selling its foals as weanlings.
It was Gaines who had the idea which became the Breeders' Cup, and he was a founder of the National Thoroughbred Association, from which spawned the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA). He also was instrumental in the founding of the Kentucky Horse Park and Maxwell H. Gluck Center for Equine Research at the University of Kentucky. Gaines has been bestowed nearly every honor and award in the Thoroughbred industry, including a Special Eclipse Award, Thoroughbred Club Honor Guest, and the lone recipient of the Breeders' Cup Special Award.
Gaines, 70, was provided questions in advance of a Sept. 17, 1999 interview with Dan Liebman, executive editor of The Blood-Horse. He supplied written responses to those questions, then was asked additional questions during the interview.
The Blood-Horse: Is the breed as sound today as it was 30 years ago?
John Gaines: Conventional wisdom will tell you that the breed is not as sound today as it was 30 years ago, 50 years ago, and 75 years ago. Conventional wisdom is almost never right. A study from 1969-1999 reveals a surprisingly marginal increase of only 3% in the number of horses starting in races over a 30-year period. The more horses competing on the racetrack would appear to translate into more unsoundness in the breed as a whole;; however, this does not appear to be the case.
It is the condition of racing that determines the soundness of the breed. There is no such thing as an index of soundness and there is no agreed upon definition of what soundness means. The tracks are not much different and the methods of training are not much different compared to 30 years ago, although I think veterinary science is much more sophisticated than it was 30 years ago. Since the Thoroughbred does not reach his full physical maturity until 4 1/2 years of age, soundness is always going to be a major problem. The unreasonable physical demands that are placed upon young, immature, undeveloped horses are going to cause all kinds of breakdowns, injuries, physical trauma, and mental problems.
Conventional wisdom will tell you horses stay sounder if they run on the turf instead of the dirt. Although it is almost automatically assumed horses stay sounder in Europe than they do in America, I wonder if this is really true. When the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing company developed artificial surfaces for both trotters and runners, the change in surface only created new unsoundness problems in different loci of the horses' anatomy. The question of soundness is primarily an immaturity and condition of racing issue rather than a genetical and inheritance issue. The overemphasis on the perform-ance of the 2- and 3-year-olds in a Darwinian sense purifies the breed, because only the fittest animals can survive the conditions of racing.
Are commercial breeders forced into standing stallions oriented to speed and precocity over stamina and soundness, whether they want to or not?
No one is forced to stand any stallions they do not want to stand. Speed, precocity, stamina, and soundness are convenient buzzwords, but they are not mutually exclusive concepts. A horse can have soundness and precocity as well as speed and stamina. The conditions of racing determine the shape of the breed.
Should this (breeding for precocity) be a source of serious concern to the industry?
Absolutely not. If for some bizarre reason the breed stopped producing these supreme examples of the Thoroughbred-the very best of hundreds of thousands of foals-that would be a serious concern.
Can and should anything be done about it?
Yes. Just keep breeding the best to the best and hope for the best.
So, that theory worked in the past and should work in the future?
Well, people try to make it so complicated, and it is complicated in the dynamics of how animals inherit. That is incredibly complicated. But, the principles are incredibly simple. And, it's all a question of getting as many probabilities on your side as you can. And, environmental probabilities are just as important as genetical probabilities. I once asked Bull Hancock the question, "If your fairy godmother came out of the sky and said, 'Bull, I'll grant you one of three wishes. Would you rather have Bull Lea, the 20 best mares at Calumet, or Ben Jones?' Which would you take?" He said, "That would be easy; I'll take Bull Lea." And, he said, "What would you take?" I said I would take Ben Jones. Because there are just a few transcendent trainers. And, they are so important, breeders only want to think in terms of genetics, but the transcendent trainer like Ben Jones, Hirsch Jacobs, Woody Stephens, and now (Bob) Baffert, Wayne Lukas, are worth as much as a great stallion or a great broodmare.
Does the commercial market and its characteristics (corrective surgeries and shoeing techniques, use of treadmills, steroids) have too much influence on the breed?
Corrective surgeries, shoeing techniques, and treadmills are a positive influence; steroids given for the wrong reasons are a negative influence. Taking the breed as a whole, these procedures are almost meaningless. Steroids administered to highly important racehorses and future sire prospects have been known to compromise fertility, particularly in the first year at stud.
You brought stallions from Europe to stand here. Why are so few breeders today importing new bloodlines?
Home is where the heart is. The breeders and owners of the great European stallion prospects prefer to keep their horses at home. Their breeding rights are worth as much in Europe as they are in North America. When I imported Vaguely Noble, Blushing Groom, Riverman, Sharpen Up, Irish River, and Lyphard, this was not the case. The market was here. At that time, when a prominent European racehorse or stallion was imported to Kentucky, he immediately doubled in value. This arbitrage no longer exists. With the exception of Japan, any breeder has access to almost any stallion standing anywhere in the world, if he wants to ship his mare and pay the stud fee.
Is the gene pool getting too narrow with Northern Dancer and Raise a Native (Mr. Prospector) line stallions?
Taking the Thoroughbred breed as a whole, the coefficient of inbreeding is at a very low percentage compared to that of other breeds of animals. The coefficient of inbreeding in Standardbreds is only marginally higher and is still considered to be a low percentage of the breed as a whole. There is no such thing as having too narrow a gene pool. Stallions only provide 50% of the genes to any individual animal and the broodmare, of course, provides the other 50%. Geneticists call this Galton's Law and it is one of the fundamental, indeed immutable principles of how animals inherit. Any permutation of Galton's Law is without merit and is errant romantic nonsense.
Why is the syndication of stallions less popular now than 20 years ago?
This is an economic decision. The stronger the economy, the less adverse stallion owners are to the risk of failure.
For the short term, the stallion owners can maximize the revenues, for long-term, if the stallion is a failure or mediocre, then the revenue stream will be compromised. It is somewhat like tiptoeing on the high wire without a safety net.
What will be the long-term effect on the breed of large stallion books?
Biologically a normal stallion can easily handle books of 100 mares or more. The way to manage a stallion is to manage the mares booked to him. Breeding techniques for mares have reached a high level of sophistication. Since there are more than 600,000 Thoroughbred horses in North America alone, large stallion books will have no effect on the breed as a whole. In the Standardbred industry, artificial insemination is allowed which greatly favors the proven progenitors who are frequently bred to 250 mares or more. This discriminates against the young, unproven stallions because they are not getting the best producing broodmares and their books are small by comparison. Looking at the top 1% of the breed, a large book of mares probably enhances the gene pool, but only marginally.
You mention artificial insemination in Standardbreds. Of course, you were formerly involved with Standardbreds. Do you think artificial insemination would work in Thoroughbreds?
First, it would be an economic disaster. Secondly, from a standpoint of hygiene, it would be a definite plus. But, it would destroy the entire economic paradigm of the industry. That is one reason I got out of the Standardbreds, because the art of breeding horses and the fun of breeding horses were being lost.
If you were getting into the stallion business today, what attributes would you look for in a stallion prospect? How would that strategy be different from 20-30 years ago?
The attributes a responsible stallion manager is looking for are the same today as yesterday. All of the criteria are probably weighted differently by different stallion managers, however the categories are the same: racing class, pedigree, soundness, conformation, temperament, precocity, stamina, speed, way of going, and durability pretty much cover the waterfront. In absence of the progeny test, all of these criteria become irrelevant.
How has the shuttle stallion trend influenced the business?
Biologically, it is a good thing for stallions to be bred year-round. It is closer to nature as opposed to an arbitrary, artificially imposed breeding season. The idea that a horse only has so many covers in his genetic bank is scientifically absurd. This concept is one of the many tongue-in-cheek myths originating from the diabolically fertile mind of Federico Tesio, one of the greatest horsemen of all time (he was greatly amused by the gullibility of his fellow breeders and the more outlandish Tesio could make things, the happier he was). The breeder of Nearco and Ribot was interested in creating a persona that would make him more mysterious and profound.
Under competent management, the health risk has proven to be minimal. I think it will be fascinating to see how all of this shuttle business will work out from a performance point of view. It is pretty predictable-the best stallions here will be the best stallions down there. The biggest problem with the shuttle stallions is the quality of mares being bred to these horses is vastly inferior to their Northern Hemisphere books. Over time, the shuttle stallions should improve the breed in Australia, New Zealand, and South America.
It is essentially an economic decision. Obviously the older and more proven the stallion, the less incentive there is for the Southern Hemisphere shuttle. After the horse becomes a certain age, the health factor of moving the horse back and forth becomes a significant problem.
As a student of genetics, how did you apply that to your breeding philosophy in the Thoroughbred business?
As a young man growing up, I had the unequaled opportunity of being associated for many years with Lao J. Brosemer, who worked for my father. Without question, Brosemer knew more about every breed of domesticated animal than anyone else in the world. At one time he was head geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was unsurpassed in the entire field of animal husbandry. My father, and his father before him, had a profound understanding of horses and both were great teachers. From a more theoretical standpoint, I worked closely with professor of genetics Dr. Dewey Steele of the University of Kentucky and the highly intelligent and longtime editor of The Blood-Horse magazine, Joseph A. Estes.
Estes was the devastating critic and debunker of breeding myths. He was the most scientific journalist that ever wrote about the breeding of Thoroughbreds. I was taught when all was said and done the progeny test was the only thing that mattered. That is why my program is to acquire older proven mares after the fact rather than unproven young mares, despite their credentials before the fact. In lieu of the progeny test, the most important thing is racing class in both the sire and the dam.
I also learned from these influential mentors and from my own lived experience that scientific truth is not always economic truth. There is only a handful of people in racing that have an elementary understanding of genetics, how animals inherit, and scientific probabilities. The mythology surrounding the breeding of Thoroughbreds is pervasive. A few of these myths are the astonishing stupidity of the dosage system, the absurd overemphasis on the female family, and the irrational belief in the validity of nicks.
When you say overemphasis on the female family, do you mean the first dam or the whole female family?
The way we present our pedigrees is genetically irresponsible. The third dam in the female family is genetically no more important than any other horse in the third generation of that family. But that has become economic truth, though it is not genetic truth. I never look beyond the sire and the dam, because that is where the genetic material is coming from. The big issue is, that while there are all of these statistics, these pedigree nerds, the people that are promulgating all of this scientific nonsense, there is never any control group. It is all selective, self-serving, worked-over information. I did a study one time with Dewey Steele about nicks, and we found the worst horses, those finishing last at Thistledown and Charles Town, had the same nicks as the horses that were winning the classics. One of the dumbest things that's done is that they take an infinitesimal sample of maybe three or four or five horses and pompously say that is a nick. From my scientific point of view, a sample that is that minuscule is worthless.
Millions and millions of dollars are spent every year (on horses), yet a high school freshman that is taking an elementary genetics course has a better understanding than someone who is spending a hundred million dollars a year and is listening to all these charlatans who are promoting genetical lies.
Do you think geneticists will ever be able to identify the genetic markers that constitute a faster horse, or conversely the genes or markers that identify negative traits?
The universe of scientific research and accomplishment ebbs and flows, and does not fit into the time and space of conventions that we are so fond of using to categorize our thoughts. I think it is fair to say the first 75 years of the last century, science was overwhelmingly preoccupied with the mathematics of time and space and the origins and operations of the universe. In the last 25 years of the century science has provided the preliminary research and indeed the launching pad for the exciting keystone technologies of computing and biotechnology. As more of the arcane secrets of genetics and molecular biology are revealed to the modern public, we will be able to have insights into the common mutations of our own genetic makeup. We will be able to spell out the precise sequences of the billions of letters in the equine genetic code. In fact, the new genetics will go far beyond the usual gene sequence analysis. As we crawl further up the value chain to include the chemical side and pharmacological and toxicology data, we can then search for continuous sequences that might lead to a full-length gene. The possible discoveries, compelling though they may be, do not necessarily mean we will in effect see a change. There is little question we will make quantum jumps in theory, but it does not mean we will be able to apply this theory in practical concrete terms. As we all know, the horse is not the most congenial of host animals.
What are the most important factors to breeding success?
Everything in breeding and racing is a matter of understanding the probabilities and getting the probabilities working for you instead of against you. In genetics it is the progeny test and in the environment it is the transcendent trainer.
END