New sires

[Messenger]

Sturla, I don't know about empirical evidence but purely on observation - If I have one stallion from the Medio family and one from a less credentialed family, I am going to say there is a greater chance that the Medio one will be successful. I would almost consider it like 'form' - the family has the record on the board. I understand that one off, potential stallion A v B, you might consider it a coin toss but if I am taking a gamble on which family will produce the next big stallion I might go for the Medio family over the other

If better stallions are mostly from better horses (some exceptions of course and many who are probably never given a chance for commercial reasons) and better horses are mostly from better families - isn't that a correlation of a sort?

[papagayo]

If better stallions are mostly from better horses (some exceptions of course and many who are probably never given a chance for commercial reasons) and better horses are mostly from better families - isn't that a correlation of a sort?

Sorta. But if the maternal family has significance, then stallions from these families must do better than otherwise comparable stallions and that is on paper a different correlation.

Btw, if maternal family matter, one could also expect stallions to perform better with mares from certain families. Such statistics are available and show clearly that there is no such relation in general.