Quote Originally Posted by triplev123 View Post
I don't think you can rehab. a truly dead or dying branch of any maternal family but it's vital to know the circumstances surrounding them. In some cases some branches of a successful family may well appear to be dying or they may appear to have died...but in reality it has been illness or injury or poor nutritional care to successive members which has curtailed things. When a few lucky members finally make it through to the track sans being starved or struck by lightning or running into a fence or contracting colitus-x or whatever, the seemingly dead branch appears to have 'sprung back to life' when it was never really dead to begin with. Some do just inexplicably die in the arse however. For example, there's a branch of the great Black Watch family here in Oz that couldn't produce a winner in a one horse race.
A little bit off track, but I remember in 1999 two G1 winning thoroughbred horses, Dignity Dancer and Miss Bailey (Miss Bailey won a G1 NZ 3200m race, Dignity Dancer a G1 over 1600m in Australia I think) came out of the same family that hadn't produced any winners in 6 or so generations. Obviously I read this 12 odd years ago but it struck me how a family that was no good for SO many generations produced 2 G1 winners in a season. lol.