You've used the Stallion Register Online. You know the basics.

It's a free service... you can do a multi-criteria search from the home page...  stallion pages have tabs for easy navigation... there are a bunch of state and national sire lists... the annual Report of Mares Bred is linked directly from the home page.

Those are some of the nuts and bolts. But here are six tips to get even more out of the industry's leading Thoroughbred stallion resource:

1. Comparison tool: Starting on the home page - or on any stallion's feature page - you can choose two or three stallions to compare side-by-side. Just select the names from the drop-down menu and submit - you'll see a neat matrix that lets you quickly compare statistics between sires.


2. Advanced Search: Underneath the basic Stallion Search on the home page - or at the upper right of most other pages - you'll find a clickable "Advanced Search" link. Use it! You'll be able to search by grandsire and/or broodmare sire, by year entered stud, or by dam -- in addition to the standard search criteria.


3. TrueNicks or hypothetical matings: Want to see how your mare crosses with a particular sire? Free hypothetical matings (and, for sponsored stallions, free TrueNicks reports) will let you see the five-cross pedigree. Better than similar services elsewhere - these pedigrees are created using The Jockey Club's official registry database.


4. equineline.com Statistical Summary: Need to know how many foals, winners, or stakes performers a sire has? What about progeny average winning distance? AEI and CI? Average earnings per starter? Access these free equineline.com summaries on individual stallion feature pages.


5. Recent Winners and Stakes Performers: One of the tabs on the stallion feature pages will bring you to a list of the sire's most recent progeny headliners. You'll find clickable links to the runners' pedigrees and recent sales information -- and you can view the horses' Equibase charts free!  If the runner's recent win was a stakes contest, the SRO page will also include a stakes chart (and a short write-up from the magazine when applicable).
   
   (Hey -- ever wonder what the difference is between the Current Top Performers and Recent Winners sections?  Here are the qualifications we use:  Current Top Performers are the highest-earning progeny from the year-to-date, or for the previous year and current year-to-date if viewed before May.  Recent Winners are all the stallion's progeny that won a race during the most recent week that the sire had winners. Now you know!)


6. The Blood-Horse's Free Index of Thoroughbred Stallions: Did you know you can submit a free listing if you stand a stallion at your farm? ... That Free Index stallions appear both online and in the printed Stallion Register?  ... And that inclusion in this database is required for stallions to appear on regional sire lists?  Don't put it off -- register your stallion(s) today.

Within a couple of months, you'll be poring over the stallion selections for the 2009 breeding season.  Take a minute now to familiarize yourself with these additional search tools!

Young Mares

• Looking over the results of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, it struck me that foals out of new broodmares were underperforming.
• The overall sale average was $92,298, and the median was $75,000. I looked at "birth order" figures and saw that the yearlings sold included birth orders from first to thirteenth, with one foal being the fifteenth offspring of its dam.  Mares represented by their first foals averaged only $76,057 with a median of $63,000, making them fourth-worst in both categories.

Young Sires

• First-year sires broke the average by about 3% ($95,026).
• The July sale has a special focus -- it emphasizes its New Sire Showcase. Perhaps buyers are willing to gamble on foals from unproven sires -- but not when they're also out of unproven mares.

To Name or Not (not related to the above, but interesting) 

• 34 foals sold (1.1%) were already named.  Of the RNAs, 17 (8.8%) were named. 
• Named foals averaged $75,364 (median $55,000), whereas unnamed foals averaged $94,314 (median $75,000). 
• Looking at it from another angle, the named foals' RNA percentage was actually lower than the auction average (33% vs. 39%), but their average price was nearly 19% lower than unnamed foals.

Yesterday, I outlined what I feel are fair (and perhaps even rather strict) guidelines for a top breed-to-race stallion. Today, I'm posting my list of the very cream of the crop.

I'll start by giving "honorable mention" to a few stallions frequently cited as a good value for breed-to-race programs.  Rahy (on SRO) works great for those with a larger budget for stud fees (he's easily worth the $60,000 fee).  Bright Launch (on SRO) is a great source of the Relaunch line and I have high hopes for him as a broodmare sire, but his AEI needs to improve to make the list.  Finally, Say Florida Sandy (on SRO) looks promising but his first crop are just now 3-year-olds and it'll be a couple of years before we see how his foals will do.

Half of my top selections are lightly-bred sires (under 50 starters) and half are well-established (400 starters or more).  My criteria tend to benefit stallions with few offspring but whose percentages are high due to one or two stellar offspring -- and I tried to keep that in mind when figuring out my rankings.  So here goes:

1. Slew City Slew (on SRO) has fantastic numbers across the board - his foals earn well above average, they have long careers (averaging 22 starts), 86% of all foals get to the races and 77% of those foals go on to win a race. His biggest negative is that he "improves" his mares slightly less than the other stallions on the list - but he also sees the highest-quality broodmares (1.36 CI) of these six studs, so his task is more daunting.
   
2. Raj Waki (pedigree) is a son of the Mr. Prospector stallion Miswaki.  Hats off to those of you who've even heard of this Ontario-based stud.  His 29 foals (ages 3+) and 18 starters are even less impressive when you realize he's a 1987 model.  That said, he's got over 10% stakes winners, an amazing 83% winners-to-starters ratio, huge average earnings and AEI, and his foals start an average of 24 times. All that for only CAN$1,000.
   
3. Intidab (on SRO) has made his way back to Lexington after being shuffled around for a few years.  For breeders looking to bring in the Icecapade sire line, Intidab offers some convincing statistics:  although he's another lightly-tried stallion (27 foals, 22 starters), a full two-thirds of his foals go on to win. He tops 11% black type winners, and he significantly improves his mares.
   
4. My Friend Max (pedigree) is a Louisiana sire who you absolutely do not remember from his (completely undistinguished) racing career. It's hard to argue with over 17% stakes winners-to-foals, though.  We're not talking high-end stakes -- his average earnings per starter is below the $50,000 goal -- but black type is black type. The mares sent to him have a paltry CI and he brings them way up in class.
   
5. Cee's Tizzy (on SRO) in California has a nice AEI, due in no small part to wonderhorse son Tiznow (on SRO). Cee's Tizzy falls a little short of average starts per starter and percentage of winners to foals.  His other numbers are mostly impressive, though, including AEI/CI, percentage of stakes winners, and percentage of winners to starters. 
   
6. Devil His Due (on SRO) comes from a not-quite-commercial son of Halo and is out of a mare by a not-quite-commercial son of Raise a Native. His sub-5% stakes winners are a bit of a knock against him, but he looks to be a longterm source of durability and sees over 83% of his foals start in a race, with almost 73% of those starters going on to win.

My original list was about 40 stallions -- on paper, these are the six that made the cut.  But I imagine that there are some differing opinions....

Last week, I talked about a few of my favorite pedigrees in the Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds in training. For anyone interested in that sale (or just fascinated by sire lists and anything data-related), The Blood-Horse is offering a free download of the Data Digest for this sale. 

In addition to top sires and broodmare sires, top consignors and breeders, and historical charts, the PDF has an article by pedigree analyst Alan Porter on sires with their first crop of 2-year-olds this year.

A free download -- just head to the BloodHorse.com home page and look under the "Auction News" banner.

In my last post, I discussed some of the hips offered at the OBS March Selected Sale of 2-Year-Olds In Training. If you're a subscriber to The Blood-Horse, you probably already know about the Data Digest. This publication comes out about a week before major sales and gives buyers useful information about the horses being sold.  It includes lists of sires represented in the sale, plus broodmare sires, leading consignors, breeders, and buyers, and other important statistical charts.  For 2YOIT sales, there's also a chart of the official work times for each hip, and a bonus chart of TrueNicks "A++" and "A+" rated hips.

Normally available only to subscribers, the edition for the OBS sale is open to readers of BloodHorse.com blogs.  Download the FREE PDF. And be on the lookout for daily updates during the sale, and the results edition after the auction concludes.