Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

guard91 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:54:22 GMT

Alan,

An off shoot of the rachel subject,but what are your feelings

about matings with daughters and

grand-daughters of drone with sons

and grandsons of lady capulet?

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

vineyridge — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:10:52 GMT

She's got a lot of Imperatrice through Sir Gaylord and Speedwell.

Couldn't hurt to breed to that fabulous mare line.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

Alan Porter — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:48:24 GMT

Elaine, you're missing the point. What is important about Rachel Alexandra's pedigree is not the overall degree of inbreeding, but a specific background and the concentrations behind it. It's no coincidence that his two grade one winners and his stakes winner that placed in the Canadian Oaks all have Cure the Blues in the pedigree. Look at Cure the Blues/Stop the Music and Lady Capulet (dam of El Prado). Obviously what has happened is that some key haplotypes from El Prado (or one's that have an affinity with those haplotypes) play a more than mathematically proportional part in what Medaglia d'Oro passes on. The total degree of inbreeding is really nothing to do with it. While I believe that the Rasmussen factor is associative, not causative, accumulating ancestors with CONCENTRATIONS of important strains is what makes the difference.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

mourningdove — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:41:50 GMT

i went through this earlier this year when mating my slew o gold mare. she was high strung, nervous and very emotional in general. her ancestors were all top horses in ireland, and she was bred by robert clay. i settled on seeking the best, it turned out to be a A+ cross, and had almost every La Troienne daughter represented in the cross. Coupled with his longevity on the track, conformation and a lovely intelligence about him, good temperment, i hope this works out. rachel alexandra, no matter what you think, is a phenominal horse.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

sceptre — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:51:35 GMT

Not that it really matters re- the subject here, but Elaine was mistaken about R. Alexandra's coefficient of inbreeding (through 8). It's actually over 2% (higher than the norm for the breed)...This RF exercise is probably fascinating for some, but I fear that many may overestimate its potential value-make it too much a focal point in their matings-much as is often done with "nicks". Scot, I'll tell you what could prove highly beneficial to your readers/breeders- Have Allen, and others very experienced in planning matings offer their COMPLETE thought process when matching a few random mares (be sure to also supply them with a thorough conformational analysis of the mares). I doubt you'd have many/any takers, though.

Scot's reply: Thanks for your comments. The exercise you suggest would be fascinating ... but as you said, probably unlikely to have a lot of volunteers. Most of the bloodstock agents who regularly evaluate "random" mares are doing so with a system that they consider to be proprietary (and they charge accordingly!). A great series run on another BloodHorse.com blog will be of interest, however: Developing a Stakes-Winning Thoroughbred Filly is a guest series on the TrueNicks blog that reveals many of the considerations that went into the development of a black type breeding operation over two generations.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

CRob87 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:19:58 GMT

With J.J.'s money, I would also make the trip to Europe to give her a shot with...

Galileo or Sea The Stars.

Galileo gives the Foal a 3s x 5d to Fairy Bridge.

And IMO...you gotta try to get Urban Sea herself into "ANY" pedigree you can.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

CRob87 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:06:23 GMT

Very cool article though.

If someone we're to do a real complete study of the RF factor I think it would also be interesting to know if the outcome produced better Colts or Fillies...ya know ???

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

CRob87 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:29:06 GMT

I'm not sure about the Nicks on this one, but for a "Possible" Turf/Synthetic running Foal i'd try...

Henrythenavigator.

It makes for a 4s x 5d to Fairy Bridge. Which would also bring in a 2nd dose of Special thru Nureyev.

Another "Possibility" would be...

Elusive Quality.

Not sure about the Nicks again, but it would make for a 4s x 5d to Glowing Tribute. With extra doses of Mr. Prospector, Sir Gaylord and a bunch of Nasrullah/Princequillo further back.

Maybe "IF" i'd of spent more than 5 minutes on this i'd do better...ha ha.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

TJLuvsTizs — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:24:08 GMT

The mare to Sadler's Wells, Fairy Bridge is a full sister to chef-de-race stallion Nureyev out of the mare Special. There are many stallions that have Nureyev in their bloodlines. However, the most prominent of those being Kingmambo, Theatrical, and Big Brown.

Kingmambo- 4x6 (A truenick)

Theatrical- 3x6 (C truenick)

Big Brown- 4x6 (B+ truenick)

Of these three I really like the Kingmambo cross as there is much less in-breeding through this cross.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

TJLuvsTizs — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:49:55 GMT

Through Glowing Tribute I found Seeking the Best, Sire out of Seeking the Gold, and Mackie, by Summer Squall and Glowing Tribute.

Not a glitzy mating as Truenicks rates this a D, but so far the "best" I could find. I will dig a little deeper.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

Elaine — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:23:07 GMT

This is a nice example of how to waste time trying to find something "special" without any value.

Inbreeding is defined as the mating of individuals more closely related than is average for the population (breed). The average inbreeding coefficient in a five generation pedigree of a 1994 thoroughbred in the United States is 1%.

Rachel's closest inbreeding is 4 x 4 to Northern Dancer. 4 x 4 inbreeding results in a coefficient of 0.78%.

Bottom line, Rachel is slightly less inbred than is normal for a thoroughbred.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

Stephen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:56:18 GMT

The female family I would focus on in her pedigree is that of Cap and Bells.

It's a female family that has carried it's class for generations, but more importantly, when given an opportunity in the shed, especially it's male representatives, they produce better runners than they were themselves (El Prado, Dunce, Drone, Notebook).

You can find this blood with Drone but I would specifically look for Notebook. He was undervalued as a stallion but sired quality over and over again, and now his daughters are producing fantastic runners that have versatile speed they can carry. He's sitting at number 9 right now on the bms list.

While there's not a stallion worthy of her accomplishments with him as a broodmare sire yet, I do think that will change in the near future. Too bad Well Armed is a gelding.

If one were to really play with this year's Classics' results, sending her to Grindstone would provide Drone and by association, Cap and Bells 4sx5d.

re: Rachel Alexandra and the Rasmussen Factor

sgillies — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:15:02 GMT

Now I'm going to bring everything full-circle!

The Rasmussen Factor post last week included an example from the upcoming Keeneland yearling sale... the filly is by the Vinery stallion Congrats (SRO).

Well... I notice that if you cross Congrats with Rachel, the resulting foal would have a 3x4 RF to Wild Applause.

Wild Applause is my mare of choice for creating female family inbreeding in foals out of Rachel Alexandra -- and there are plenty of opportunities out there, since Wild Applause is ancestress of multiple stallions. (As a 1-x family descendent of La Troienne, perhaps that's not too surprising.) Look for Eastern Echo or Flatter (SRO) or Swiss Yodeler (SRO) in a stallion's pedigree to set up the Wild Applause RF when crossed with Rachel Alexandra.

And now a question: if YOU wanted to mate Rachel Alexandra so that the resulting foal had an RF, which mare would you choose? (Looking at Rachel Alexandra's pedigree, you have 15 choices, since there are 15 mares in her first four generations....)