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It has been a little over two months, ten weeks to be precise, since we launched TrueNicks into the marketplace and the response has been nothing short of overwhelming. With a large roster of stallions subscribed to the complimentary subscription service that allows users to generate their own ratings via either this Web site or www.StallionRegister.com, we have seen some outstanding activity from users throughout the world. Obviously there are a lot of breeders out there that want the latest information to make their breeding decisions!

We are always looking to improve what we offer our customers and in the next few months you will see a range of products that will be launched for yearling buyers, stallion owners, and broodmare owners alike - all based on the feedback that we have received from our customers. It would be remiss not to mention that a lot of the feedback we have been receiving compares and contrasts TrueNicks against other pedigree nick rating systems in the marketplace. This can be seen as nothing but healthy as it just proves to us that breeders are genuinely interested in making decisions about pedigrees based on available information, which is much better than making decisions based on no information at all.

While some of the ratings generated by each company have differed, creating some level of confusion in the marketplace, it is interesting to note that many of the ratings that are being generated by each program as far as stakes winners are concerned are in fact quite close. While we are acutely aware that TrueNicks clearly does not hand out as many "A's" or "B's" as competing products do, this should not come as a surprise given that our ratings were created on a population study of over 100,000 horses and reflect the reality of the Thoroughbred population. There is, however, no doubt that from an international perspective the strength of TrueNicks and the use of The Jockey Club's database come to the fore when dealing with stallions that stand overseas, or those that have foals and stakes performers that race in countries where collecting and collating data requires considerable resources.

A good example of this was the stakes winner Premium Box (JPN), a son of Admire Vega (JPN) (by Sunday Silence), who won in Japan March 8. In recent times there has been considerable comment made on how other pedigree nick rating programs have been dealing with sons of the great Sunday Silence. Indeed as their databases look at only open stakes winners and exclude many of the results in Japan when making their calculation, it has forced them to publicly acknowledge the limitations of their databases and, in one case, to alter calculations to appease a subscribed stallion owner. As The Jockey Club's database gathers more information from which to make a more valid calculation, users of TrueNicks are in a position where such alteration to the calculation is not required. While another pedigree nick rating company designates Premium Box as a "D" rated runner (based on the Sunday Silence/Round Table cross), the colt's evaluation by TrueNicks is a solid "B" (note: we ran Premium Box's TrueNicks report before his recent stakes win, meaning that his own success did not alter the calculation). The TrueNicks report also notes that Australian grade I winner Pompeii Ruler (AUS) and Japanese graded winner Fast Tateyama (JPN) also bred on similar lines.

Filed under: Announcements, Recent Winners, Validity, Other Breeding Theories