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Q: I was looking for nicks with a mare by Abaginone. Your reports show an A++ for a Seeking the Gold/Halo crossing but all the stakes winners listed are by one sire, Mutakddim, out of Southern Halo mares bred in Argentina. Is this a statistical quirk or a valid basis for generalizing about a Seeking the Gold/Halo nick?

A: Thank you for the question. The calculation for a mare by a son of Seeking the Gold out of mares from the Halo line is valid. This takes into consideration all foals and starters by Seeking the Gold-line stallions out of Halo mares. The cross has been a successful one over a number of generations and in different parts of the world. Seeking the Gold himself with Halo mares is an A++ nick, and has produced four stakes winners, including graded scorer Catch the Ring. In Australia, Seeking the Gold’s son Secret Savings has sired graded stakes winner Salameh and grade I winner Shamekha out of mares by Halo’s son Don’t Say Halo (who is tail female to La Troienne). Then, of course we have the phenomenal success in Argentina of Mutakddim crossed over mares by Southern Halo. Now obviously, the Mutakddim/Southern Halo cross has had a lot of opportunity, but for it to make a positive contribution to the TrueNicks score for the Seeking the Gold/Halo cross, it would generally have to have a higher percentage of stakes winners than both Mutakddim when bred to all other mares, and that achieved by the Southern Halo mares bred to Mutakkdim, when they were crossed with allother stallions. The reason the “Best Horses bred on the cross” shows only Mutakddim/Southern Halo crosses is that they have produced most of the best horses on the nick. Incidentally, the cross probably works well because Halo has a strong affinity for Seeking the Gold’s maternal grandsire, Buckpasser. Abaginone is linebred to the La Troienne family (from which Buckpasser stems), and so should be very suited by Seeking the Gold.

Filed under: Validity, Readers' Questions, Emerging Nicks