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Alan,

Your praises of Dunkirk do not go unnoticed especially considering the fact that he rates an abysmal "D" Truenick rating. As a mating you would have argued against it...and presumably you would have argued against purchasing him for a lofty 3.7 million. Now the question is can you recommend him as a stallion "D" true nick rating and all???

Oh boy, another Unbridled's Song headed off to the shed to propagate more and more soundness issues in the breed. Remember Eight Belles? How about Midshipman? Old Fashioned? Even poor Dunkirk was done after the Belmont.

Do breeders not realize that unsoundness begets unsoundness? Or do they simply not care? (Given the number of breedings that Big Brown got, I'd have to say it's the latter.)

Byron's reply: Megan, statistically there is very little evidence to support your assumption/assertion that Unbridled's Song is a source of soundness, at least any more than any other stallion that stands at stud. He may be a more high profile stallion, and have high profile horses on the track, but his average for starts per runner and runners per foals is equivalent to his peers. It may be fashionable for you to say that Unbridled's Song is a source of unsoundness, but there is no evidence whatsoever that it is the case.

Equally, rightly or wrongly, "unsoundness" (a loose term as it is hard to know if it was man made or hereditary anyway) has for centuries been the hallmark of some of the breed shaping stallions in the thoroughbred, many of whom had brief race careers but an outstandingly positive impact on the breed. Not to make a virtue out of a vice but the likes of Alibhai, Blandford, Bois Roussel, Crepello, Danzig, Nureyev, Raise a Native, Red Ransom, Spearmint, Ultimus and Vice Regent all had a career spanning five starts or less but their impact on the breed as progenitors has been outstanding.