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2012 will be the first breeding season without A.P. Indy as an active stallion since he retired to Lane's End in 1993. Now 23 years old, the two-time leading sire was pensioned last April due to declining fertility. Sire of 1,119 foals and 142 stakes winners, A.P. Indy commanded a $300,000 stud fee for a large portion of his stud career. A.P. Indy as a foal in...
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Uncle Mo Earlier this week I got a phone call from a breeder who wanted to discuss a potential mating of his mare with Uncle Mo ( TrueNicks , SRO ). The mare (an exceptional racemare and a grade I producer) was foaled in 1990, meaning that she would produce the Uncle Mo foal at age 23. Uncle Mo will be 5, so that's an 18-year difference. This got me thinking...
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We recently unveiled a new header on TrueNicks.com when you run a hypothetical mating report. The new features include quick buttons to email and save a report, plus social media options for Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Email The email tool allows you to quickly send the PDF of the TrueNicks report to clients and friends. You can include multiple recipient...
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In honor of the upcoming stakes weekend at Woodbine, here's a crossword puzzle that I'm sure many of you will have fun with. The first person to solve the puzzle will be invited to write a guest blog here on TrueNicks.com. Post your answers here, or email to me at ian@truenicks.com . The solution will be revealed on Wednesday, September 22. Here's a link to a...
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Reader challenge: The pedigree of this racehorse (pictured at Belmont Park) features inbreeding to a runner-up in both the Manhattan Handicap and Jockey Club Gold Cup. This racehorse's sire also appears in the pedigree of a recent gr. I winner at Belmont. Your challenge is to answer the following questions in the comments section below: 1. Who is this racehorse...
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Reader challenge: Identify the following four horses represented by their 3-cross pedigrees. What do they have in common? Leave your guess in the comments section below. Good luck! We will hold all comments until Monday, July 5, at 11:00am EDT. UPDATE: Congrats to everyone who correctly identified Macho Uno ( TrueNicks , SRO ), Twice Over , Triple Bend , and...
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Convenience, a two-time winner of the Vanity Handicap (gr. I) in 1972-73, is the third dam of this weekend's Obeah Stakes (gr. III) winner Miss Singhsix (by Singspiel). One day later, Zenyatta became the first mare to win three Vanity Handicaps.
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With close to 500 responses, the TrueNicks community overwhelmingly picked Horse of the Year Curlin to top the potential matings for super mare Rachel Alexandra. Some would say that it was an unsurprising result given the ownership of the two horses, but it was a very competitive voting process and there were a number of stallions who were well regarded by the...
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Ok, so we have run the feature a little longer than we'd planned, but we figured that with Rachel Alexandra's outstanding win in the Haskell Invitational (gr. I) on the weekend, it was worth a little more time for readers to come up with some suggestions for us to consider before we start creating the shortlist for the mating analysis product. If you haven't...
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With a year and a half of the TrueNicks blog and 300-plus posts behind us, it has not escaped our attention that there are some passionate horsemen and pedigree analysts who frequent this corner of the Web. Indeed the "TrueNicks Community" has at times both intrigued and informed us and we are certainly thankful for this community that has given us some great...
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Several recent posts inspire us to take a quick look at some similarities -- perhaps coincidental -- between the pedigrees of Birdstone ( TrueNicks , SRO ), Medaglia d'Oro ( TrueNicks , SRO ) , and Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) third Musket Man . As we've mentioned ( here ), Birdstone's sire Grindstoned is out of a mare by Drone (whose half...
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A week or so ago we had an interesting post on this site from Scot Gillies in regards to a "dream mating" for your favorite mare. There was a lot of ideas, some of them very well reasoned, from a number of readers with some suggestions for various mares to visit various stallions. In some type of continuation from that post, I read with interest today that the...
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I don't own Hasili (IRE) ( pedigree ). To provide a quick recap of that mare's record as a broodmare, I'll just say she got off to a "slow" start with Dansili (GB), her first foal: he was merely a multiple group II winner. The five foals following -- the mares Banks Hill (GB), Heat Haze (GB), and Intercontinental (GB), and the stallions Cacique (IRE) and Champs...
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While it may not have been rocket science to pick out the winner, you could have had yourself the Trifecta in the Preakness Stakes if you had merely boxed the five horses that were A++ rated by TrueNicks (link to Alan's post). With Macho Again and Icabad Crane filling the place and show, a $2 box for the five horses would have cost you $120 for a return of $336...
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Twelve contenders will go to the post for the May 17 Preakness Stakes (gr. I). Let's see how they're rated by TrueNicks. A++ BIG BROWN (Boundary - Mein, by Nureyev) - Went into the history books by winning the Derby on only his fourth start, but is also there as one of the most closely inbred Derby winners of all time: with Northern Dancer 3 x 3, Damascus 3 x...
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With the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands mere days away, we thought it was worth giving TrueNicks a tryout on the leading contenders. TrueNicks came through its Derby Trial with flying colors. Of the top 24 contenders at time of writing, nine (37.5%) were A++ ; 17 (71%) were A or above; 21 (87.5%) were B+ or higher. Of the remaining three, two are D ;...
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This is a blog, and indeed TrueNicks is not supposed to be a handicapping service - but we are seriously going to have to reconsider this after the win of Sebring in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Aus-I) on the weekend! It was back on the 20th of January, some 13 weeks ago, that we first mentioned the then-non stakes-winning Sebring as a likely Golden Slipper candidate...
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Yesterday brought the news that champion 3-year-old filly Rags to Riches was to be retired and bred to Giant's Causeway. The match of the history-making Belmont Stakes (gr. I) heroine with Storm Cat's leading son is one that should create a tough runner, and a horse that will have no problems with classic distances. Of course, we couldn't resist running it through...
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As part of the TrueNicks commitment to ongoing improvement of our product line, we are pleased to unveil a new look for the basic Hypothetical Mating and Named Foal reports (click on the report names to see samples). The new presentation is designed to be easier to read and interpret, and includes all the same features that users have found on the reports previously...
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While most second-season colts with classic hopes are just taking their first steps on the Triple Crown Trail, one possible candidate is already a Derby winner. That horse is the remarkable Tomcito. A $7,500 Keeneland September yearling purchase, Tomcito was shipped to Peru where, despite being up to six months younger than his Southern Hemisphere rivals, he...
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