5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

John Groen — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:50:55 GMT

I was wondering if there is a place to type my mare in and have it cross refercnce with the best studs avaible

Quite Contrary Exceptions

TrueNicks — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:48:51 GMT

Alan Porter identifies cases where a poor overall sire line affinity can be improved by other pedigree patterns -- a process aided by additional tools included on the TrueNicks report page.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

jun — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:57:52 GMT

hi there! i am jun, a horse owner / breeder / trainer in the philippines.. i recently browsed your site and was interested trying out hypothetical foals for US thoroughbred horses.. i was wondering.. do you know any sites that gives something like this using philippine thoroughbred horses.. just wondering you know.. haha! thanks!

Scot's reply: TrueNicks reports are available for all registered Thoroughbreds -- the data are pulled from the database of The Jockey Club Information Services, so is a true international product.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Michael DuSchane — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:06:54 GMT

Hi Alan & Byron,

I recently conducted a TrueNicks experiment. We have three foals, all out of the same mare. The sires are sons of Storm Cat, A.P.Indy and Danzig, the first two are out of Mr.P mares, the third is out of an Alydar mare. In an effort to quantify the mares contribution I crossed the first and second dams of the foals with the three stallions and their dams sires. This gave me four factors for each foal which I averaged and applied to the TrueNicks numerical grid. The resulting scores were A, B and A+. The actual TrueNicks scores are C, C+ and A++. Please comment on this approach, I don't know how valid these (TrueNicks 2.0) scores are but I certainly enjoyed the exercise...haha Thanks

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

fred heyman — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:13:43 GMT

as a student of breeding and confirmation, your true nick is a invaluable tool. however, it would be even more invaluable if you were to allow the subscriber to simply type in the name of a mare and get the best crossess as opposed to having to type in each stallion individually.

thanks

Fred

Byron's Reply: Fred, thanks for the comment. We are really pleased with the market acceptance of what we believe is the best pedigree analysis program available in the business. We have a broodmare analysis product in the works that will allow you to both search for stallions by service fee and manually enter stallions to run against your mare...stay tuned!

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

william — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:54:07 GMT

my first jump into the breeding world maybe is not the best but I breed mares by el corredor grand sland lemon drop kid and wheaton with horse by grindstone I like your opinion on my crosses

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Michael DuSchane — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:20:14 GMT

Alan and Byron, I enjoyed reading your responses, they gave me insights I had not considered. Thanks

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Michael Martin — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:37:14 GMT

As a regional breeder, we are left guessing: sons and daughters which are bred from more prominent stallions, and from mares by prominent stallions, have inherited only half the predictability which your nicks are based upon. Again, we are left with "5 best horses on this cross", but it really is only "2 1/2 horses". Any suggestions?

Alan's response: Thank you for your question: if I understanding your question, you are looking at a situation where you might have a regional based stallion - let's say a minor winning son of A.P. Indy - crossed over a mare by one of Mr. Prospector's less prominent sons, and comparing it with the rating one might get if one crossed A.P. Indy himself with a Mr. Prospector mare. Firstly, TrueNicks - unlike other prominent nicking programs - include all horses deemed eligable for black-type by the International Cataloging Standards Committee. That means any state-bred or restricted stakes winners by our hypothetical son of A.P. Indy out of mares by the hypothetical son of Mr. Prospector (and if appropriate, other Mr. Prospector line mares would be taken into consideration) as would other A.P. Indy (and if appropriate Seattle Slew) line stakes winners out of mares by the hypothetical son of Mr. Prospector. This feature greatly increases the usefulness of TrueNicks to breeders in a regional program.
If, however, the cross of our hypothetical A.P. Indy son over mares by our hypothetical Mr. Prospector son, or variations included these indivduals has not generated enough stakes winners or runners to calculate a valid rating, the calculation would default to a calculation based on sons of A.P. Indy with Mr. Prospector line mares.

It is true that in percentage terms in the case of a son of A.P. Indy with a mare by a son of Mr. Prospector, A.P. Indy and Mr. Prospector comprise 50% less of the pedigree than when A.P. Indy is crossed with a Mr. Prospector mare. That, however, is not the whole story. There is a very marked tendency for stallions to continue to cross well with similar strains to their sire, and this can often be observed over several generations. Thus, our hypothetical son of A.P. Indy will probably tend to cross better with mares by sons of Mr. Prospector, than, for example, by sons of Halo.

I would also point out that -- because TrueNicks includes all stakes winners -- the owner of the sire or dam in question in the "son of A.P. Indy over a mare by a son of Mr. Prospector" example is in no different a situation from a breeder considering sending a mare well-bred mare by a son of Mr. Prospector who is unproven as a broodmare sire (say Aldebaran) to a mare by A.P. Indy's unproven son Bernardini.

In either case, the "Five best horses bred on the cross" will still be the five best horses sired by A.P. Indy and his sons out of Mr. Prospector-line mares, and investigation of them by well provide other useful information as to specific influences.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Michael DuSchane — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:34:52 GMT

How does the TrueNicks rating compensate for the number of generations from the offspring to the selected male ancestors? Are the ratings for matings where the two stallions appear in the 2nd generation more accurate than if they were to appear in, say, the 2nd and 4th generations? Since each breeding is a unique recombination of the genetic material, wouldn't there be considerable dilulution with the increase in number of ancestors between the prospective foal and the selected stallion? Wouldn't the pedigrees of the mares have an equal impact to that of the stallions? Whew ... I enjoy reading your analysis, thanks.

Alan's response: Thank you for your question: Overall there would be a tendency for there to be a higher degree of certainty with nicks based on ancestors that are close up in the pedigree. In mathematical terms, the percentage of the pedigree contributed by sires in the third and fourth generations is relatively small. However, that is not the whole story. Almost all stallions that continue sire lines are superior performers. By definition, their dams had a genetic affinity with their sires. As a consequence there is a tendency for them to cross in a similar way to their sire (although on occasion there are modifications, such as Point Given crossing well with Seattle Slew, a horse who has an affinity with Point Given's broodmare sire, Turkoman - a situation that TrueNicks was able to very quickly recognize). An example would be Fappiano and In Reality. This was a highly successful cross, and has continued to flourish with Fappiano's son, Unbridled, and his grandson, Unbridled's Song.

This tendency for stallions to throw in a somewhat similar way to their sires in effect absorbs the contribution of the distaff side of the pedigree. To put it in algebraic terms: if stallion A crosses well with mares by both B and C, then a stallion bred on an A/B cross will probably do well with mares by C, and a stallion bred on an A/C cross will probably do well with mares by B.

Byron's response: Michael, interesting question. It actually inspired me to go back and take a look at the logic rules that we set up as well as the data from the study of 100,000 horses that we based the TrueNicks score on. The most popular "rule" to make a calculation on (TrueNicks has some unique thresholds that need to be met to ensure integrity of the ratings returned) is unsurprisingly "The Grandsire and his sons, when mated to mares by the Sire of the Broodmare Sire and his sons". Thinking logically you can probably appreciate that this is the most popular. Interestingly there is no bias when it comes to any one rule reflecting a greater percentage of the stakes winning population than it should. The most popular rule has proportionately the same number of stakes winners as some of the less popular rules that TrueNicks is calculated on.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

LittleGuyBreeder — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:43:20 GMT

How many generations do you reach back to get a rating? I did a rating with a stallion and my mare and got a "Not Rated" or something along those lines, even though it seemed possible to get some sort of rating. Thanks!

TrueNicks reply: Thanks for your question. To assign a rating, the TrueNicks system requires a degree of statistical significance in the number of times a cross has been tried. When a cross has not been tried at least 15 times going all the way back through the fourth generation of both sire and broodmare sire, the assigment of "No Rating" lets you know that you're in rather uncharted territory. The "5 best horses bred on this cross" section is often revealing in these circumstances. To learn more about the "No Rating" classification, please visit the FAQs.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Alex — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:41:32 GMT

This is an incredibly interesting topic, but until you actually provide some details on how your ratings are calculated and the exact design of your studies that are supposed to validate its predictive power, I'll have a very hard time taking it seriously.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

kerry — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:04:12 GMT

thanks, very helpful.

re: 5 Things You Should Know About Thoroughbred Nicking

Julie L. — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:30:22 GMT

Nicking is a very interesting subject and as a person who loves to follow pedigrees the question of nicking is an important one. I believe that what we must be careful of is if the nicking becomes inbreeding. It seems that we tend to overdose on one or two lines to the point that it is very prominent on both sides of the pedigree, if one side of the pedigree is already heavy with let's say the Northern Dancer/Mr. Prospector cross then I believe that the other side should then either be completely free of either line or one line sire must be far enough back to not produce inbreeding as this could possibly bring up bad faults rather then the good (speed, stamina, attitude). I believe that we must continue to study the effects of nicking, inbreeding and line breeding so that we may breed what's best from horse to horse and to see what contributes to bringing out the worst.