(Note: The following is the first in a series of occasional posts concerning historical horse racing events, famous runners, stallions, and such. I hope you enjoy these posts, for I find them utterly fascinating and fun to write. Enjoy!)
While browsing through some very old leading sire lists a few days ago, I happened upon some startling facts which got me thinking about today's top stallions. The list in question is the "47 Prominent Stallions" chart contained within the reprint of A Quarter Century of American Racing and Breeding, by The Blood-Horse, Inc. Contained in this captivating chart are—as the name implies—forty-seven stallions and a detailed outline of their stud careers. The columns in this chart include number of crops, named foals, winners, two-year-old winners, stakes winners, earnings in U.S., sire list, year-starters, and average-earnings index. Although all of these columns could potentially make worthy blog posts themselves, the column of focus today is the “named foals column,” along with the closely-related “crops” column.
Examining this chart gave me an idea for a fascinating blog post comparing the 2009 leading general sire, Giant's Causeway, to Broomstick, who led the general sire list for three consecutive years during the early part of the 20th century and was in the top twenty for seventeen consecutive years.
(Before reading on, please note that these numbers are not entirely complete. For the purpose of simplicity, I have excluded Giant's Causeway's southern hemisphere foal crops and Broomstick's foreign foal crops from the following tabulations. In other words, Giant's Causeway's totals reflect only his northern hemisphere foals and Broomstick's reflect only his North American foals.)
We shall begin this analysis with Giant's Causeway, easily one of the best sires in the world. Thus far, Giant's Causeway has been represented by grade/group I winners in England, France, U.S.A., South Africa, and Australia, as well champions in Italy and England. He has sired grade I winners on dirt, turf, and synthetics. Through November 8th, 2010, he is the sire of 949 named foals, from which 713 (75%) have become winners and 79 (8%) have become stakes winners. His best foals include Shamardal, champion two-year old and three-year old in England; Heatseeker, winner of the Santa Anita Handicap; and Eskendereya, winner of the Wood Memorial in stunning fashion earlier this year.
All in all, Giant's Causeway's foals have earned $64,049,913. His average-earnings index is currently 1.95. This is a very good record; although his percentage of stakes winners does not quite match up with such sires as A.P. Indy (13%) and Distorted Humor (10%).
However, there is one final statistic that must be mentioned before moving on to an analysis of Broomstick. This is the number of foal crops of racing age which Giant's Causeway has sired thus far, which is 7. This is the key number; don't forget it!
That said, we can now move on to Broomstick. Broomstick was the sire of 280 named foals, from which 207 (74%) became winners and 69 (25%) became stakes winners. His stakes winners included Regret, winner of the Kentucky Derby; Whisk Broom II, winner of the Metropolitan, Brooklyn, and Suburban Handicaps; and Cudgel, leading older horse of 1918. Cudgel could make an entire blog post himself, for in 1918 he won the Pimlico Spring Handicap, Kings County Handicap under 130 pounds, the Kentucky Handicap under 132 pounds, the Brooklyn Handicap under 129, and the Dixie Handicap. Amazingly, Cudgel was the leading older horse in 1919 as well. Although he only won four of eleven starts that year, his victory over Exterminator in the Havre de Grace Handicap while carrying 129 pounds earned him the title. Also in his dust that day was Sir Barton and The Porter, both very nice horses; Sir Barton being a Triple Crown winner.
Altogether, Broomstick's foals earned $2,639,502, a very good total at the time. His average-earnings index was 2.22. But here is the key component of this analysis—he accomplished this from twenty-five crops.
Compare. . .
Horse Crops Foals Winners Stakes Winners
GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 7 949 713 (75%) 79 (8%)
BROOMSTICK 25 280 207 (74%) 69 (25%)
There seems to be something funny going on here. . . Giant's Causeway has sired over three times as many named foals as Broomstick; yet has done so from only seven crops! On the other hand, Broomstick managed to sire 69 stakes winners in his lifetime, while Giant's Causeway has only managed 79!
Going a little deeper into these statistics, we see that Giant's Causeway has averaged 135.57 foals per year, while Broomstick averaged 11.2. To garner 25% percent stakes winners is astronomical. No North American stallion has surpassed or equaled that number since then; with Bold Ruler, Nasrullah, and Northern Dancer all coming close with 23% but all failing to reach the 25% mark.
At first glance, it appears as though Broomstick is a better sire than Giant's Causeway, and that is possibly the case. 25% percent stakes winners is simply incredible; a nearly impossible feat to match. However, upon further examining the "47 Prominent Stallions" chart I noticed one other thing that is worth noting. All but 18 of the 47 stallions sired 10% stakes winners or better, and all but eleven equaled or surpassed Giant's Causeway's 8% stakes winners. Even Chance Shot, who never led the general sire list and ranked in the top twenty only three times managed to sire 10% stakes winners. All together, the 47 stallions averaged 11% stakes winners. Why did all of these sires have such high percentages of stakes winners when a fabulous sire like Giant's Causeway can only manage 8%? I have come up with three solutions which could explain this.
Explanation A is that the 47 prominent stallions were, on average, better sires than Giant's Causeway, which seems unlikely. Explanation B is it was easier to become a stakes winner during the time period in question. Finally, for Explanation C: Does siring over a hundred foals a year lessen any given horse’s chances of siring stakes winners? Does the quality of a stallion’s offspring actually decrease in accordance to an increase in total foals? This doesn’t seem possible; yet the statistics seem to say it is a possibility.
This is everything I have to say. I would love to hear your input regarding these statistics. Why do you think that, on average, stallions from about 1900 to 1950 managed to sire such a large percentage of stakes winners? Does it have something to do with the number of foals sired by a stallion? Or is there some other factor which I didn't mention that could be influencing the numbers? Feel free to leave your thoughts below!
-Keelerman
No comments:
Post a Comment