.

Randwick race 1 

As she says, they use stallions across the whole spectrum, from non commercial - unfashionable, (and i dont think too many uncommercial and or unfashionable stallions costing too much) to the best, and if money is an issue with you, how about  Coolmore Darley Juddmonte Shadwell Calumet Farm etc etc etc, they are hardly paupers  so i don't see a problem. Her views are Hers, and when a Family can come up with breeding owning and racing  166 Group One winners, (and growing) maybe people should listen to Her and any of the others mentioned

I'd invite anyone to examine the breeding of Money Maher (Al Maher-Treasury Notes).  Three stakes wins and could have been any number more had he not gone wrong.

There's not a single duplication in the first three removes, and only one duplication in the fourth (though there is a half-relation cross back there).

Yet imo the match of sire and dam is a recipe for possible success, involving excellent common ancestry further back in his pedigree.

This can happen by luck, or can be planned.

Almost all breeding plans are aimed at the yearling sales, what sire sells, what is in fashion.

The inbreeding groups in Galileo (1998) are shown below.

Galileo has only two inbreeding groups in six generations, but almost all his duplication groups further back are well matched.

In November 2023 I compared the 2,308 mares on offer at the IRE, GB, FR breeding stock sales and compared them to the 497 stallions in those countries.

This gave 2,308 x 497 = 1,147,076 possible foals.

I ran an advertisement in The Irish Field newspaper offering the analysis free.

One person contacted me, learned what was offered, and did not contact me again.

One mare stood out as an exceptional match to about eight sires.

She had failed to win, had a better than average rating, and earned a little black type.

I bought her and she visited a sire in France last week.

Of course the stallion I used would not be used by anyone aiming at the yearling sales.

Personally thought all male duplications in a male horse where to be avoided,although there are exceptions to that rule

I realise the three graphs shown above might need a little explanation.

First graph

This is not an inbreeding calculation in the traditional sense of identifying inbreeding groups, the generation in which they appear, and doing an inbreeding calculation like Wright's inbreeding coefficient.

In each pedigree I identified 10 generation ancestors that appeared once only, and ancestors that appeared more than once but were on one side of the pedigree only (both groups therefore could not be part of inbreeding).

I subtracted the horses that could not be part of inbreeding from the 2,046 total ancestors to get a number that appeared on both sides of the pedigree.

I could have produced 10 generation pedigrees as shown in the Galileo (1998) example and produced other calculations.

Second Graph

It would not be a quick and easy job to calculate the increase in two or more sons of a duplicated sire, a big problem in 21st century pedigrees.

Instead I decided to do a theoretical calculation of the possible son and daughter inbreeding.

You can see the steep decline in this from 1900 to 1924.  This is almost certainly caused by the many sons of St Simon (1880) that went to stud, flooding pedigrees with two or more sons of a duplicated sire (St Simon).  His influence petered out about 40 years later and we see more normal breeding from 1924 to 1945.

The large fall in son and daughter of a duplicated sire from 1980 to 2015 was caused by the many sons of famous sires (Northern Dancer (1961); Mr Prospector (1970) and others) given a place at stud.  In the 1950 a sire might have two sons who became sires. In the late 20th century and early 21st century 100+ sons of a famous sire is normal.

Third graph

I probably explained this adequately.

The stallion numbers are not from stallion registers but from the sires that are ancestors of horses in my data.  A single appearance in a pedigree is enough to qualify.

The right side of the graph might fill out a little as I add more pedigrees over time.

Reasons for the decline in stallion numbers:

The Group race system, the obsession with black type, and the lack of positions at stud from good handicappers and horses without a Group 1 win.

Heavy advertising by stallion farms quoting high priced lots sold, averages, medians and other frippery.  Small stud can not compete.

The concentration of stallions at a few stallion farms, a bit like stallion factories.

Improvement in the road network, and the ownership of transport by boarding farms allows them to easily bring mares to stallions and concentrates breeding in a few locations.

Improvements in horse transporters, shipping, aviation, allow shuttling of stallions, movement of mares from the continent to Ireland and England (or vice versa) for foaling and visiting stallions.  Mares bought at an auction are transported part of their journey to a holding hub, held for a short time (perhaps overnight), then allocated to the different transporters for onward shipment.  It is industrialisation of breeding, similar to an Amazon warehouse, sales catalogues online, auctions and bidding online, stallions advertised online.

Also with 3 dups of danehill in 6 I have 2 G1's and 4 other Sw's

Plus after reading comments re the folly of inbreeding to Storm Cat, on other forums, i di a search and from a smaller population of 38 on my DB found 9 Sw's including 3 G1's

i think it just highlights the need to do your own research if contemplating any methodology of breeding at all

very interesting reading. It's a very similar way I analyze a ped and I'm going very far back in many cases.

Well, I'm not a breeder myself, but I became interested in Thoroughbred peds meanwhile it's 40 years ago. One of the books you mentiones I bought as a reprint around this time. It fired my interest in peds enormesly! I still read it from time to time again, especialy the 5 + 6 generations peds are 

The names of the ped reseaqrchs of f Harold Hampton and Clive Harper I new very well. I even was in privat contact with him via e-mail and phone. Unfortunaly Mr. Harper from NZ is since many years deceased.

May I recommend another pedigreeresearcher Mr. Ken McLean he published so far 4 books. His First book I bought in London at a special Books, which only stocks about horses; dasly it's closed down now. The title is "Federico Tesio, Master of Matings", it printed a lot of peds of his succesful matings.

During the 1920's "nera de Bicci" (by Tracery) was purchased by a German Stud and is still going

strong after 100 Years.

Btw, in his book "Designing Speed in the Race Horse" includes a chapter about the "German Connection" Alchimist and Neckar.

Hope I could help.

Regards from Germany.

Ticino

It might seem like an exercise for preschool infants.

In Jan/Feb 2017 I extracted 18 different inbreeding types from 159,220 six generation pedigrees and compared the counts of each type of inbreeding to the ratings of each horse.

That told me which of the 18 types was favourable and which was unfavourable for racing.

In Nov/Dec 2023 I compared the 2,308 mares on offer at the IRE, GB. FR breeding stock sales with the 497 stallions standing in IRE, GB, FR, or 2308 x 497 = 1,147,076 possible foals from those sires and dams. I had not intended to buy but one mare produced, in my estimate, exceptional runners with eight different sires. None of the other mares would (my opinion). 

I bought the mare. She had her first foal in may 2025 but unfortunately had to be euthanized in July 2025. The filly foal is very correct and energetic, very speedy.  We have no idea how she will progress, or if she will. Yesterday I completed the naming forms for the filly foal and a yearling colt as I doubt I will sell them before I have them trained.

Let me know if a kindergarten infant turns in a project that analyses pedigrees and proves the results statistically.