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Negative Nick #1
- daughters of Northern Dancer
Copyright
© 2005 Leo Tsatsaronis
The concept of a Nick is
where one sireline shows an affinity with another sireline. A Negative Nick
is where one sireline shows a reverse affinity with another
sireline and consistently produces slow runners, even though each of the
sirelines are successful on their own. Knowing which sirelines cancel each other
out is powerful knowledge that breeders & owners can use to avoid breeding
or buying slow horses.
Inbreeding to Northern Dancer has an astonishing success rate with well over 250
G1SWs (Group/Grade 1 Stakes Winners)
worldwide in the major racing regions. Some may argue that this is due to
the sheer weight of numbers of horses that have a Northern Dancer strain in
their pedigree. That Northern Dancer is present in ever-increasing numbers in
worldwide pedigrees is without argument but to put the magnitude of his G1SW
count in perspective, we can look at the number of G1SWs other giants of the
breed are achieving. TA quick search using the G1 Goldmine database shows
the following counts and whilst the numbers below change every day on a
worldwide basis but the relativity between sirelines doesn't change much.
G1SWs inbred to a sire in the past 10 years (major regions)
(major regions are USA,CAN,AUS,NZ,UK,IRE,FRA,GER,ITL)
| Northern Dancer |
258 |
| Bold Ruler |
79 |
| Secretariat |
3 |
| Mr Prospector |
17 |
| Raise A Native |
60 (including those
inbred to Mr P!) |
| Turn-To
|
75 |
| Star Kingdom |
23 |
Some may still argue
opportunity has skewed the results, some may argue regional gene pools have
skewed the results, some may point to the big books being bred to Danzig/Danehill-line
stallions skewing the results, but the fact is still that inbreeding to Northern
Dancer has exceeded the next best by a factor of almost 4.
Where it gets very interesting is looking at the sex-strain inbreeding patterns
within those 258 G1SWs. Here is the breakdown by sex strains
Total
258 G1SWs
Son x Son
209
Son x Daughter
31
Daughter x Son
17
Daughter x Daughter 1
What this is saying is that inbreeding to Northern Dancer through 2 sons top and
bottom has produced 80% of the G1SWs. A further 19% are produced by having
sex-balanced inbreeding (son/daughter, daughter/son). The remarkable figure is
the last one which shows that there has been only 1 G1SW inbred to
daughters of Northern Dancer (SHIVA). Only 1.
Inbreeding
to daughters of Northern Dancer is a Negative Nick –
(and should be avoided)
The other remarkable statistic is that apart from the solitary G1, there is only
one more GSW in the entire G1
Goldmine database (FRENCH BRAIDS G2), so in the past 10 years,
inbreeding to Northern Dancer has produced over 830 GSWs (G1, G2 & G3)
but only 2 are inbred through 2 daughters.
So how can breeders harness this knowledge ? If your mare has a daughter of
Northern Dancer in her pedigree, carefully analyze the pedigree of the sire you
are considering and try and avoid breeding a foal with a Negative Nick.
Always remember "Dig for gold where gold has
already been found"
Leo Tsatsaronis
Postscript : In Argentina,
there are currently 4 G1 winners that are inbred to daughters of Northern Dancer
and all 4 have Southern Halo as one of the daughter strains so this is a pattern
that has worked in that country.
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