Fact: Speed Awareness

Much is written about how sires add stamina or speed to the mares they are bred to. Anecdotal evidence is pervasive in the thoroughbred breeding industry. Many breeders will often base decisions on outcomes they themselves have observed. And who could blame them? But there is really good data available about the aptitude of sires' offspring.

In the published table we have some of the best speed sires of Britain and Ireland in recent years. They all have a stamina index of less than eight furlongs for their progeny aged three and over. Moreover, they are all sires whose mares have tended to produce runners that stay further. So, not only are they producing fast horses, they are demonstrably speed influences.

That said, there are a few names present that may raise an eyebrow. Oasis Dream (GB), for one, produced some very smart middle-distance performers early in his career and was given plenty of further opportunities with staying mares, hence the nine-furlong stamina index of his offspring's siblings. Yet, his own stamina index is all of 1.3 furlongs shorter. Who knows, had he been bred to a greater number of faster mares, might we have had a few more Muhaarar (GB)s?

Pivotal (GB) is another good example in that two of his very best runners, Farhh (GB) and African Story (GB), stayed 10 furlongs. Yet our data shows that he knocks a furlong off the stamina index of his runners' siblings. What is also interesting is that Pivotal behaved the same way early on in his career when he covered faster mares. For his first four crops, his stamina index was 7.4 compared to the 8.3 of his mares' other runners. From his fifth crop onwards, his numbers are 8.0 and 9.0. There is no doubt taken in its entirety, the evidence shows that both these sires are speed influences, even though with certain mares they may produce horses that stay. Next time we'll look at the stamina influences.