2016 New York Yearling Sales

The rosters for the Goshen and Morrisville sales are now available on PM Online. Both sales show increased numbers from last year. Morrisville has 90 listed and Goshen has 162 entries. While Morrisville is primarily trotters with 68 and only 22 pacers, the opposite is true for Goshen with 91 pacers and 71 trotters. Use the Sale report function on the Horse tab.

A look at last year's sales shows that Morrisville has outperformed Goshen to date with the top earner and 13 starters from the 65 sold (20%) while Goshen graduates with earnings to date total 18 from 123 sold (15%).

The 18 Goshen starters included 13 of the 18 on the PM recommended list including the top two and 5 of the the top 6 to date. In Morrisville the 16 PM picks included the top rated colt and highest money winner in NY to date along with 10 of the 13 starters picked including 5 of the top 7.

The PM top pick overall from these sales last year was Planet Rock rated 100 - 1.50.1, a son of Rock N Roll Heaven who has won his first two NYSS races and sold in Morrisville. The top pick from Goshen was Whiskey Please at 116 - 1.49.4 who has $8900 made with two second place NYSS finishes to date.

While the numbers have increased in the NY sales for this year the quality has not. I came up with 21 worth rating in Morrisville and only 22 in the larger Goshen sale. Many of the horses in Goshen are consigned by Hanover, Blue Chip and Winbak so you can expect that they were rejects from Harrisburg where the sale has been reduced in size considerably. In some cases they are foals from older mares but the good ones on pedigree will probably include foals with physical problems that would have hurt their sale price at the larger venue.

The Morrisville sale is dominated by trotters with several good opportunities by Cash Hall, Conway Hall and RC Royalty in particular. The few pacers on offer, nevertheless ,contain some very good pedigrees by Art Major, Roll With Joe and new sire So Surreal. The Goshen pacers include some better pedigrees and you would have to wonder why they are selling in Goshen rather than in Harrisburg especially those from the big farms. Close inspection would be advised.

We offer sale lists of recommended yearlings based on pedigree for both sales and since the lists are relatively short we will combine them this year for the price of a single sale - $250. To order the list of recommended yearlings you can request it using the Paypal on the PM website.

2015 Yearling Sales

The standardbred yearling sales entries at Morrisville and Goshen in New York, Harrisburg, Illinois, Ohio Jug and Ohio Buckeye, Forest City and the Canadian Open in Ontario, are now listed in the Globetrotter database. Lexington and the Indiana sales will be added shortly.

The sale profile function of PM Online will allow you to tabulate the yearlings by sale and check out their individual profiles versus the profile of success for the sire as well as provide cross statistics. Great tool to use to do your homework before you get to the sale and prepare a short list of the ones with the best chance to succeed.

You can also order a sale list of the best pedigrees sorted by performance rating from Pedigree Matching. All regional sales lists, with the exception of Harrisburg and Lexington, are $250. The Harrisburg and Lexington major sales are $1,000 for the full sale, or $250 for any component e.g. pacing colts, New York breds, etc . You can also buy an all yearling per day report for $400 for the major sales. You can order using the Paypal process on the Pedigree Matching website.

The Double Double

No, it is not your favourite coffee at Tim Hortons but it should be on your list of favourite yearling purchases.

Last year saw Mcwicked, a son of Mcardle, take home the spoils as the top three year old colt in North America. He was a Double Double as have been most of the very good horses that I have picked out for owner Ed James over the past seven years. In fact the best five, collectively winning almost $7 million, have all fit that special pedigree pattern that I call the Double Double.

Pedigree Matching focuses on the maternal lines of the sire and having those same lines returned from the dam. That is known as a double return in what the old saying tells us to "return to the sire the best blood of his dam".

A Double Double goes one step further by having the mare also return two lines the same as in the dam of the Grandsire.

In Mcwicked's case the first double return is of Meadow Skipper, through sons Most Happy Fella and Albatross. The second double is through Volomite and Adios, the maternal lines of Mcardle' s sire, Falcon Seelster thus completing the Double Double.

Which brings me to a horse that is unbeaten in his career called Roland N Rock, a son of Rocknroll Hanover from a mare by Cambest. He has yet to meet up with the top three year olds in North America but is aimed at the Meadowlands Pace where he will have to race against Artspeak and North America Cup winner Wakizashi Hanover.

His pedigree doubles back Abercrombie and Volomite from his dam for the first double, then Abercrombie and Meadow Skipper as is found in the maternal lines of Western Ideal for the second double.

I just might have a small wager on this colt in the Meadowlands Pace.

Pedigree Camp 2015

2015 Pedigree Camp


After a two year hiatus the Pedigree Camp will return to Prince Edward Island to be held June 19th-21st in Charlottetown


Details on this year's event can be found here - Pedigree Camp 2015


Past years have seen attendees from all over North America from Florida to Alberta and virtually every state and province in between where standardbreds are bred or raced, and we have even had visitors from Denmark and Finland


Here is the Graduation picture for the 2008 Pedigree Camp


Deadline for registration is May 15th and space is limited so reserve early

PM Online - Gurus

Wanted - Country and Regional Gurus

If you volunteer to be a Guru you can get free access to PM Online at the Guru level. Gurus serve an important role in keeping the databases current especially with respect to the top performers but there are other responsibilities.

Each Guru has a geographic area of responsibility. For some smaller countries, in terms of activity, we need just one, while in North America we need gurus in the key states and provinces where racing and breeding activity is greatest. We need Gurus for all breeds represented in the GlobeTrotter and GlobeRunner databases including our soon to be added Arabian database GlobeArab.

The main responsibilities of a Guru are as follows:

1. Update the performance records of the top performers in your area on an ongoing basis.
2. Add and edit stallion information for stallions and farms in your breeding jurisdiction, e.g. Pennsylvania, New South Wales, New Zealand, Finland, Atlantic Canada, etc.
3. Review and improve translation of the PM Online text.

There is also a role to play in recruiting subscribers, advertising and sponsors for which you can earn commissions.

If you are interested in becoming a Guru then email me at norman@pedigreematching.com before January 31st to see if there is a position still available.

PM Online - Proud supporter of Horses for Autism

 

 

 

PM Online to Support Autism - Special Needs program

Ready to Launch - Tuesday January 6th, 2015

Our old Pedigree Guru website was out of date and limited in scope. Today's users want to access websites using a variety of mobile devices and that has been our basic approach to structuring the website and the displays and reports that users can create. We have taken the extra steps necessary to incorporate other performance breeds as well and the data is split into two databases, GlobeTrotter for Standardbreds and related breeds and GlobeRunner for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses. The website is currently accessible on a subscription basis and we hope eventually to make if freely available depending on the development of other sources of revenue such as from advertising.

Whether the website makes money will not be what determines its success.In fact it is our intention to return any profits directly back to the industry by supporting efforts in performance horse retirement or new vocations related to therapeutic activities for autistic and special needs youth.  We have such a program starting up on Prince Edward Island at the Handybear Hills Horse Sanctuary operated by Yogi Fell. A donation to the sanctuary will be made by PM Online at the launch set for 4.30pm Tuesday at the Red Shores Special Event Facility.

The original purpose of PM Online was to demonstrate to the various breed registries around the world that a common database for breeders, universally supported by them, and complete with the necessary analytical tools, can work to the advantage of all breeders and for the benefit of the breed in the long run. 

 I also hope, however,that you can join me in the battle against Autism and other special needs afflictions, as the grandfather of a very special boy, with very special parents, who are faced with such a challenge every day. Autism is the real elephant in the room that can no longer be ignored.


Autism is one of a group of serious developmental problems called autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that appear in early childhood -- usually before age 3. Some children show signs of autism in early infancy. Other children may develop normally for the first few months or years of life but then suddenly become withdrawn, become aggressive or lose language skills they've already acquired. Children with autism generally have problems in three crucial areas of development -- social interaction, language and behavior. But because autism symptoms vary greatly, two children with the same diagnosis may act quite differently and have strikingly different skills. In most cases, though, severe autism is typically marked by an inability to communicate or interact with other people normally. Communication with horses, though, can bring remarkable results.


The number of children diagnosed with autism is rising.  About 1 in 68 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network.  While there is no cure for autism, intensive early treatment and therapy can make a big difference in the lives of many children with the disorder.


Your subscription to PM Online or advertising support will provide funds to facilities like the Handybear Hills Sanctuary and perhaps encourage others worldwide to develop their own Horses For Autism programs.

The Breeders Cup - The Pedigrees

The Breeders Cup - the self styled World Championships of thoroughbred racing - is now over. The dozen or so non US breds have gone home licking their wounds except for a lone colt from Japan who defied the norm with his pedigree and won a BC event against all odds.

There were 13 races in total with purses from $1 to $5 million in various combinations of track surface, distance, age and sex.

The Classic was the top race and was won by Bayern, a son of Offlee Wild and a descendent of Nearco, the line known for Northern Dancer, as were six of the other Cup winners. The other six events were won by descendents of Native Dancer, the line that is famous for Mr Prospector. That pretty much sums up what you need to win a Breeders Cup. A Nearco line sire bred to a Native Dancer line dam or vice versa. Both lines ultimately go back to the same origin in The Darley Arabian, one of three founding sires of the thoroughbred breed and also the origin of the majority of Standardbreds.

There were three exceptions to this general rule. One was the great three year old filly Untapable who solidified her claim for Horse Of The Year with a convincing win in her third consecutive Grade 1 win. She is linebred to the Nearco line and inbred maternally to Northern Dancer. Her dam is double linebred to Nearco and her 2nd dam is also linebred to Nearco.

In a sport where outcrossing to the point of having little or no common individuals in the first six generations this has to be somewhat of a revelation. In standardbred breeding her pedigree would be considered mildly inbred but for TB officiandos she must be quite a shock. Maternal inbreeding is a big part of Standardbred breeding as we see for the top 3 year old filly Shake It Cerry.

Is there a correlation between speed and maternal inbreeding ? Every year we see new "world" records set by standardbreds but the thoroughbreds have none. Perhaps it has something to do with the emphasis on speed versus endurance. The bottom line in both sports is not how fast you go but how much money you make. With the "classic" races in thoroughbreds going distances from 1 1/8 to 1 1/2 miles it appears that breeding for distance is key and the prevailng wisdom is that outcrossing with a minimum of inbreeding is the only way to succeed.

North America is the only jurisdiction where pacing and trotting races are raced almost exclusively at a distance of one mile. That was the standard for inclusion in the first stud book - the ability to trot or pace a mile within a certain time, originally 2:30. In Europe and down under in Australia and New Zealand they are not so bound to tradition with racing conducted at different distances and with different starting methods.

In recent times we have seen exceptional performances by European standardbreds such as Sebastian K racing in North America and the success of the Swedish bred Revenue at stud in North America siring  the likes of multi millionaire Market Share, have opened the doors for greater opportunity to improve the breed. The thoroughbred industry has been international in scope for many years.

Getting back to the Breeders Cup races there was a Japanese bred called Karakontie who also parlayed his Nearco line breeding into a Breeders Cup win. He balanced out his pedigree by being inbred maternally to Native Dancer though and his dam and 2nd dam were traditionally outcrossed Nearco to Native Dancer and vice versa.

Perhaps both breeds can learn from each other with the T-breds embracing maternal inbreeding and the Standarbreds welcoming the outcross possibilities from other lands.