Deweycheatumnhowe - Just like his daddy

Muscles Yankee struggled to establish himself suffering from early criticism that he would not make a sire since he did not look like a trotter. His first crop did not sell that well and half way through the first season they seemed to be living up to the low expectations of the buyers. Prices at Lexington for his second crop suffered accordingly. Then in the month between Lexington and Harrisburg things began to change and with several two year olds making noise in the fall stakes the results at the Harrisburg sale were much improved.

It looks like "deja-vu" all over again as Deweycheatumnhowe looks to be following the same script. Ma Chere Hall set a two year old filly track record at Vernon Downs of 1.54.2 and joins two previous winners by Dewey with over $100K made to date. All three are from Conway Hall mares.That should not be a surprise to anyone that read my blog entry on January 28th, 2011. Here is what I said then in predicting what yearlings to look for .

"There were two things that you could expect for sure in Deweycheatumnhowes first crop.

Firstly that there would be several named similarily to their sire and so it is no surprise that track announcers will have to contend with Deweyconumnwow, Deweyflashthemnow, Deweykidumnhowe, Deweytrotandhowe etc.

The second guarantee is that stallion master Alan Leavitt would get the pedigrees right. One of the most important things that breeding farms have to be aware of is stallion succession and making sure that your next sire takes advantage of the daughters of your previous sire The daughters of Garland Lobell and his sons Andover, Angus and Conway Hall will do just that very nicely - thank you very much.

It was also no surprise that Walnut Hall mares are responsible for almost one third of his first crop of 82 yearlings. Not that there is a problem with that since there are few breeders who can energize a stallion's career like Mr Leavitt.

It is too bad Dewey did not come along ten years earlier when Garland Lobell mares were at their peak production but there are still some on the Walnut Hall premises with the colt Creole Hall being from Canland Hall. Alan had a good back up plan though since he also has a number of mares by Striking Sahbra from Garland Lobell mares. Since Dewey's maternal lines are Speedy Somolli and Noble Victory, and Striking Sahbra's dam is by Speedy Somolli with Garland Lobell being a grandson of Noble Victory you can see the strong maternal connection here

Mares by sons of Garland Lobell, notably the Hall brothers, are also featured in the first crop. Since they collectively did their best work with Speedy Crown line mares and down the line to Valley Victory they are a natural fit to the Noble Victory - Speedy Somolli combination in Deweycheatumnhowe, the same maternal combination as in the dam of Muscles Yankee who was Speedy Crown - Noble Victory maternally. There are several yearlings with Valley Victory - Speedy Crown on the maternal line and if you read the note from Nicolas Matzka on the One Trick Ponies posting you can see that pattern is becoming an attractive feature, at least in Europe.

There are several other ways to match to Dewey and one is to use Super Bowl line dams with Speedy Crown or Noble Victory doubled maternally. This makes sense since Muscles Yankee did very well with the likes of Supergill and American Winner mares and since Deweys maternal lines are much the same you can reasonably expect his dad to be a pretty good role model. There are several yearlings in this category."

Below is a link to the sire profiile for Deweycheatumnhowe based on his top 16 performers. Seven of the top 10 were bred by Alan Leavitt. The top six and twelve of the top 16 are all from mares by Garland Lobell or one of his sons, Conway, Andover or Angus Hall or by Balanced Image. Ten of these have a Speedy Crown line maternally in the 2nd or 3rd dam. The other two have no Speedy Crown but have an additional Noble Victory line maternally. There is one from a Super Bowl line dam that is inbred to Speedy Crown, an option that I also suggested. This possibility also extends to Arnie Almahurst line dams since there are two dams by sons of Pine Chip that are inbred to Speedy Crown line.

This is an excellent example of how you can predict what mares will do best with a new stallion. There is no reason for breeders to do otherwise. It is not rocket science. If you are still not sure give Alan Leavitt a call - he obviously gets it, just like Bob Marks got it with Muscles Yankee and turned him into a great sire despite the knockers.

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