Optimum nicks; an obsession

If your target audience – the buyers – believe in them, then you would be well advised to do so, no matter what the facts say. Ultimately though, a sire/broodmare sire or sire line/broodmare sire line combination must guarantee to a greater propensity for better performance than you can get from other constituent components of the pedigree.

One of the most vaunted nicks in recent years has been the partnership between Galileo (Ire) and his former stud companion Danehill (USA) and it serves as a good case review given that it has been tried so often. It was in the news again recently when Japan (GB) won the Grand Prix de Paris to become the 13th Group 1 winner bred on the cross.

The numbers these two great stallions have put up are outstanding: 50 stakes winners at a rate of 22.3% to runners, and 34 Group winners at a rate of 15.2% to runners. Given that Galileo’s northern hemisphere output – where racing conditions are optimum for his stock – is 16.8% Stakes winners to runners and 11.4% Group winners to runners, you can see immediately that using Galileo with Danehill mares confers a distinct advantage and gets you above the norm for all Galileos.

But could there be another subset of Galileo’s stock that do just as well? The answer is yes. In his lifetime, Galileo has produced 224 runners from Danehill mares, but he’s also produced 340 runners from super elite mares by all sires which have posted a strike rate of 26.2% stakes winners and 19.4% Group winners. So now the cross doesn’t look quite so enticing.

Are most of these so-called nicks brought about by other reasons, namely just very good mares? In many cases that does happen. But not with Galileo and Danehill. When you learn that there are 49 runners by Galileo out of super elite Danehill mares and they include 22 (45%) stakes winners and 16 (33%) Group winners, it’s hard to deny the positive effect of the two sires.

So nicks do most certainly work and can be used to turbo charge poorer sires and dams with weaker pedigrees. In general they give you more than can be accounted for through the sire and dam alone.

Complementing bloodlines

Many sire/broodmare sire combinations spring up fortuitously. First and foremost just as Galileo found his Danehill, Sadler’s Wells (USA) his Darshaan (GB), Redoute’s Choice his Last Tycoon (Ire), so too must any broodmare sire if he’s to really thrive.

Not only do the bloodlines complement each other, they’re usually in the same geographical location and age so that the stallion gets the benefit of covering plenty of the broodmare sire’s mares in their prime. It’s a well established fact that mares tend to produce their best when young, so it’s not unusual to see the effectiveness of a nick dissipate over time.

It’s also noticeable that stallions who start out on their careers with the support of the very best mares, quite often become the leading broodmare sires of the future, even if they themselves were not that successful at stud. Typically, this type of broodmare sire tends not to provide the X factor – he’s merely a passenger in a very good pedigree.

The key to a good nick, therefore, is to prove that the combination of sire and broodmare sire provides something over and above what the sire can achieve with any other sub-group of his mares.

In the accompanying table are listed the most successful sire and dam sire combinations among the 2010 to 2016 crops that raced in Australia. They must have 10 or more runners and at least two stakes winners to qualify for inclusion.

It’s worth pointing out here that good sample sizes are always hard to come by when assessing nicks. It’s my experience through research that the appearance of one or two high-class horses regardless of sample sizes can be very significant. I have also added the sire strike rate so that you can start to understand the potential significance of the cross.

Sire/Broodmare Sire combinations in Australia

(Crops 2010-2016, 10 or more runners and 2 or more BTW)