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"Rachel Alexandra: The Secret of Her Success"
by Michael Ventura, copyright December 8th 2009.
by Michael Ventura, copyright December 8th 2009.
The engine behind the success of Rachel Alexandra.
Rachel Alexandra is quite a runner to say the least; it certainly takes a special kind of talent for a
Filly to defeat the best colts in open Grade 1 Stakes!
But can we find an explanation for her out of the ordinary success in her pedigree pattern?
Well, it does turn out that there is something very out of the ordinary about Rachel Alexandra’s
pedigree: Namely that it includes a 1x3 cross of her sire Medaglia D’Oro and the solid New York
sire Cure the Blues, a cross that gets an excellent VGS of 59.7, or nearly 60 times as successful
as chance would’ve dictated, based on 3 Stakes Winners.
Now it is well known among Pyschometricians that a High IQ earned by a member of a High IQ
family is more likely to be a true measure of his inherent intelligence, and less likely to be the
result of the IQ Test Taker having gotten lucky in his taking of the test.
By the same principle, a High VGS earned by a cross which is part of a general pattern
associated with success is more likely to be a true measure of the cross’s inherent positive
qualities, and less likely to be the result of the cross having gotten lucky.
What do we find is the case with the Medaglia D’Oro/Cure the Blues cross?
What we find is that it is part of a more general pattern of success involving crosses between
Medaglia D’Oro’s paternal Granddam Lady Capulet and Cure the Blues. You see, even if we
throw out the examples of Lady Capulet/Cure the Blues with Medaglia D’Oro as the source of
Lady Capulet, the cross still gets a very good VGS of 5.9.
Moreover, we find that this cross of Lady Capulet and Cure the Blues, which results from the
more specific Medaglia D’Oro/Cure the Blues cross, brings into the pedigree a fascinating
pedigree pattern known as “Cluster Breeding”, or sometimes “Kinbreeding“, which has been
praised as something to be desired by many leading Pedigree Experts including pioneer of the
field Les Brinsfield and the South African Karel Miedema.
This pattern results because Cure the Blues and Lady Capulet share a close-up cluster of the
world-beater stallions Tom Fool, Turn-To, and the very important broodmare Imperatrice.
(I highly recommend that the reader look up a hypo mating in Goldmine between Cure the Blues
and Lady Capulet so they can see what I’m talking about here.)
A desirable thing about Cluster Breeding is that if the two ancestors sharing a cluster of
ancestors were both successful, as is the case here, it creates a situation where the (for
example) Tom Fool genes in Cure the Blues were selected for the quality of crossing well with
Turn-To and Imperatrice, while at the same time the Turn-To and Imperatrice genes in Lady
Capulet were selected for the quality of crossing well with Tom Fool.
Thus is created a profoundly important kind of synergy effect when the successful ancestors
sharing the cluster are brought together in a pedigree, as was the case when Lady Capulet and
Cure the Blues were brought together in the pedigree of the excellent champion Filly Rachel
Alexandra.
So if anyone reading this has a Cure the Blues daughter or granddaughter, I highly recommend
looking into breeding her to Medaglia D’Oro, or if that isn’t possible at least a stallion with Lady
Capulet close up in him.
Rachel Alexandra is quite a runner to say the least; it certainly takes a special kind of talent for a
Filly to defeat the best colts in open Grade 1 Stakes!
But can we find an explanation for her out of the ordinary success in her pedigree pattern?
Well, it does turn out that there is something very out of the ordinary about Rachel Alexandra’s
pedigree: Namely that it includes a 1x3 cross of her sire Medaglia D’Oro and the solid New York
sire Cure the Blues, a cross that gets an excellent VGS of 59.7, or nearly 60 times as successful
as chance would’ve dictated, based on 3 Stakes Winners.
Now it is well known among Pyschometricians that a High IQ earned by a member of a High IQ
family is more likely to be a true measure of his inherent intelligence, and less likely to be the
result of the IQ Test Taker having gotten lucky in his taking of the test.
By the same principle, a High VGS earned by a cross which is part of a general pattern
associated with success is more likely to be a true measure of the cross’s inherent positive
qualities, and less likely to be the result of the cross having gotten lucky.
What do we find is the case with the Medaglia D’Oro/Cure the Blues cross?
What we find is that it is part of a more general pattern of success involving crosses between
Medaglia D’Oro’s paternal Granddam Lady Capulet and Cure the Blues. You see, even if we
throw out the examples of Lady Capulet/Cure the Blues with Medaglia D’Oro as the source of
Lady Capulet, the cross still gets a very good VGS of 5.9.
Moreover, we find that this cross of Lady Capulet and Cure the Blues, which results from the
more specific Medaglia D’Oro/Cure the Blues cross, brings into the pedigree a fascinating
pedigree pattern known as “Cluster Breeding”, or sometimes “Kinbreeding“, which has been
praised as something to be desired by many leading Pedigree Experts including pioneer of the
field Les Brinsfield and the South African Karel Miedema.
This pattern results because Cure the Blues and Lady Capulet share a close-up cluster of the
world-beater stallions Tom Fool, Turn-To, and the very important broodmare Imperatrice.
(I highly recommend that the reader look up a hypo mating in Goldmine between Cure the Blues
and Lady Capulet so they can see what I’m talking about here.)
A desirable thing about Cluster Breeding is that if the two ancestors sharing a cluster of
ancestors were both successful, as is the case here, it creates a situation where the (for
example) Tom Fool genes in Cure the Blues were selected for the quality of crossing well with
Turn-To and Imperatrice, while at the same time the Turn-To and Imperatrice genes in Lady
Capulet were selected for the quality of crossing well with Tom Fool.
Thus is created a profoundly important kind of synergy effect when the successful ancestors
sharing the cluster are brought together in a pedigree, as was the case when Lady Capulet and
Cure the Blues were brought together in the pedigree of the excellent champion Filly Rachel
Alexandra.
So if anyone reading this has a Cure the Blues daughter or granddaughter, I highly recommend
looking into breeding her to Medaglia D’Oro, or if that isn’t possible at least a stallion with Lady
Capulet close up in him.