“VGS Ped of the Month: BC Juvenile Colts Winner Stevie Wonderboy”
by Michael Ventura, copyright January 18th 2006.
The pedigree of Breeder’s Cup Juvenile Winner Stevie Wonderboy, which features intense 3x3 inbreeding to the excellent broodmare Weekend
Surprise, is quite interesting from the standpoint of those who consider inbreeding to females a panacea.
However, when we look at the specifics of Stevie Wonderboy’s pedigree we find very significant factors involving Ventura GeoScores which most
assuredly should not be ignored when attempting to determine the source of his class (which is unusually abundant given that his sire’s poor overall
record and that the GSV program for measuring the quality of a horse’s ancestry gives him a score of only 62.62; the lowest of all 8 2005 Breeder’s
Cup Winners).
Yes, very significant to Stevie’s pedigree is his 2x2 cross of the two half-brothers AP Indy and Summer Squall (both out of Weekend Surprise). But I
certainly don’t say this because I somehow think inbreeding to females in inherently good.
In fact, I don’t even say this entirely because this cross of AP Indy and Summer Squall in Stevie Wonderboy involves inbreeding to a VERY strong
Broodmare of the Year through her two best offspring, both of which were both American Classic Winning Millionaires and the Sire’s of American
Classic Winning Millionaires in their turn.
You see, another major reason I consider the 2x2 cross of AP Indy and Summer Squall in Stevie Wonderboy to be a key to his success is that
besides the QUALITY of the INBREEDING TARGET (Weekend Surprise) and the QUALITY of the SOURCES of that target (AP Indy and Summer
Squall) being unusually good, this cross also brings in some very significant BLOODLINE AFFINITIES.
AP Indy is by Seattle Slew, who has a VGS of 1.94 (or 94% more G1Ws than predicted) with Summer Squall’s sire Storm Bird. Moreover, as one
might have expected given that that he sired AP Indy to the cover of her, Seattle Slew gets a VGS of 2.54 (or 154% better than expected) with Summer
Squall’s dam Weekend Surprise (and note this figure is especially impressive given the “Association Depression” it suffers as discussed in my
“Introducing the VGS” article!).
Also, even before it’s representative Stevie Wonderboy won the BC Juvie Colts, the cross of Seattle Slew and Summer Squall himself produced the
Kentucky Oaks (G1) Winner Summerly and with the success of Stevie Wonderboy included it gets a VERY good VGS of 10.59 (or 1,059% better than it
was predicted to do).
So here we see that the close inbreeding in Stevie Wonderboy was the sort that managed to produce good bloodline affinities measurable by the
VGS System (and it’s VERY notable how the cross of Seattle Slew and Weekend Surprise managed to get a VGS over 2.50 over in spite of the
association depression undoubtedly caused by most of Weekend Surprise’s G1W Descendants getting her through AP Indy, who breeders generally
avoid crossing with Seattle Slew simply on account of the inbreeding being too close for most tastes).
But another important factor in the pedigree of Stevie Wonderboy is that Weekend Surprise was sired by Secretariat. And this is VERY important to
him in the context of his 3rd dam Moaning Low.
A very interesting thing about Moaning Low is that her sire was none other than Loser Weeper, a Alfred G Vanderbilt bred winner of the prestigious (at
the time) Metropolitan, Vosburgh, and Suburban Handicaps. And the interesting thing about Loser Weeper is that he was a rare full brother to none
other than another Vanderbilt bred and Test Winner named Miss Disco, who went on the become the dam of the INCREBILE stallion Bold Ruler
(whose AEI of 7.78 was the highest of all-time).
Now given that many talk up the virtues of reuniting long lost full siblings (or at least ones of high quality) in Thoroughbred Horse Pedigrees, what do
we find when we search Loser Weeper’s daughter Moaning Low with Bold Ruler using G1Goldmine?
What we find is that of 4 Moaning Low Descended G1Ws and 7 Graded/Group Stakes Winners, Every Single One of the 4 G1Ws and 6 out of the 7
GSWs have Bold Ruler on the other side.
Also, using the VGS we find this cross of Moaning Low and Bold Ruler gets an excellent Score of 4.78 (or 378% better than predicted).
But now here’s a profoundly important point:
“When we find a High VGS further back in a pedigree we should check to see if the sources of the two ancestors involved in the High VGS are
helping or hindering that high score.”
In the case of Stevie Wonderboy we find that the most important source of Bold Ruler by far in him is his famous son Secretariat, who of course
shows up 4x4 through his daughter Weekend Surprise, and looking at the narrower cross of Secretariat and Moaning Low we find is actually gets a
HIGHER VGS of 8.35 based on Three Individual G1Ws, which strongly indicates it as a significant DRIVING FORCE of the more general score’s
success (it’s the driving forces of a good cross which should be sought most ardently by breeders).
Also, narrowing down the cross in Stevie Wonderboy still further we find that the source of his 3rd dam Moaning Low in him is (logically enough) his
2nd dam Mystery Mood and this cross of Secretariat and Mystery Mood gets a just about equally good VGS of 8.32 based on Multiple G1Ws.
Here it is very important to note that the source of Mystery Mood in Stevie Wonderboy is Mystical Mood [by Roberto], who is a FULL sister to none other
than Mazzei Mood, the source of Mystery Mood in the other G1W with this cross: Australian Cup Winner Istidaad (sorry about the confusingly similar
names, but it’s not like I named them!)
Finally, we can note the interesting fact that Stevie Wonderboy’s intense 2/3x3 cross of Mystery Mood and Weekend Surprise gets a very good VGS of
12.08 and this combined with the very strong likelihood that this mini-affinity was inherited from their ancestors (see above), indicates that Weekend
Surprise should be a very good source of Secretariat when doing the Secretariat/Moaning Low Bloodline Affinity.
And in fact theory here backs up the VGS Score quite strongly as Mystery Mood and Weekend Surprise just “happen” to be two sources of their sire
and dam who share a very interesting and very strong Cluster of Ancestors with each other including Nasrullah, Princequillo, Turn-To, and either
Loser Weeper or his full sister Miss Disco.
by Michael Ventura, copyright January 18th 2006.
The pedigree of Breeder’s Cup Juvenile Winner Stevie Wonderboy, which features intense 3x3 inbreeding to the excellent broodmare Weekend
Surprise, is quite interesting from the standpoint of those who consider inbreeding to females a panacea.
However, when we look at the specifics of Stevie Wonderboy’s pedigree we find very significant factors involving Ventura GeoScores which most
assuredly should not be ignored when attempting to determine the source of his class (which is unusually abundant given that his sire’s poor overall
record and that the GSV program for measuring the quality of a horse’s ancestry gives him a score of only 62.62; the lowest of all 8 2005 Breeder’s
Cup Winners).
Yes, very significant to Stevie’s pedigree is his 2x2 cross of the two half-brothers AP Indy and Summer Squall (both out of Weekend Surprise). But I
certainly don’t say this because I somehow think inbreeding to females in inherently good.
In fact, I don’t even say this entirely because this cross of AP Indy and Summer Squall in Stevie Wonderboy involves inbreeding to a VERY strong
Broodmare of the Year through her two best offspring, both of which were both American Classic Winning Millionaires and the Sire’s of American
Classic Winning Millionaires in their turn.
You see, another major reason I consider the 2x2 cross of AP Indy and Summer Squall in Stevie Wonderboy to be a key to his success is that
besides the QUALITY of the INBREEDING TARGET (Weekend Surprise) and the QUALITY of the SOURCES of that target (AP Indy and Summer
Squall) being unusually good, this cross also brings in some very significant BLOODLINE AFFINITIES.
AP Indy is by Seattle Slew, who has a VGS of 1.94 (or 94% more G1Ws than predicted) with Summer Squall’s sire Storm Bird. Moreover, as one
might have expected given that that he sired AP Indy to the cover of her, Seattle Slew gets a VGS of 2.54 (or 154% better than expected) with Summer
Squall’s dam Weekend Surprise (and note this figure is especially impressive given the “Association Depression” it suffers as discussed in my
“Introducing the VGS” article!).
Also, even before it’s representative Stevie Wonderboy won the BC Juvie Colts, the cross of Seattle Slew and Summer Squall himself produced the
Kentucky Oaks (G1) Winner Summerly and with the success of Stevie Wonderboy included it gets a VERY good VGS of 10.59 (or 1,059% better than it
was predicted to do).
So here we see that the close inbreeding in Stevie Wonderboy was the sort that managed to produce good bloodline affinities measurable by the
VGS System (and it’s VERY notable how the cross of Seattle Slew and Weekend Surprise managed to get a VGS over 2.50 over in spite of the
association depression undoubtedly caused by most of Weekend Surprise’s G1W Descendants getting her through AP Indy, who breeders generally
avoid crossing with Seattle Slew simply on account of the inbreeding being too close for most tastes).
But another important factor in the pedigree of Stevie Wonderboy is that Weekend Surprise was sired by Secretariat. And this is VERY important to
him in the context of his 3rd dam Moaning Low.
A very interesting thing about Moaning Low is that her sire was none other than Loser Weeper, a Alfred G Vanderbilt bred winner of the prestigious (at
the time) Metropolitan, Vosburgh, and Suburban Handicaps. And the interesting thing about Loser Weeper is that he was a rare full brother to none
other than another Vanderbilt bred and Test Winner named Miss Disco, who went on the become the dam of the INCREBILE stallion Bold Ruler
(whose AEI of 7.78 was the highest of all-time).
Now given that many talk up the virtues of reuniting long lost full siblings (or at least ones of high quality) in Thoroughbred Horse Pedigrees, what do
we find when we search Loser Weeper’s daughter Moaning Low with Bold Ruler using G1Goldmine?
What we find is that of 4 Moaning Low Descended G1Ws and 7 Graded/Group Stakes Winners, Every Single One of the 4 G1Ws and 6 out of the 7
GSWs have Bold Ruler on the other side.
Also, using the VGS we find this cross of Moaning Low and Bold Ruler gets an excellent Score of 4.78 (or 378% better than predicted).
But now here’s a profoundly important point:
“When we find a High VGS further back in a pedigree we should check to see if the sources of the two ancestors involved in the High VGS are
helping or hindering that high score.”
In the case of Stevie Wonderboy we find that the most important source of Bold Ruler by far in him is his famous son Secretariat, who of course
shows up 4x4 through his daughter Weekend Surprise, and looking at the narrower cross of Secretariat and Moaning Low we find is actually gets a
HIGHER VGS of 8.35 based on Three Individual G1Ws, which strongly indicates it as a significant DRIVING FORCE of the more general score’s
success (it’s the driving forces of a good cross which should be sought most ardently by breeders).
Also, narrowing down the cross in Stevie Wonderboy still further we find that the source of his 3rd dam Moaning Low in him is (logically enough) his
2nd dam Mystery Mood and this cross of Secretariat and Mystery Mood gets a just about equally good VGS of 8.32 based on Multiple G1Ws.
Here it is very important to note that the source of Mystery Mood in Stevie Wonderboy is Mystical Mood [by Roberto], who is a FULL sister to none other
than Mazzei Mood, the source of Mystery Mood in the other G1W with this cross: Australian Cup Winner Istidaad (sorry about the confusingly similar
names, but it’s not like I named them!)
Finally, we can note the interesting fact that Stevie Wonderboy’s intense 2/3x3 cross of Mystery Mood and Weekend Surprise gets a very good VGS of
12.08 and this combined with the very strong likelihood that this mini-affinity was inherited from their ancestors (see above), indicates that Weekend
Surprise should be a very good source of Secretariat when doing the Secretariat/Moaning Low Bloodline Affinity.
And in fact theory here backs up the VGS Score quite strongly as Mystery Mood and Weekend Surprise just “happen” to be two sources of their sire
and dam who share a very interesting and very strong Cluster of Ancestors with each other including Nasrullah, Princequillo, Turn-To, and either
Loser Weeper or his full sister Miss Disco.
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