VGS Mating Planning

Update:

The subject of this article, the Danzatore mare Honore de Balzac, produced a 2004 colt by Xaar
named Zaaro who fits the below article's recommended pattern of breeding the mare to a Mr
Prospector line stallion. The Breeder-Owner of Zaaro reports that he's been showing promise and
he has won his first race, which can be seen here: Zaaro's First Win

“Using The VGS To Plan A Mating”

by Michael Ventura

Basically, the VGS is for finding the optimal Bloodlines for a Mare or Stallion.

However, there is a technique to doing this properly, effectively, and (relatively) easily that one
should go over. (Note that in the following example I picked a mare whose sire has a pretty
obvious affinity to make the technique as clear as possible.)

Step One (Finding Possible Nicks)

Let’s say you owned a mare by Danzatore named Honore De Balzac and wanted to find a stallion
to breed her to; how would you use the VGS to aid you in your quest?

The answer on how to start at least is to put the name of Honore De Balzac’s sire Danzatore into
the Damside Box of the G1Goldmine “Pedigree Search” page… This will then produce for your
viewing pleasure a list of all the G1 Winners and Graded/Group Stakes Winners descended of
your mare’s sire over the last 15 years or so (note that if you don’t get enough G1Ws and GSWs
to peruse this way I highly recommend clicking the ‘Search Entire Pedigree” button).

The next step is to call up the pedigrees of the these horses (especially the G1Ws) by clicking
each name and as go through them, the key is to notice names on the Sireside that show up more
on the Sireside than you’d have expected.

For instance, if you search the G1Ws with Danzatore on the Damside you’ll very likely notice that
Mr Prospector shows up on the sireside of ALL Four (or 100%) of the G1Ws with Danzatore on the
damside.

And the thing is that even though Mr Prospector is a very popular force on the sireside of G1Ws,
Danzatore’s G1Ws on the damside were all bred in AUS/NZ (where Mr Prospector is much less
prevalent) and even in America (the major racing nation with the strongest concentration of Mr
Prospector on the sireside), a 100% saturation of Mr P would be VERY significant.

When the mare owner gets an inkling that he’s found a Sireside Ancestor showing up more often
with the sire of his mare in G1Ws or GSWs than chance would’ve dictated, I highly recommend he
write down the name on a piece of paper set apart to that purpose

This way you’ll have access to the name(s) when you get to Step Two and won’t be distracted
from the search for more possible nicks by having to remember your earlier findings...

Step Two (Checking The VGS)

Step Two is to type Mr Prospector (or whoever you think might have an affinity with your mare)
into the Sireside Box and then hit the VGS Button to generate the Ventura GeoScore on the cross.
In this case my suspicion of a statistically significant correlation between having this cross and
winning a G1 was borne out quite nicely as the Mr Prospector/Danzatore cross gets a VERY
impressive VGS of 10.22 (or over Ten Times the number of G1Ws Predicted) based on 4 G1Ws.

Interestingly, even for a smaller sample size of 3 or 2 G1Ws this would be a very positive and most
likely statistically significant result. Thus, with this cross’s VGS of 10.22 being based on 4 G1Ws it
is really very impressive and more than worth going on to Step Three.

Step Three (Verification)

If Step Two was successful we must now move on to the verification round of the game…

First, we should use the all new Graded/Group Stakes Winner Based VGS (available only to
registered users of the full version) to see the cross is also better than the VGS Predicted at
getting GSWs.

The idea in this is that even though G1 Winners are what we really want, GSWs aren’t too bad
either. And moreover, if the success of a cross in getting G1Ws is actually driven by a Significant
Bloodline Affinity we’d expect that Bloodline Affinity to also help the cross along in getting GSWs
as well (also the GSW Based VGS is usually based on a bigger sample size and is therefore is
more likely to be statistically significant).

Anyway, looking at the Mr Prospector/Danzatore cross we find that the GSW Based VGS (while
less great than the G1W Based VGS) is still very good and well above average at 4.51 based on 5
GSWs.

Step Four (Check if its a House of Cards)

Next, we should go through a list of other factors that could’ve caused the Mr
Prospector/Danzatore cross’s high score other than a Bloodline Affinity:

Did Mr Prospector and Danzatore Stand At The Same Farm?

NO. Mr Prospector stood at Claiborne Farm in America and Danzatore stood at Cambridge Stud in
New Zealand.

Did Mr Prospector and Danzatore Stand in the Same Semi-Isolated American State? (The VGS
adjusts for Variant Geographical Concentration of Descendants by COUNTRY, but if the two
strains in a cross are BOTH concentrated in a semi-isolated sub-national region like California and
Florida in America this could make the VGS higher without there necessarily being a Bloodline
Affinity.)

NO. Mr Prospector stood in the non-isolated American State of Kentucky (his seed is found all
over in America anyway!) and Danzatore stood in New Zealand.

Are The Descendants of Mr Prospector and Danzatore For The Most Part In The Highest Echelon
Of Breeding? (The potential problem here is that if BOTH the strains in a mating are found to a
very unusually high degree in breeding stock considered to be “The Best,” it is quite possible that
they’ll be crossed with each other more than chance would’ve dictated and the VGS Predictive
Apparatus would have thus thought.)

NO. Mr Prospector is far enough back in pedigrees and has enough descendants that he’s found
in stallions that get bred to mares of all different kinds qualities and class levels. And anyway,
while a nice sire Danzatore was never a Zabeel, Danehill, or Storm Cat (perhaps the
Zabeel/Danehill and the AP Indy/Storm Cat crosses are examples of VGSs being inflated to some
extent by the Breed the Best to the Best idea but this one certainly isn’t).

Now, it is important to bear in mind that it’s quite possible for some of these Three Questions to be
answered “Yes” and yet for the Score to be good enough that there still has to (logically) be a
Genetic Compatibility based positive effect. And to be honest, sometimes it can be a VERY tricky
value judgment (this is just one reason why I strongly recommend people optimize the benefit of
using the VGS by also using the guidance of a expert pedigree analyst deeply familiar with it).

But given that the three possible non-nick reasons for a VGS to be inflated are all essentially
irrelevant to the Mr Prospector/Danzatore cross, we can now quickly move on to…

Step Five (Finding The Proven Sources of the Nick)

Step Five entails finding the Proven Sources of the Nick for your mare’s sire.

To do this all we have to do is go through the GSWs and G1Ws with the Mr Prospector/Danzatore
cross (proven sources of Mr P in bold):

Tattletale won the G1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas and was by the Mr Prospector son Faltaat, who
has a VGS of 44.67 with Danzatore based on 1 G1W. Faltaat currently stands in New Zealand.

Millward won the VRC Sire’s Produce Stakes (G1) and is by the Mr Prospector grandson and
Fappiano son Defensive Play, who has VGS of 134.00 with Danzatore based on 1 G1W.
Defensive Play currently stands in Washington State, USA.

Hard To Get won the South Australian Derby (G1) and is by Geiger Counter, who has a VGS of
121.00 with Danzatore based on 1 G1W. Unfortunately Geiger Counter is dead and his one son I
know of hasn’t been that impressive.

Zabeat won the Wellington Cup handicap (G1) and is by the Mr Prospector son Rhythm, who has
a VGS of 26.80 with Danzatore. Rhythm stands at stud in California, USA.

Here the breeder should use his own judgment in considering issues of Stallion Quality,
Conformational Compatibility with his mare, getting the right balance of speed and stamina for the
desired racing environment, and in the case of commercial breeders fashionability.

And if one had a Danzatore mare and found none of the proven sources of Mr Prospector right for
your mare by this thought process; one could still try to find a Mr Prospector line stallion who
DOES meet the above criteria with the mare.

However, if you decide to go off the proven pathways, it is very important to make sure the high
quality, conformationally compatible, distance aptitude balancing, and fashionable Mr Prospector
line stallion you pick out has a source of Mr Prospector for which its failure to get a G1W or GSW
with Danzatore is no big deal.

For instance, while Machiavellian was a son of Mr Prospector who hasn’t crossed with Danzatore
in any GSWs yet, that could very well be because he was only predicted to get 0.02 GSWs with
him thanks to Geographic Concentration Issues (checking the # of GSWs Predicted on crosses
you’re thinking about which haven’t worked yet is something I HIGHLY recommend).

Therefore when we consider that the Machiavellian son Street Cry has a damsire in Riverman who
gets a G1W Based VGS of 10.19 with Danzatore thanks to the BC Sprint Winner Reraise, we can
see that even though his source of Mr Prospector is unproven, his combination of a little tried
source and an additional high VGS makes him a stallion worthy of consideration for a Danzatore
mare.

Michael Ventura can be contacted at VenturaPedigreeAnalysis@comcast.net and through
the "Contact Michael Ventura" page of this site.

Using The VGS To Plan A Mating