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1) Introduction

Despite considerable advances in the field of genetics, geneticists have been unable to identify genes responsible for basic characteristics of the Thoroughbred such as speed or stamina. When you consider that in "time" terms the difference in speed performance between a Derby winner and a poor handicapper is only about 5 to 6%, this is hardly surprising.

In fact experienced students of the extended pedigrees of racehorses have much more chance of understanding which matings work, and what parts of those pedigrees contribute to such success, than does a geneticist. (The pedigree expert can be compared with the chef who understands how to cook the perfect souffle, while the geneticist is no more efffective than the molecular physicist, trying to explain why the souffle tastes so good!)

2) The Limitations of "nick" theories

Having said that, it must be emphasised that simple pedigree analysis just does not succeed in explaining why some racehorses are superior to their lesser performed half siblings. The identification of successful matings between a stallion with the mare's sire, so-called "nick" theory. is perhaps the most misleading of all the simple pedigree theories. Indeed, the most notorious of recent examples of this theory is the "nick" between Nureyev and Riverman mares. It provides a good illustration of the unreliability of such a theory (see statistics below).

	Up to (year)	Foals of racing age	Stakes Winners	%
a)	1992	5	3	60
b)	1995	13	6	46
c)	1999	23	7	30
c) minus b)	(1995 to 1999)	10	1	10

The propaganda surrounding this so-called "nick" was originally based on the tiny 1992 statistical sample (just 5 foals). But twice that number of matings along the same lines between 1995 and 1999 have yielded only one stakes winner from ten such matings. Ironically that one, Spinning World is one of the best performed of all products from this combination.

But the Brain system can demonstrate conclusively that in the case of Spinning World and almost any similarly successful mating, the mare's sire, at the very most, contributes 50% of the most important pedigree influences, the bottom half of the mare's pedigree being at least as, if not more, influential.

3) The Brain system of pedigree analysis

For this reason the Brain system takes into account the entire pedigree of any mating as the only logical approach to pedigree analysis.

The system extends the pedigree of a mare back a number of generations, revealing multiple repetitions of influential ancestors. Summarising these provides a clear picture of the main strengths of the pedigree. We call this numerical summary the "pedigree profile" of the mare. This exercise has been performed for over 3,000 current stallions worldwide, so to determine the most compatible stallions for the breeder's mare, her "pedigree profile" is matched with all the stallions in the data bank within the geographical and commercial criteria specified by the breeder.

The computer-generated list of the top 30 stalions is then subjected to secondary tests to determine how well each potential stallion reinforces the key elements of the broodmare's pedigree, as well as reviewing the pedigree structure of each potential mating. This latter factor is an important consideration, as research has shown clearly that certain parts of the pedigree can be more influential than others.

Based on the above analysis, a short list of the top five stallion recommendations is determined for your mare.

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