Quantity and Quality

My last post emphasized the importance of the class of runners representing a given breeding method, as opposed to a high strike rate from opportunity. A conflict between the two arises, for example, in the case of foals that are by Malibu Moon and inbred to Mr. Prospector, which has yielded some few runners of very high class representing a very low strike rate from opportunity. My purpose in bringing up that case was to suggest that class trumps strike rate, but what I didn’t say in that post and must add here, is that such cases, while not particularly rare, certainly are not the norm. Generally, high class and a high strike rate go hand in hand.

Insofar as Zenyatta’s celebrity has transcended her beeding, it’s something of a sacrilege to cite her as a case in point of pedigree, but I’m going to do it anyway because her pedigree context is instructive and, in fact, not entirely unique.