In The News
Yesterday (Thursday 12 October 2006), a 3 y/o filly broke her maiden going a mile in her second start having run a length second in her debut over six furlongs a month ago, after losing two lengths at the start. There’s nothing too unusual about that. What caught my eye though was how the filly showed her greenness by running all over the track down the home straight and still made up a dozen or so lengths to get up on the line. On top of that, she’s something of a giant. Picture a filly that was born on 10 November 2003, so she’s really still two years old while officially a three year old, that stands 16.2 hands high! She clearly takes after her father, the incomparable Jet Master, who himself stood a majestic 17 hands!
On The Track
Jet Master is the only stallion in South Africa with eight group 1 wins, those recorded over distances from 5 furlongs to a mile. His career record reads an impressive 17 wins and 5 places from 24 starts. He was Champion Older Middle Distance Male in the 1998/99 season and followed that up by taking the title of Champion Older Sprinter Male and Horse of the Year during the next season. What’s more, he achieved this despite a wind/breathing problem that perhaps prevented him from producing his best.
Pedigree
His sire, Rakeen, was the first son of Northern Dancer to race in South Africa. He only raced a few times, stud duties being the obvious reason for his importation from the UK, but managed to distinguish himself with a 3rd in our biggest race, the GR1 July over 11 furlongs, and GR2 and GR3 victories over 10 and 10.5 furlongs respectively. His stud record, while not spectacular, can be considered successful. He has produced 13 stakes winners to date from 297 runners (4.4%). The impressive part is that 4 of those were GR1 winners, and a further 8 won GR2 or GR3 races. Only one of his stakes winners did not record a GR victory.
Rakeen is renowned for producing stayers. While the average for the breed in South Africa is to produce 53% sprinters, 29% milers and 18% stayers, his figures read 20%, 41% and 38%. Based on this, could Jet Master have been even better over longer distances had he not been plagued by his breathing problem? As it stands, he’s probably considered the only racehorse we’ve had in the last few decades in the class of Horse Chestnut.
In The Breeding Shed
Jet Master looks set to eclipse Rakeen in the breeding shed, based on the results achieved by his first crop, now newly turned 4 year olds. Consider these figures:
77 foals
69 runners (90% of his foals hit the track)
52 winners (75% of those runners recorded wins as either 2 or 3 y/o’s)
17 stakes placed of 31 races (25% of his runners finish in the top 3 in a stakes race)
9 stakes winners of 13 races (13% of his runners win a stakes race)
7 Gr winners of 13 races (10% of his runners win a group race)
Like Rakeen, when his foals are good, they are very good. 78% of his stakes winners win group races. What’s more, they record these wins from 5.5 furlongs to 12 furlongs! The group wins have included 2 Gr1’s (8f and 10f), 1 Gr2 (6f), and 7 Gr3’s (5.5f, 6f*2, 7f*3, 8f, 9f*2, 12f).
In The Sim
His real life stats in sim terms are 75.5% winners, 13% stakes winners, and 10.1% group winners. However his sim stats read a miserable 7.7% winners (that’s 1 winner from 13 runners in 4 crops) with no stakes winners.
Let’s look at those 13 sim foals. 8 of them appear to be bargain bred. 4 would cost only a little more than 100 points at projected Saturday morning prices and are probably bargain bred too, if produced on Sunday. The remaining runner is from a fairly expensive (Caerleon x Riverman) horse that won 5 from 24 starts while earning an F grade. Clearly, Jet Master needs to be paired with some better quality DS and DDS prospects.
Where to From Here
Let’s take a closer look at Jet Master’s best foals from that first crop. Floatyourboat is out of a mare by Foveros. Foveros was top racehorse and sire but hasn’t made it into the sim. His sire is Averof, by Sing Sing, by Stop The Music. There’s nothing from this line in the sim that would be considered blue-blooded, so we’ll have to look elsewhere. Averof’s damsire is Nearco and perhaps that’s our best prospect. Unfortunately, that leads us to Northern Dancer, already in Jet Master’s pedigree and a cross with a Northern Dancer mare would produce a 3 x 2 cross, too close for my liking. Perhaps a son of Northern Dancer in the DDS lot could be considered for a 3 x 4 cross. Here we would have a multitude of choices including Nijinsky II, Danzig, Sadler’s Wells, Nureyev, Lyphard, Storm Bird, Vice Regent, The Minstrel, El Gran Senor, and Dixieland Band.
Continuing our search for a suitable DS, let’s look at his other first crop Gr1 winner, the filly Soft Landing. She is out of a Golden Thatch mare. Golden Thatch is by Thatch, who is in turn by Forli and out of a mare by Abernant. None of these produce anything suitable in my searches, so we’ll have to look elsewhere.
Starlit has to date won a Gr2 and two Gr3’s, and finished in the placings in four other Gr races. Hopefully she can provide the final piece of the puzzle. She is out of a mare by the Deputy Minister sire, The Prime Minister. Deputy Minister is a grandson of Northern Dancer, reinforcing the idea of duplicating the Northern Dancer. Perhaps a grandson of Northern Dancer in the DS slot is the way to go, rather than a son as DDS. Big name possibilities here include Storm Cat, Deputy Minister, Danehill, Theatrical, Green Desert, Caerleon, and El Prado.
This still leaves us with a slot open however. The Prime Minister is out of a dam who herself is out of a dam by Hail To Reason. Perhaps this is stretching a bit, but the Hail To Reason line could be that last puzzle piece. Amongst his grandsons we find a strong selection including Kris S., Dynaformer, Red Ransom, Lear Fan and Sunday Silence. Amongst his sons our best prospects would appear to be Roberto and Halo.
Breeding Suggestions
For those that are brave enough to spend a healthy sum of breeding points (somewhere in the region of 400 points on Saturday) on a sire totally unsuccessful in the sim thus far, I offer the following possibilities:
Dirt Sprint => Jet Master x Storm Cat x Sunday Silence
Dirt Route => Jet Master x Sunday Silence x Nijinsky II
Turf Sprint => Jet Master x Red Ransom x Vice Regent
Turf Route => Jet Master x Dynaformer x Sadler’s Wells
If you just want to use the sires with high stakes percentages, go for:
Jet Master x Dynaformer x Nijinsky II
That should give you a router but surface preference is hard to tell. Bear in mind that we don’t really know what Jet Master’s surface preference is in the sim. South African racing is 90% turf and his sim stats so far show a strong turf bias, but that’s from a small sample where 1 dirt runner could shift the balance completely.
