BREEDING CURLIN- Is He Worth The Attempts He is Getting?

After an impressive 2009 debut as a sire with 17 stakes winners and 7 Graded Stakes winners Curlin seemed to be moving into the upper echelon of Sunday sires in simdom.  Yet in 2010 he has had a precipitous fall off this season with only 2 stakes winners and zero graded stakes winners.  A quick look at that type of mares he has been seeing is eye popping.  His top pairings are with the likes of Storm Cat, Seattle Slew, Deputy Minister and of course AP Indy. This group also happens to be the 4 of the top ten DS options in the sim which means they work pretty well with other sires as well. He also has a fair share of tries to Danzig and Sadler's Wells. In his two year old crop Curlin has seen a whopping 15 Storm Cat mares, 4 Seattle Slew, and 4 AP Indy so roughly 1-4 of his 2010 off spring are coming from 3 of the hardest to acquire mares in the sim and yet he still does not have a graded winner and its November. My pal MTK had decided to use a beautiful hemare prospect on a mating with Curlin and it set off an interesting debate. Is Curlin one of the new elite sires in the sim, or is he another flash in the pan first year sire whose glitter takes longer than it should to wear off as they find their actual level. Below is the transcript of the debate we had and it manages to be both mildly entertaining and slightly informative (until Rob joins in and adds some actual knowledge). Hope you enjoy it, it will probably jinx Curlin into a superstar so get out there and take a pop at what I say is one of the most over rated sires in the sim.

larry     hey pal

markkelly1976 hey hows it going

larry     ok

markkelly1976 cool I bred one yesterday  hopefully my last of the yr

    HAHA

larry  nice

markkelly1976 Curlin X AP X SC

larry   ewww why would you waste such a nice back end on Curlin?

markkelly1976 I say its a derby horse

larry  I will cover that unless you mean ill derby or penn derby

markkelly1976 haha     Ill keep it general I guess

    the odds are still against any derby

   
larry  nah any horse can get in a race named derby

markkelly1976  seems ok value and curlin should at least have the pop of a tiznow type

larry  maybe..   But I dont see why he would though. Tiznow is a major success in real life.

markkelly1976  curlin was last yrs Sea The Stars. Thats why and usually they dont lose pop til yr 3     and he had a good frosh yr

larry  But Curlin seems to have had a much harder fall off than most top first year sires. Dylan Thomas is looking much better. And the word is that in real life Curlin's foals are not looking that promising

markkelly1976 could be but maybe this is the ONE

larry  well it ought to be if there was any. You are using the top two dam sires in the game. That is a waste of an incredible opportunity

markkelly1976 hemare was AWFUL.

larry you know I believe that the quality of a hemare is irrelevant. In fact there is a lot of evidence that poor performing hemares actually out produce top running hemares.  Especially ones with top breeding. By the way if you like Curlin's so much  you can claim my curlin x dixieland x ap this week

markkelly1976  what price

larry     40k

markkelly1976 You may be right about curlin so I'm not inclined to claim any. Either they are pretty good from the get go or they never get good. . And  Id never use him for 1000 credits just seemed an interesting try since Curlin opened.

larry     well there is a theory that can't be more unproven.,, there are not even curlin 4 year olds yet, so any late bloomers are still to come, and at this time of the year many top sires open so he is not a great value.

markkelly1976     not trying to prove a theory just my own practice

larry    yes but the basis for your practice or theory is what I am attacking

larry     monsun would have looked gorgeous to that back end instead of curlin and he opened as well

markkelly1976     I got enough monsuns    I need some more dirt contenders

    
larry     well there were much better options.... I am going on and on. I am about to  jinx this horse into being good

markkelly1976     I appreciate it cause I think it could have opposite affect

    why dont you post on the BS  Board too it can only help

larry     ok or maybe I i will write an article     curlin... why he is not worth the tries he is getting

markkelly1976  thatd be fun     I vote article

markkelly1976 By looking at curlins last yrs #s your gonna have a tough article I think to show why hes not worth using as an open credit sire     it could end up being a more useless article then iants

larry     yeah look at what they have done at 3( the majority of Curlin's 2009 crops earning happened as two year olds) and his 2010 crop is also lacking.  so unless yours is a time traveler and going back to being 2 last year... I am not sure...     plus there is an opportunity cost to using an ap x sc

markkelly1976 so could it be that if  his 2s so far seem iffy it makes him more attractive? Is he due?

larry     its november haha

markkelly1976     cause theres 0 reason why hed be downgraded even a slight bit until next yr     maybe this one monster will be to curlin what dans horse was to tiznow?

THE CHOSEN ONE (Editors note- Given's- The Beggar King currently carries Tiznows 3 year old class with his graded wins and earnings)

larry     I hope so...

markkelly1976   no you dont     HAHA

    we are writing your article for you I think

larry     but odds are stacked against... you are drawing to a two card inside straight

markkelly1976 who are your 3 sires in sim who are most equiv to curlin

    for me its MDO, Tiznow and kind of like a dirt learning equiv of Danehill Dancer

    and maybe curlin > tiznow   results from last yr say yes)

larry   Curlin's 2 year average would be a more appropriate comparison...  wow that is high level... I would say Rock Hard Ten, Hard Spun and the dirt equiv of North Light

So with the argument reaching a standstill we recruited one of the most knowledgeable breeders in the sim... a man who does it for a living in the real world.

 Rob Curlin's sim numbers are good... Probably a bit better than they should be,,, His real life equivalents are probably something like Harlan's Holiday or More Than Ready, You can see the dip between his sim 3 year old crop and this years 2 year old crop.

   markkelly    but is there any evidence that new hot sires get downgraded much from yrs 1 to 2?    in your history of sim playing. I mean will Sea The Stars  Suck next yr?

Larry Curlin is not Sea The Stars... Sea The Stars was one of the most anticpated sires to be put out to stud in years maybe a decade. Curlin is to a certain extent just another grandson of Mr P. one of hundreds.

Rob I would say he was the sim equivalent of Pulpit or Street Sense... Not quite as good as Bernardini so that is a lot better than what you are saying Larry.

larry Not really... I will buy Street Sense but Pulpit is the likely heir to AP Indy he is AP's most prolific son as a sire of sires. Street Sense seems appropriate since who knows who will wind up being the best of Street Cry's sons.

Well I guess there you have it as we all agree to disagree. Mark says Curlin is a top 15 stud and Rob and I disagree. Rob has him more in the 15-25 range while I say 25-40. If you have some credits burning a hole in your pocket I think you can do better with them then Curlin but who knows. Mark and I placed a wager after this chat. He says Curlin 2010 will move up to be in the top 15 horses by earnings by Derby Day, I say he is straight up nuts. We shall see. Curlin currently stands at 37th ranked in the 2010 class in earnings despite being ranked 15th in number of races run with 325.  His 85 runners puts him in the top 20 for number spawned as well. He is 51st in win pct and has not shown that he is a dual surface sire with this class as nearly 80 percent of his earnings have been generated on dirt. His 2009 class shows a little more success on turf but not much as the split is 70-30... 10 percent of his total foals are out of Storm Cat that is an incredible number. Another 7-8 percent are out of AP Indy. I think when you look at his mare list his performance becomes even more disappointing... So I think the answer to the initial question; is Curlin worth the tries he is getting is a resounding NO. But as my pal Mark says all the time when he knows he is wrong and does not want to admit it yet... We shall see!