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Top National Hunt Sires

Odin said:
It's possible to do this statistically if you have the right dataset. I've been thinking of doing it for a long time on the flat, but haven't got around to it - this has given me a nudge to do it on the jumps instead.

The problem would be figuring out what to put in the model:

If anyone has any thoughts on any of the above, I'd love to hear them...
Click to expand...

Love the idea Odin.

If the aim is to help find likely Cheltenham Festival winners is it necessary to include Aintree and Punchestown in the model?

Those courses demand very different qualities of a horse.

So why not just load the model with Cheltenham data or even just Cheltenham Festival data.

Imagine it would simplify the task and give a more accurate idea of whether a particular blood line is likely to bring us joy in March.
 
nortonscoin200 said:
Love the idea Odin.

If the aim is to help find likely Cheltenham Festival winners is it necessary to include Aintree and Punchestown in the model?

Those courses demand very different qualities of a horse.

So why not just load the model with Cheltenham data or even just Cheltenham Festival data.

Imagine it would simplify the task and give a more accurate idea of whether a particular blood line is likely to bring us joy in March.
Click to expand...

Idea is that including Aintree/Punchestown gives a larger horse base so that the strength of evidence towards who is the better sire/damsire can be deduced at a global level first. From there, individual models for the better sires could then be run which give a full breakdown of their ability at different racecourses, different goings, different ages, race types etc. It should then be possible to rate every single RPR in terms of it's percentile rank for that sire/dam sire given their unique characteristics (e.g. a horse could put in a 95th percentile run for a sire at Aintree or Ascot and be underestimated with respect to its chance at Cheltenham), which could obviously give us a benefit similar to what this thread is about but in more detail.

You're essentially skipping to phase 2 of my plan before doing phase 1 (I think)
 
Odin you had me at 95th percentile mate :welcoming:

It all sounds fantastic but a bit over my head. There's been a lot of great info supplied from FJs in here through naming sires to take note of, and also signposting info available elsewhere on likes of Racing Post. I've not used that section in the RP before and now I am so the thread has done what I wanted it to, and hope it has helped others as well.

I've no issue with you using this thread if you think it will help uncover any useful info on any other sires to follow, the point was to have it all in one place so FJs could make use and not have to go and find snippets from everywhere else :encouragement:
 
That Horse said:
Odin you had me at 95th percentile mate :welcoming:
Click to expand...

You sound like my missus... Although it's normally 5th percentile rather than 95th! :cower::barbershop_quartet_member:

On reflection nortonscoin200 idea is actually better than I originally gave it credit as a starting point. I'll see if I can put something together by Xmas...
 
Can’t see Milan mentioned but he’d be one of the most consistent over the last 10 years. He’s from my favourite Saddlers Wells bloodline.
 
On the topic of Saddlers Wells, I’d bet a decent portion of that list would be from his bloodline. And I posted recently about Joshua Tree (Irish Point) coming from that bloodline via Montjeu who is getting plenty of NH sires these days.
 
JackieMoon33 said:
He’s from my favourite Saddlers Wells bloodline.
Click to expand...

He's probably the most successful sire of all time.

Montjeu
Old Vic
Galileo
Doyen
High Chaparral
Kayf Tara
Yeats
Kings Theatre

All from the loins of Sadlers Wells, and many more to boot. He really was a ridiculously successful sire.

I see people mention a particular horse for a race from the bloodline of Sadlers Wells, but the reality is that it's likely half (or more) the field too :highly_amused:
 
Odin said:
You sound like my missus... Although it's normally 5th percentile rather than 95th! :cower::barbershop_quartet_member:

On reflection nortonscoin200 idea is actually better than I originally gave it credit as a starting point. I'll see if I can put something together by Xmas...
Click to expand...

Sounds like a nice idea for a spreadsheet :devilish:

(I know we talked about something similar before...)
 
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Zachx02 said:
Affinisea being talked up as an up-and-coming NH sire, certainly not had a bad start with his first book producing affordale fury
Click to expand...

Brook Bay sold for ?380k at Sandown Goffs sale today - son of Affinisea.

RP state he had a book of 382 mares this season.
 
I’ve been playing about with this statistical rating of pedigrees based solely on Cheltenham data and got some interesting findings so thought I’d report them here. I want to state from the off that the model isn’t finished and some of the findings could be considered strange so treat the information carefully. I’ll outline the steps I took and what the model does in this post, then give some tables with results in the next two. It would be great to hear any feedback, I’ll be developing this when I get chance anyway but I didn’t think to just try it out on Cheltenham data until nortonscoin200 suggested it so I’m sure you guys will think of something that I don’t again.

Data
I used data from the 2010-11 to 2021-22 seasons at Cheltenham.
  • All races were included, festival or not, to get a decent understanding of horse performances at the course.
  • To ensure that the horse pretty much ‘ran to form’, I only included their data if it was within 21lbs of their best RPR that season. This was deliberately large a difference but still removed about 500 performances. It would be easy to change if there was a general consensus as to what ‘running to form’(ish) is.
  • I only included a horse’s best performance for it’s age and race type (e.g. one 6yo hurdle and one 6yo chase performance was included if both had occurred, but not two 6yo hurdle performances). Annoyingly, I don’t have season data so couldn’t add that at this point.
  • Sires/Damsires were only included if they had 5 or more different runners at Cheltenham across the time period. This was across both codes so as you’ll see, some have less of one race type than the other.
  • I removed any hurdlers 12 or older and any chasers 14 or older as there were only a couple of them and it could have screwed up results
  • This left 2417 hurdle performances and 1895 chase performances to analyse
Model
I ran individual models for hurdle and chase performances, simply because I couldn’t get the combined model working in easily interpretable terms (yet). Each model had five elements:
  • Grand mean – the average horse performance across all races in that code
  • Sire adjustment – accounts for average performance of horses with that sire
  • Damsire adjustment – accounts for average performance of horses with that damsire
  • Grade adjustment – accounts for average performance of horses in that grade
  • Age adjustment – accounts for average performance of horses at the age
It’s a fairly simple process, whereby the adjustments all tell us how many pounds better or worse (in RPRs) the sire/damsire/age/grade are than average based on the data we have. Age and grade were important standardisers to help understand ‘expected RPRs’. It’s important to note that the model works on averages though so a lot of the ‘better’ sires struggle in it because their volume of runners means some are duff and some are excellent, which averages out at ‘meh’ in some cases.
​
 
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HURDLES
Starting with the hurdlers, the tables below show the top 25 sires, then the top 25 damsires from the analysis. The analysis provides a range of ‘plausible’ values for how much better/worse the sire is than average. The ‘mean’ value gives the average adjustment and the ‘sd’ value gives a measure of the uncertainty. To this end, we can be fairly certain Oscar is an excellent sire of hurdlers (mean 5.37, sd 1.7), whereas we really aren’t sure about Enrique (mean 4.08, sd 4.4) – and this is shown in the three best horses based on peak RPRs (Oscar’s 172, 171, 170; Enrique’s 165, 133). Likewise, there is a lot of uncertainty about Kris as a damsire (mean 4.49, sd 4.22, with peak RPRs 167, 139 and 127).

Top 25 Hurdle Sires at Cheltenham 2010-2022
siremeansdhorse_1rpr_1horse_2rpr_2horse_3rpr_3mean_rpr3
Azamour (IRE)9.033.63Zarkandar (IRE)165Karezak (IRE)147Rawnaq (IRE)143151.67
Poliglote (GB)6.952.79Sire Du Berlais (FR)165Top Notch (FR)160Don Poli (IRE)153159.33
Medicean (GB)6.553.94Song For Someone (GER)159Sempre Medici (FR)154Redicean (GB)143152.00
Astarabad (USA)6.343.62Whisper (FR)159Cheltenian (FR)153Rick (FR)135149.00
Germany (USA)6.033.92Faugheen (IRE)170Samcro (IRE)160Germany Calling (IRE)118149.33
Sir Harry Lewis (USA)5.713.51Unowhatimeanharry (GB)165Restless Harry (GB)155Thomas Brown (GB)146155.33
Oscar (IRE)5.371.7Paisley Park (IRE)172Rock On Ruby (IRE)171Oscar Whisky (IRE)170171.00
Beat Hollow (GB)5.273.01Not So Sleepy (GB)158Wicklow Brave (GB)158Minella Indo (IRE)156157.33
Sholokhov (IRE)5.113.92Bob Olinger (IRE)163Shishkin (IRE)162Dell' Arca (IRE)146157.00
Voix Du Nord (FR)4.723.21Vaniteux (FR)154Defi Du Seuil (FR)150Vroum Vroum Mag (FR)148150.67
Duke Of Marmalade (IRE)4.594.11Superb Story (IRE)148Duke Street (IRE)139 143.50
Mountain High (IRE)4.533.87Air Horse One (GB)143Sykes (IRE)143Ballymountain Boy (IRE)130138.67
Enrique (GB)4.084.4Binocular (FR)165Urano (FR)133 149.00
Doyen (IRE)43.78Beacon Edge (IRE)162Banbridge (IRE)141Streets Of Doyen (IRE)140147.67
Lavirco (GER)3.794.13Tanerko Emery (FR)148Saint Roque (FR)146Royal Boy (FR)132142.00
Coastal Path (GB)3.733.17Saint Roi (FR)159Bacardys (FR)155Asterion Forlonge (FR)147153.67
Lord Du Sud (FR)3.674.42Activial (FR)152Stolen Silver (FR)140 146.00
Network (GER)3.564.14Easywork (FR)155Delta Work (FR)147Allysson Monterg (FR)135145.67
Accordion (IRE)3.483.23Get Me Out Of Here (IRE)159Shutthefrontdoor (IRE)148The Romford Pele (IRE)145150.67
Milan (GB)3.271.89Jezki (IRE)171Martello Tower (IRE)154Milsean (IRE)153159.33
Bob Back (USA)3.253.32Rigour Back Bob (IRE)159Bobs Worth (IRE)153Boston Bob (IRE)152154.67
Red Ransom (USA)3.113.88Zaidpour (FR)164Barwell Bridge (GB)137Dildar (IRE)127142.67
Redback (GB)3.094.55Sailors Warn (IRE)149Kasakh Noir (FR)136 142.50
Blue Bresil (FR)2.954.53Constitution Hill (GB)172Ibis Du Rheu (FR)146 159.00
Authorized (IRE)2.953.32Goshen (FR)156Commissioned (IRE)150I Am Maximus (FR)142149.33
​
Top 25 Hurdle Damsires at Cheltenham 2010-22
damsiremeansdhorse_1rpr_1horse_2rpr_2horse_3rpr_3mean_rpr3
Kahyasi7.632.39Zarkandar (IRE)165Zaidpour (FR)164Mourad (IRE)158162.33
Saint Des Saints7.023.18Appreciate It (IRE)163Envoi Allen (FR)161Douvan (FR)160161.33
Tirol5.843.57Rock On Ruby (IRE)171Oakley (IRE)141Persian Snow (IRE)132148.00
Garde Royale5.812.83Sire Du Berlais (FR)165Southfield Theatre (IRE)152Arpege D'Alene (FR)149155.33
Pistolet Bleu5.553.39Binocular (FR)165Dynaste (FR)162Top Notch (FR)160162.33
Lafontaine I5.473.87Coole Cody (IRE)145Savello (IRE)139Present View (GB)138140.67
Terimon5.223.86Countrywide Flame (GB)169Simonsig (GB)162Rathlin (GB)140157.00
Danehill5.13.13Supasundae (GB)160Zabana (IRE)150Inish Island (IRE)148152.67
Broken Hearted4.773.31Jury Duty (IRE)150Kilcruit (IRE)147Aegean Dawn (GB)146147.67
Kris4.494.22Overturn (IRE)167London Prize (GB)139Warriors Tale (GB)127144.33
Strong Gale4.382.77Menorah (IRE)165Cross Kennon (IRE)156Shutthefrontdoor (IRE)148156.33
Dom Pasquini4.314.17Saphir Du Rheu (FR)165Vautour (FR)158Ibis Du Rheu (FR)146156.33
Grand Lodge4.193.75Lovcen (GER)149Barizan (IRE)142Braid Blue (IRE)141144.00
Un Desperado4.163.17City Island (IRE)155Tombstone (IRE)153Ballyoptic (IRE)151153.00
Saddlers Hall4.142.35Samcro (IRE)160Yorkhill (IRE)158Commander Of Fleet (IRE)157158.33
Turgeon4.082.47The New One (IRE)171Aux Ptits Soins (FR)153Vanillier (FR)153159.00
Robin Des Champs43.02Benie Des Dieux (FR)156Bacardys (FR)155Sametegal (FR)149153.33
Woodman3.493.82Champagne City (GB)137Mischievious Max (IRE)135Tigris River (IRE)135135.67
Alphabatim3.243.8Cole Harden (IRE)168Thistle Do Nicely (IRE)137Duke Of Navan (IRE)134146.33
Galileo3.123.06Hargam (FR)154Pentland Hills (IRE)150Redicean (GB)143149.00
Robellino2.973.6North Hill Harvey (GB)150Holly Bush Henry (IRE)136Cotswold Way (IRE)128138.00
Phantom Breeze2.914.08Grands Crus (FR)171Gevrey Chambertin (FR)136Le Richebourg (FR)129145.33
Oscar2.872.59Darver Star (IRE)162Sporting John (IRE)153Fury Road (IRE)152155.67
Bob Back2.862.01The Storyteller (IRE)161William Henry (IRE)156Ashdale Bob (IRE)151156.00
Heron Island2.864.15Emitom (IRE)155Mad Jack Mytton (IRE)138The Game Changer (IRE)138143.67
​
 
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CHASES
Same below, top 25 sires and damsires of chasers across the time period. There’s a lot more uncertainty here – particularly in those sires with few runners, which could arguably be disregarded at this point despite their success with a few horses (Bucks Boum, Beat Hollow, No Risk At All). The reverse of that is that Winged Love, Old Vic, Shantou and Oscar are particularly ‘certain’ good sires.

Top 25 Chase Sires at Cheltenham 2010-22 ​
siremeansdhorse_1rpr_1horse_2rpr_2horse_3rpr_3mean_rpr3
Bucks Boum (FR)5.954.4Al Boum Photo (FR)178 178.00
Robin Des Champs (FR)5.654.14Vautour (FR)175Sir Des Champs (FR)172Hell's Kitchen (GB)163170.00
Beat Hollow (GB)5.494.29Minella Indo (IRE)179Hollow Penny (GB)146 162.50
Cloudings (IRE)5.354.16Many Clouds (IRE)174Cloud Creeper (IRE)152Cloudy Glen (IRE)147157.67
Moscow Society (USA)5.333.69Forpadydeplasterer (IRE)164Any Currency (IRE)155Mr Moss (IRE)134151.00
Winged Love (IRE)5.042.81Josses Hill (IRE)161Perfect Candidate (IRE)159Ravenhill (IRE)157159.00
No Risk At All (FR)4.844.65Allaho (FR)179 179.00
Old Vic (GB)4.432.48Village Vic (IRE)164Ballyoptic (IRE)158Join Together (IRE)156159.33
Gamut (IRE)4.283.95Road To Riches (IRE)173Road To Respect (IRE)168Springtown Lake (IRE)137159.33
Dubai Destination (USA)4.283.98Elegant Escape (IRE)167Coole Cody (IRE)157Next Destination (IRE)156160.00
Sholokhov (IRE)4.254.18Shishkin (IRE)175Bob Olinger (IRE)160Dell' Arca (IRE)150161.67
Indian River (FR)4.243.54Native River (IRE)177Step Back (IRE)139Madison Du Berlais (FR)135150.33
Shantou (USA)4.062.57Beware The Bear (IRE)162Shantou Flyer (IRE)162The Storyteller (IRE)161161.67
Poliglote (GB)3.933.15Politologue (FR)173Don Poli (IRE)168Top Notch (FR)165168.67
Saint Des Saints (FR)3.893.25Saint Calvados (FR)171Lyreen Legend (IRE)163Irish Saint (FR)160164.67
Heron Island (IRE)3.823.59Black Hercules (IRE)164Rathvinden (IRE)159Galaxy Rock (IRE)148157.00
Oscar (IRE)3.82.15Big Zeb (IRE)171Lord Windermere (IRE)168God's Own (IRE)166168.33
Kapgarde (FR)3.763.04A Plus Tard (FR)184Fakir Doudairies (FR)169Clan Des Obeaux (FR)167173.33
Sir Percy (GB)3.544.44Presenting Percy (GB)172 172.00
Nickname (FR)3.464.24Yala Enki (FR)162Chic Name (FR)136 149.00
Germany (USA)3.44.7Samcro (IRE)165Faugheen (IRE)163 164.00
Yeats (IRE)3.283.16Conflated (IRE)167Chantry House (IRE)164Aye Right (IRE)159163.33
Saddler Maker (IRE)3.253.79Bristol De Mai (FR)172Cepage (FR)161Label Des Obeaux (FR)142158.33
Blue Bresil (FR)3.124.71Royale Pagaille (FR)169Ibis Du Rheu (FR)150 159.50
Kings Theatre (IRE)3.091.85Cue Card (GB)180Menorah (IRE)172Champ (IRE)170174.00
​


Top 25 Chase Damsires at Cheltenham 2020-22
​
damsiremeansdhorse_1rpr_1horse_2rpr_2horse_3rpr_3mean_rpr3
Dom Alco6.173.67Al Boum Photo (FR)178Cepage (FR)161Vibrato Valtat (FR)156165.00
Turgeon5.63.35Allaho (FR)179Politologue (FR)173Asterion Forlonge (FR)166172.67
Kahyasi5.443.69A Plus Tard (FR)184Caid Du Berlais (FR)153Snow Falcon (IRE)148161.67
Ardross5.363.33Thistlecrack (GB)174Annacotty (IRE)161West Approach (GB)156163.67
Marju4.984.17Simply Ned (IRE)164Midnight Appeal (GB)130 147.00
Fourstars Allstar4.933.42First Lieutenant (IRE)169Mad Moose (IRE)156Kilmurry I (IRE)152159.00
Kings Theatre4.573.06Bobs Worth (IRE)179Bun Doran (IRE)160Good Boy Bobby (IRE)157165.33
Shernazar4.533.86For Non Stop (IRE)165Micheal Flips (IRE)149Bishops Road (IRE)142152.00
Garde Royale4.472.68Balko Des Flos (FR)174Wishfull Thinking (GB)165Village Vic (IRE)164167.67
April Night4.443.77Bristol De Mai (FR)172Clan Des Obeaux (FR)167Trifolium (FR)158165.67
Saint Des Saints4.444.29Douvan (FR)165Envoi Allen (FR)163Danny Kirwan (IRE)139155.67
Le Moss4.433.73Albertas Run (IRE)169Tidal Bay (IRE)169Imperial Commander (IRE)154164.00
Bob Back4.32.3Many Clouds (IRE)174Synchronised (IRE)171Special Tiara (GB)170171.67
Pistolet Bleu4.053.3Saint Calvados (FR)171Dynaste (FR)167Top Notch (FR)165167.67
Sadlers Wells3.983.92Top Gamble (IRE)164Charbel (IRE)161Allmankind (GB)159161.33
Video Rock3.813.38Sir Des Champs (FR)172Delta Work (FR)168Vaniteux (FR)158166.00
Dom Pasquini3.734.05Vautour (FR)175Saphir Du Rheu (FR)165Ibis Du Rheu (FR)150163.33
Satco3.593.82Lord Windermere (IRE)168Sub Lieutenant (IRE)166It Came To Pass (IRE)155163.00
Chamberlin3.524.3Anibale Fly (FR)174Onefortheroadtom (GB)134Comeonginger (IRE)130146.00
Lomitas3.414.09The Giant Bolster (GB)168Coeur Sublime (IRE)135 151.50
Teenoso3.13.85Mister Malarky (GB)154Fagan (GB)143Stewarts House (IRE)142146.33
Sleeping Car3.094.08Santini (GB)171Vezelay (FR)140Alcala (FR)139150.00
Taipan3.053.59Vinndication (IRE)165Finian's Oscar (IRE)158Our Father (IRE)154159.00
Montelimar2.892.75Join Together (IRE)156Morning Assembly (IRE)156Ballycasey (IRE)154155.33
Flemensfirth2.893.41Next Destination (IRE)156Us And Them (IRE)154The Hollow Ginge (IRE)140150.00
​ ​
 
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WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
In truth, I’m still trying to figure this out, hence posting it when it’s not finished!

The model gives us an idea of the good and less good sires/damsires. There are some really interesting sires who don’t do that well in the chase rankings (Milan 31[SUP]st[/SUP], Walk in The Park 36[SUP]th[/SUP], Kayf Tara 46[SUP]th[/SUP], Stowaway 134[SUP]th[/SUP], Martaline 135[SUP]th[/SUP], Presenting 138[SUP]th[/SUP], Flemensfirth 146[SUP]th[/SUP]). I suspect in a number of cases this is due to the quantity of horses they have causing regression to the mean but I’m not sure how to account for this yet. These rankings could also be related to the quality of damsire they breed with though (i.e. if they breed with better dams they should produce better horses, it’s not that they produce better horses).

Another element could be to pick out those horses who are destined to be better chasers than hurdlers based on their pedigree. Looking at Dom Alco as the best damsire of chasers, there are two horses who ran as novices last year that I now have my eyes on massively: Il Etait Temps and Hors Piste. Naturally there will be others but those two stuck out big time.

Any feedback or discussion welcome, but again – I want to reiterate that these specific numbers should be treated with caution even though they do provide some interesting information (imo). The model analysed 175 damsires and 184 sires so I can provide values for specific sires/damsires if wanted.
​
 
I did something similar to this a a number of years ago, and I suggest you'll need to add data in for distances to make it meaningful Odin.
 
Well done Odin Great start. Looking forward to revising properly later on
 
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Spectre said:
I did something similar to this a a number of years ago, and I suggest you'll need to add data in for distances to make it meaningful Odin.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's on the list. It's just a bit fiddly with only Cheltenham data. Should be much easier with all courses included though. Key thing for me is figuring out how to get individual coefficients for the distances rather than averaging across all horses. Grade/age are averaged across all horses here which is a massive limitation of their use as well
 
Kayf Tara - RIP. :love_heart:

Retired his penis in 2020 after 20 years of non stop shagging, and being crowned NH sire of the year on 11 occasions.
Edwardstone one of his last darts.

Won a fair bit backing horses in bumpers by him, especially on stiff tracks or softer ground. :applause:
 
Quevega said:
Kayf Tara - RIP. :love_heart:

Retired his penis in 2020 after 20 years of non stop shagging, and being crowned NH sire of the year on 11 occasions.
Edwardstone one of his last darts.

Won a fair bit backing horses in bumpers by him, especially on stiff tracks or softer ground. :applause:
Click to expand...

Do they actually get shagging them though? I remember watching one of the Jackass sequels (great source of horseracing info obviously:glee:) where the horse cock was inserted into a tube to collect the nut butter instead of the horse fanny. In typical horse insemination methods, I assume it would usually then be transferred in an appropriate way into the female horse.

In Jackass, they just drank it.
 
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