February 5, 2024
By The 2YO EdgeMan
Last week, we penned a piece on this great website that focused on sire performance in two-year-old Maiden Special Weight races at the ‘Top 11 Tracks’ over the past three years. Today’s breakdown will be similar, but this time we’ll be analyzing damsires.
As you know, the dam side of the pedigree is as important (some would say more important) than the sire’s side when studying juveniles and their success on the track. However, because of the relatively low number of foals that a mare throws, as compared to the number of young runners that a sire accounts for, we need to extend our investigation to the broodmare sire. This allows us to gain a significant sample size, such that our analysis is meaningful.
Overall, we found 21 damsires that were responsible for 18 or more winners of 2YO MSW races at the ‘Top 11 Tracks’ from 2021 through 2023. The leader of the pack in this category is Medaglia d’Oro who accounted for 41 winners. He was followed closely by Tapit whose daughters produced 40 champs in these races. Third place goes to Bernardini, who notched 36 victories.
Not completely surprising is the fact that Tapit had the greatest number of starters (362) of the 21 broodmare sires on the list and Medaglia d’Oro had the second most (334). Hence, their strike rates were both somewhat modest – 11.0% and 12.3%, respectively.
Speaking about win rates, the leader in this column stood out by a wide margin. Uncle Mo is responsible for 26 winners, however, he only sent out 96 starters, so his strike rate was a phenomenal 27.1%. To put this in context, the second-highest percentage was over eight points less – 18.9% – achieved by Street Sense (21 for 111). The next highest trails by another 2.1% points – Sky Mesa (who I’m guessing that you may be surprised that shows up third on this list) was 21 for 125, 16.8%.
Medaglia d’Oro and Uncle Mo top the charts when it comes to the number of First-Time starter winners as a damsire – 19. Right on their heels (or should we say, ‘hoofs’) is the trio of Bernardini, Malibu Moon, and Tapit, each accounting for 17 debut champs.
Of the 21 broodmare sires that have 18 or more wins, five of them have a .500 or higher batting average when comparing their number of firster victors with their total number of winners in this study. They are Uncle Mo – 19 debut winners from 26 total winners, A.P. Indy (12/19), Indian Charlie (12/22), Distorted Humor (16/32), and Empire Maker (9/18).
Hopefully, this information provides you with valuable insight on some of the top performing damsires in ‘our races’. One thing that we can guarantee – very few people even consider the dam side of the pedigree. Additionally, I can assure you that no one else goes to the level that we are committed to going to keep you well informed on this exciting segment of racing.
Take care and be safe & well, my Edgie Army.
