BARGAIN BRED RACING SERIES & BREEDING CORNER

Alzao (219)

This week I bring you an oldie but goodie. There are a few sires like Alzao that have been around for a while and produced fairly solid offspring over a long period of time. If you dig deep enough you can find a gem and I think Alzao has the potential to be a nice sire. From the Northern Dancer line his pedigree will mix and match with just about any major sire line. Let’s get to know Alzao.

Real Life- Alzao is by Lyphard. His dam sire is Sir Ivor and his dam’s dam sire is Roman. With a dosage 2.50 indicates a nice mix of speed and stamina. As a runner Alzao was only a grade III winner. He won races from a mile to a mile and a half. He has had a successful stud career though. He has sired one hundred stakes winners over all, fourteen group or grade I stakes winners. In 2005 he has four group or graded winners, Angara, who races in the Flower Bowl, Alcazar, Maraahel, and Special Kaldoun. One hundred stakes winners are pretty good, Woodman just had his one hundredth stakes winner this year as well.

One thing you notice is that Alzao’s stakes winners is that they are usually older runners. He has not really been inbred very much. Northern Dancer appears in his off springs third generation and none of the close up inbreeding has produced anything worth noting. You will find many of his runners are total outcrosses where there are no duplicate ancestors in the first five generations. He runners have done well on the turf racing mostly in Europe.

Sim Life – Alzao has a surprising ninety one sim off spring. To put things in perspective though, just twenty seven are two or three years old. He has an enormous amount of runners that are floating around and not currently racing. His active stakes winners are all older the youngest is five years old. He really has no active stakes winners and that can be changed. His best runners are dirt runners. His offspring have produced some great speed figures on the dirt. His turf numbers are pathetic considering he should probably be producing more turf runners than dirt runners.

Miswaki has been used several times with some success. Sons of Mr. Prospector create a 5x5 inbreeding to Native Dancer one of the angles worth looking into. Darshaan was used twice and both were good dirt runners.

Breeding Suggestions – Two sires in the fifth generation of Alzao’s pedigree could be solid inbreeding angles. Native Dancer and Turn-To. Son’s of Mr. Prospector used in the dam sire spot create a 5x5 inbreeding to Native Dancer. Also you could use son’s of Raise a Native in the dam’s dam sire spot to get the same inbreeding.

Although the pedigrees are in no way similar I think following what has worked traditionally with Sadler’s Wells is a solid way to go. That means looking into the deep sire line of Nasrullah through Never Bend and Red God. That includes a very long list of potential dam sires like Riverman, Mill Reef, Doyoun (IRE), Shirley Heights (GB) , Darshaan (ENG), and Blushing Groom (FR). Other lines that will likely mix well would be Petingo, Seattle Slew, or Ribot. Some of those older European sire lines should mix with Alzao as well.

Alzao (219) X Seeking the Gold (5687) X Mill Reef (3979)

Alzao (219) X Slew City Slew (5937) X Blushing Groom (FR) (669)

Alzao (219) X Ela-Mana-Mou (IRE) (1902) X Busted (GB) (907)  

Bargain Bred – Alzao really does not get cheap enough right now to make a good bargain bred candidate.

What to Expect – Alzao’s runners in the sim have been much better on dirt than turf. Even so I think his better runners at this point could be turf runners. His runners have sprinted well but I would think he will produce better route horses. His runners can be late developers and typically are in real life. His two year olds in the sim have solid but not dazzling speed figures.