BARGAIN BRED RACING SERIES & BREEDING CORNER

Concern (1257)

Concern was a very nice race horse and is the son of the great Broad Brush. His sim career as a stud has not been very good despite the fact he produces a stakes winner a year from a small crop of foals. The type of runners he is producing in the sim is a bit different than what you might expect when you look at Concern’s pedigree. This is a cheap sire that appears capable of producing much better in the sim. 

Real Life- Concern is by Broad Brush. His dam sire is Tunerup and his dam’s dam sire is Princely Native. His dosage index is 3.22 with a nice blend of speed and stamina. He was a very good classic distance horse that competed with many good runners during his racing career. He won a couple of grade I races including the Breeder’s Cup Classic. He placed in the Preakness, Travers, Haskell, Super Derby, Arkansas Derby, Ohio Derby, Oaklawn Handicap, Pimlico Special and the Meadowlands Cup. Concern earned over three million in purses in a thirty race career. 

He has never foaled more than thirty-three runners in any one year averaging about 27 a year. He is averaging 5% stakes winners producing at least one a crop. To my complete surprise he is producing faster turf runners by average Ragozin speed numbers. He has one of those versatile pedigrees where he can produce a sprinter, a route horse and on both surfaces. 

Sim Life – He currently has sixty-five sim runners. He has just two stakes winners and both are seven years old now. Both of his stakes winners were on the dirt however when you look at his top runners by crop you will see a few of them are turf runners but mostly claimers. Another thing that stands out is that as you look at his runners by crop you see in the beginning he was used with dam sires like Storm Cat and Black Tie Affair but in his last three crops he has not been used with any dam sires near that good.

 His runners run their fastest in dirt sprints and nearly all of his runners are better sprinting than routing. He only has two, two-year-olds thus far this year with only one having run. He had quite the freshman /sophomore sire class in the sim with ten runners ending up with over $100,000 in earning five of those over $200,000 in earnings. He will never produce like that again but there is no reason this guy can’t produce a solid runners each year.  

Breeding Suggestions – Concern’s Pedigree is versatile. If you want a route horse you will need to breed some stamina back to him. If you want a turf runner breed some turf influence with him. A Mr. Prospector line dam sire was used with him in several of his top sim runners with Forty Niner appearing twice. Miswaki, Cryptoclearance and Fappiano also produced solid runners. Northern Dancer line dam’s dam sires were used in a couple of those breedings as well as Buckpasser. Even inbreeding back to the Turn-To line seemed to work.

The Seattle Slew line also seemed to blend well and in real life some of the more obscure lines have worked with Concern. Do not be afraid to experiment with different combinations but I think here I will concentrate on using Mr. Prospector and Seattle Slew line dam sires. Forty Niner would be my top choice since he has worked well in the past.

Concern (1257) X Unbridled (6852) X El Gran Senor (1894)

Concern (1257) X Capote (966) X Miswaki (4027)

Concern (1257) X Machiavellian (3707) X Deputy Minister (1600)

Bargain Bred – Concern gets down to about forty-five BPs at the end of the week so he is a candidate for bargain breeding. Getting decent dam sires to fit with him could be a little tough but I would still use Mr. Prospector or Seattle Slew line dam sires in this case.

Concern (1257) X Slew the Coup (5952) X Allen’s Prospect (171)

Concern (1257) X Gold Alert (2468) X Dahar (1449)

Concern (1257) X Marked Tree (3827) X Theatre Critic (IRE) (6562)

What to Expect – Concern won at two but his real life runners seem to blossom more as they get older. Be sure to try your concern runner at all distances on each surface before you give up on them. He will probably throw more bad runners than good but I think there is some potential here for producing quality runners with an inexpensive sire.