BARGAIN BRED RACING SERIES & BREEDING CORNER

Skip Trial

This week in the Breeding Corner the spotlight falls on Skip Trial. Skip Trial is a grandson of Damascus. As a two year old he raced five times with a maiden win and an allowance win. As a three-year-old he raced fourteen times winning seven including the Grade I Haskell. At four he raced ten times winning four including the Grade I Gulfstream Park Handicap. At five he raced nine times winning three and was a repeat winner of the Grade I Gulfstream Park Handicap. Over all he raced thirty-eight times and won sixteen. He was very durable during his racing career.

Real Life – Skip Trial’s best real life runner was Skip Away. He can produce both turf runners and dirt runners depending on whom you breed with him. His dosage index is 2.25 so he has some stamina and his better runners tend to be route horses. A look at the ten horses listed on Skip Trial’s Leading runners and you’ll notice that a 5 X 5 inbreeding to Mahmoud is present in five of the ten including Skip Away and Best of the Rest. The Nasrullah line also was present in several of his listed top runners. The Northern Dancer line and In Reality line seem to work well with Skip Trial. He has one of those pedigrees that could be good with just about and major sire line.

Sim Life – Simmers have made Skip Trial a better producer of sprinters than route horses. According to the latest breeding text file only one of Skip Trial’s progeny has run a 100+ speed figure past a mile. In comparison he has eight runners that have run over a 100+ speed figures sprinting. The top three sprinters are eight and nine years old. Those top three’s dam sires are all sons of Northern Dancer. In the top eight off spring a son or grandson of Northern Dancer was used as a dam sire or dams dam sire seven times. The only off spring in the top eight that did not have a Northern Dancer dam or dams dam sire in his pedigree was inbred to Mahmoud 4 X 5. So what seems to produce his best runners in real life has produced his best runners here in the sim.

Breeding Suggestions – I would look for a dam sire from the Northern Dancer line and I would look for a dam’s dam sire that would give me a 5 X 5 inbreeding to Mahmoud. If I had the resources I would go after one of the big grandsons of Northern Dancer like, Storm Cat, Deputy Minister, or Summer Squall. I use the TJC utility Sire Search to look up most of these sires. Type in Mahmoud in the name field and then check the Sire’s Sire box under generation. It gives you only fourteen matches but many of them are pretty good choices. Al Hattab, Hatchet Man, and Quadrangle are solid. I would choose from Hatchet Man or Quadrangle because they have a little more stamina than Al Hattab. Anyone of those three gives you a 5 X 5 inbreeding to Mahmoud.  So the breeding would look something like this - Skip Trial X Storm Cat X Quadrangle. As of week 2041 this breeding would cost you around 335 BPs. You could substitute Storm Cat with Deputy Minister for around 280 BPs.

Bargain Bred – I’m not sure how far the BPs will fall this week but if I could squeeze under the 100 BP mark with Skip Trial X Personal Hope X Tom Pippin. That would be my selection. If not I would choose Skip Trial X Manzotti X Hatchet Man. Both breedings will produce a 5 X 5 inbreeding to Mahmoud.  In all of the breeding suggestions I have made the offspring should run best over a mile. Also the offspring could like either surface so be sure to try both.