Nicks

I am not sure how to evaluate the thoroughbred breeding concept of “nicks”. At first it seems to be a logical idea, certain sires seem to do better with mares whose father has a certain breeding. Then you get into the decision of how to quantify these relationships and everything gets a little murky. There seems to a great number of pedigree “experts” that are selling various quantitative approaches.

This is where my “BS” radar starts to go off. 30 years in the financial markets have taught me there are always people selling a quantitative answer to a difficult question. The answer seems appealing because it gives you a number, but how sound are the statistics behind that number? I have much more to learn here. It will be interesting to see how i feel about this issue in one year.

Someone must believe it because the TrueNicks website shows that 1,400,000 TrueNick reports have been generated in 2020.

I noted that the Thoroughbred Daily News reports a nicks rating for each stakes winner. I noticed that the West Point stakes winner yesterday was an A+++, but another stakes winner was a D

Reading the Bloodhorse Magazine online I was offered a free TrueNicks report.

I input my imaginary purchase of Quixote’s Blueprint, the Maclean’s Music colt out of a Pulpit mare. It came back with a nick rating of B+, not bad for a beginner.

Of course I cheated, because I knew that Maclean’s Music’s big horse Cloud Computing was out an AP Indy mare. This was the reason that Quixote’s Blueprint was my top choice from the Ocala sale.

The report had some useful statistics. It informed my about some existing horse with similar breeding, including a new 2-yr old that Assmusen won with 2 days ago at Churchill

Which reminds me I need to get better organized so I do not miss there 2-yr old races.