Matt put up a great post looking at the contenders to be in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile this fall. I figured I'd take a look at their breeding to see if they really stack up as a contender NEXT year for the Triple Crown races. The biggest hurdle for these horses to clear are distance and durability. So by looking at their breeding (primarily the Dosage Index) you can normally get a handle on what their genes are saying they should be capable of. Durability is looked at by giving a once over to the sire's progeny and seeing how many registered foals actually make it to the track and win (this is a decidedly approximate way to do this, but really the only way without digging into the dam's siblings and their offspring as well.) The caveat to everything in breeding is that you are usually looking at a small sample size for active stallions, but that's a given.
So which of the Juvenile contender's stacks up to be a player on next year's stage?
Matt had a list of 14 colts that were on the list. Two of them, Klarman and Pompay, have not been entered into PedigreeQuery.com (tsk, tsk, owners: how can you expect anyone to know who your horse is?) so they have been excluded. So here's the list:BC Juveniles 2011
A couple notes: SSS is small sample size. Durability is on a scale from Fair-OK-Good-High. UNK is just not enough data to really tell. I took a quick look at the dam and her winnings/family and if anything important came up, it's in the notes.
So the bottom line here is that in my estimation, the "Yes" horses have the bloodlines to be successful at the classic Triple Crown Distances. I'd put my money on Creative Cause and Black Rhino from this list. Creative Cause is bread out the wazoo and Giant's Causeway's foals have a high win percentage once they reach the track. ?Black Rhino is solidly bred, and should have the distance necessary to compete.
A lot of these contenders are really pretenders for the 3yo classic circuit next year. She Digs Me may be a fluke, but I'm betting he's a low level stakes horse at best. Trinniberg shouldn't have the distance.
Second tier contenders: Stat, I'll have Another, Managed Account, and Union Rags. But these are significantly second tier.
So I'm going to find a futures pool and see if I can place a few bucks on if CC and BR are even entries. Anything can happen for sure, but just a quick look can tell a ton about the potential of these fellas.