Excellent stuff CP, when's the book coming out, serious??
RP

Thanks for the feedback gents, much appreciated.

I had occasion to visit the stables of Moody, Smerdon and Vasil at Caulfield a couple of years ago.
They were all raving on about this horse Altius which was the best breed horse in the stable and a small fortune had been outlayed on him.
I don't think he was ever offered for sale, bet they wish they had now.

They were talking about how many millions of dollars he was worth on breeding alone.
Being the inquisitive type, I went straight home and looked him up, indeed in the stable he looked a nice type, but didn't strike me to have ideal conformation, nor be the best looking horse in the stable.

Yes, he was a Redoute's Choice x Circles Of Gold horse.
He had Danehill and Canny Lad on his Sire line.
He also had Marscay and Zamaazan on the Dam line.

Straight off the bat, I could see that it was Redoute's Choice that was getting them over excited. They were saying this was the Group 1 horse for the spring!

Well, it didn't pan out too well. He proved a handy type, but not a Group 1 horse. Couldn't win a Group 3, couldn't win a Listed (placed 2nd), won an Open and a BM80 in the city.

Vasil got rid of him and he was transferred to Chris Waller and ended his racing career in Sydney earning a total of $172,438.

Here's the interesting part, have they gelded him?
Surely not.
Is he injured?
What happened to him?

He isn't listed anywhere as a Sire and Arrowfield have no news about him at all.
It all remains a very expensive mystery and the horse never won a Stakes race.

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How do you mean RP?

The Chrome Prince is a living book, every post another page.

In a word..
sage

/sāj/
Noun

1. An aromatic plant (Salvia officinalis) of the mint family, with grayish-green leaves that are used as a culinary herb, native to...
2. A profoundly wise man.

Some say he toys with No. 1. in his spare time but it's no. 2, for mine

Cheers LG

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The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

Thanks again, I really do appreciate all comments, as it's something that interests me greatly from all aspects of racing, from breeding to training to punting.

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This is why stride is more important than breeding.
When you have the two combined, you have a truly class horse.
Look at Photon Willie.
He's not silly either, he knows exactly where to find his cosy warm stable and a good feed

http://www.racingnetwork.com.au/For...152#2013-07-17:

If they train him to keep his mind on the job and possibly put on ************s, this will be one horse who is probably going to earn them the enormous purchase price.
There are just so many with good breeding that have no good stride length at all, that it makes it a bit of a raffle.

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Hi Chrome.

Appreciate that your wisdom comes from years of watching, experience(genetics?) but I mistakenly assumed that the art of watching horses and knowing what to look for was a kind of black magic, invisible clues etc etc. Until now, that is.. will take practice of course but I think it might be hard to look at a horse from here without noticing some of the the various features you have pointed out. Particularly the movement of the legs, how this differs bt front and back.

Now, just got to get vision of the horses parading up on a screen here without it costing me an arm and leg. Any ideas are welcome!

Quality posting, considerable value plus generosity and not a whiff of ego or arrogance or 'hype' to go with it. I find that the message 'goes in' a lot quicker with this mix i.e. the shields come down and a clean exchange of information occurs.

So I thank for that and I look fwd to anything else you would like to share in this respect.


Cheers LG

__________________
The trick isn't finding profitable angles, it's finding ones you will bet through the ups and downs - UB

Cheers mate.
If a whiff of any sort of ego does come through inadvertently, it is only because I'm so passionate about the information handed down to me and that I've learnt, works and stands the test of time.
My grandfather didn't have the internet, he picked it all up himself.
He was self taught and made his own mistakes.
However, a few racing people and friends have passed away in the last few years, and some very knowledgable one's took everything they knew with them.
I feel that's a sad waste.
The time to share is now, it's too late later.
I'm not giving anyone anything that will make them a millionaire, just helping understand some things the basic punter usually overlooks.

I've only touched on the topics lightly, and felt I might be boring people, so the feedback you guys give, inspires me to share more and go a bit more indepth.

A leading bloodstock agent in England once said to me:
A bad walker is a bad buy regardless of breeding.
A good walker is a potential buy.
A good walker with breeding is a definite buy.

However, he also said some good walkers don't have speed.
They are so good, they are slow, they lope along.

The only thing I disagreed with this professional about was Sire dominance.
He said look for progeny who look like their Sire.
That means the Sire is stamping his mark on his offspring.

This guy is a leading bloodstock agent, not just any old bloke and pays some of the biggest money in the UK for horses, so he was somewhat surprised I'd not agree with him.
Until I explained about my findings of Sires passing on looks versus, speed, stamina, soundness, and the degree of influence from the grand sires and dams. And the mixing of sprinters and stayers does not make a good middle distance horse, it dillutes the gene.
It was only when I gave him clear examples, that he had an enlightened look on his face.

If we take for example Rory's Jester:



Here's his successful son Racer's Edge:


He inherited the build and conformation and speed.
He did not inherit the colour, nor the blaze.

Here is Happy Giggle, Rory's other son:


Racer's Edge career prizemoney: $938,390
Happy Giggle career prizemoney: $274,250

On looks, one would immediately say Happy Giggle is the image of his father, which he is.
But Racer's Edge is the image of his father in a different way, conformation and speed.

Racer's Edge has passed on his genes and those of his father to his progeny.
Happy Giggle has struggled.

And here's the kicker, Happy Giggle servivce fee is $4,400.
Racer's Edge service fee is $3,300.

I really struggle to understand this, but that right there is another bargain.

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It's harder and harder to find an edge, if you do the extra legwork that most punters don't do, you have an edge.
If you could pick the right horses to follow and discard the overbet and overhyped one's, you can save losing bets, and have an edge.

Most leading stables will have pictures of their horses on their websites and you can try google for the other one's.
You can get Youtube videos and TVN videos and convert them to slow motion and watch the horse in action.
We have access to pedigree information.
We have access to form (obviously).
We have access to market odds and track odds movements.
We can watch as they load the horses and parade the horses.
We can get steward's reports.

Here's a very basic checklist:
Look for well bred horses.
Don't limit yourself to Sire and Dam, some of the best horses have poor Dam performances but strong bloodlines from the Dam.
Look at the head, the muscles, the legs, the angle of the shoulder, which horses in his pedigree does he most resemble in conformation.
In fact, at times, I have converted images to black and white, and that assists with not getting distracted by colour and markings etc.
Is the horse a mix of sprinter, miler, distance, or is he (she) getting the best genes suited to bring out outstanding performances on both sides that highlight the distance gene.
Has the horse won a good race, or is he always promising to do something.
Watching video replays, does the horse let down and either kick away, or make late ground to win, or does he plod or grind and just get there.
Mid race moves excepted.

Very good black type horses ALL have a turn of foot, they let down and dominate. They also very rarely run "a shocker", they are consistently in the first four and bounce back to win.
They also step up in grade with ease, they don't generally fail and keep knocking on the door and then win.
Average to good horses do that.

Avoid like the plague horses talked up by trainers and jockeys.
Most trainers will downplay their good prospects to the media for obvious reasons.

Avoid horses that play up in the barriers or are hard to load.
A scared horse will use all it's nervous energy and not run to it's full potential.
It's an indicator of the horse's psyche.
You can glean a lot of information from steward's reports online.

__________________
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Here's a wonderful video showing the stride of the great Oracle.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zQDAUv6d_KY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Notice how he fills the spaces left by his front legs with his hind legs.
How he leads with his shoulder and simply bends his knees.
He had a lovely long stride.

Another of Frankel.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/L7MChh1F4nI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The ground he covers with every stride is amazing, how easily he did it.
Again the hind legs fill the spots left by the front legs, he leads from the shoulder and bends from the knees.

A lot of horses don't make a lot of ground wih each stride, so it taxes them physically. You see their heads bobbing in a race madly up and down, but they're not making much ground for the effort. (in the straight).

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Well it seems I'm not the only one who places massive importance on stride length combined with speed. The above device sends stride information to a trainer's mobile phone.
I am in no way affiliated with the product, but thought it was a relevant product to this thread.

Unfortunately I have no access to the prroduct and more unfortunately no access to the horse carrying it

However, I've been manually doing some work in the background on stride length, via tedious and laborious video analysis.

I will post my selections in this thread as they come to hand.

__________________
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