Stallion choice: a matter of alternative opinions

WHAT do breeders want in a stallion? You'd think the answer would be pretty straightforward - all the attributes that make a winning racehorse, at the highest level. In other words, in no particular order, speed, class, conformation, soundness, brilliance, and a winning attitude. In a stallion, size is also a plus.

Sea The Stars and Yeats embody all of these attributes. We have already seen plenty to know that, although it would be nice to see much more of Sea The Stars; from a racing perspective, he is one of the most exciting prospects around and it would be great to see just how much he can accomplish against older horses and international competition. But from a breeding perspective, we have surely seen enough to know what both horses are made of.

Yet on goes this simmering debate about whether these horses might show too much stamina to be attractive stallion prospects; in the case of Yeats, some assume he has already displayed way too much, while the argument surrounding Sea The Stars is whether a run in the St Leger would damage his cv by stamping it with the word ‘stayer' - and the irony is that the damage would be done he won the final leg of the Triple Crown.

Perhaps the real issue here is that breeders do not know what they want. That is because they are stuck in the paradox described by the economist John Maynard Keynes, when he used the analogy of a newspaper beauty contest to depict how stock market values work.

The competition works like this: contestants choose a set of the ‘most beautiful’ faces from a large line-up of pictures; to win, their choices must match those of the overall consensus. Entrants quickly learn to improve their chances of winning by jettisoning their own judgement and trying to calculate which faces the other contestants will pick.

In Keynes’s words: “It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinelythinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be.”

Switching analogies, that shoe sure fits the bloodstock market. Most commercial breeders long ago abandoned their own judgement of fundamental value in favour of speculating what someone else’s expectations will be.

Now it's time for some fantasy, because I cannot change the way market psychology works. But if Sea The Stars were in my hands, I would not run him in the St Leger, not because I worry he would win and harm his chances at stud, but because I worry he would lose, and that would be an unnecessary detour from what could be an outstanding racing season taking in far more appropriate races.

As to Yeats, if he were mine, and if the bounty of Coolmore were at my disposal, I would retire him and breed a bushel of my best mares to him, and I would market him as the perfect racehorse. Remember, this is a horse who trounced the opposition over a mile on his debut, and won by ten lengths, albeit in a three-horse race, over ten furlongs next time.

He won the Coronation Stakes from a field including both the dour stayer Reefscape and the speedier Pride and Alkaased, and he can clock off 12-second furlongs for a mile and a half, according to Johnny Murtagh. That is something I'd give my eye teeth for in any racehorse.

Ultimately, it is impossible to avoid speculation in breeding, because we never know what the outcome of a mating will be, still less so with unproven stallions. But we can trust our own judgement when it comes to beauty.With Yeats and Sea The Stars, come on - we know this is the real thing.