Breeding theories – ‘nicks’

Floyd Amphlett's opinion on the nicks theory?

For years, many breeding students would talk about ‘nicks’ in bloodlines, writes Floyd Amphlett. 

This meant that certain bloodlines seemed to work naturally well when crossed with other specific lines. 

As is so often the case with breeding, you can find proof to support your theory, or should you be brave enough, enough counter evidence as to drive a cart and horses through it. 

Personally, I think there is support for the ‘nick theory’ – though not in the way that is generally imagined. 

For many years, prior to bloodlines being available on-line, the only way to study breeding was painstaking grind through stud books and racing records. 

It was an endless process of looking for ‘patterns’, repetitions of when some phenomenon was more likely to appear. 

Some of them do hold up. For example, if you were profiling offspring of Laurdella Fun, you would expect them ‘in general’ to have early pace. 

If you were looking at sons or daughters of Ritas Choice, you would expect stamina. 

As to the benefits of that knowledge, it had potential value when buying young dogs. If it was a Ritas Choice, you might be looking at a possible second career as a stayer. 

Similarly, you could be misled into buying an Its Ballyhenry pup after he’d decimated a novice competition at a tough venue like Enniscorthy. 

It would have been a pretty good bet that when running against dogs of similar ability, he would almost certainly be devoid of early pace. 

However, there was also less clear evidence of breeding tends in relation to ‘nicks’. It related to the designed crossing of track and dual purpose breeding to produce faster racers. 

In my view there were really four types of bloodlines in Britain prior to the influx of the American and Australian bloodlines in the 1980s and 1990s respectively. 

They were traditional British/Irish track bloodlines. Certain broods prevailed, the best of whom was the Wexford dam Sheila At Last. 

Then there were the ‘dual purpose’ lines who could track or (Irish) course. Then there were the traditional Irish coursing lines that seldom crossed into track.  

And finally the traditional British coursing lines that almost never crossed into track breeding. Dogs like the ‘Hollyparks’, ‘Timworths’ and the appropriately named Hardly Ever. They had zero interest in the dummy and were at a different level of stamina and endurance. 

In fact, all groups had their strengths and weaknesses in terms of track breeding. 

The traditional track lines tended to be honest, but often lacking blinding early pace. The dual purpose breeding tended to be from converted coursing lines. The bloodlines that you might have found on Powerstown Park at Clonmel during the coursing festival. 

While some of the ‘pure coursers’ failed to adapt, others could make the transition to racing. 

We are talking about the Skipping Chick bloodlines, the ‘Glenroes’ the Millies May and Dunguig Lass dam line. 

They brought great pace, but often with a downside. Some lacked stamina, and a decent percentage lacked long term commitment. 

Some wouldn’t chase. Some would fight. A larger number though would simply lose interest as they grew bored with the tin bunny. 

The trick was to cross the most genuine track line – normally the sire – with the dual purpose dam line. 

When it worked, you ended up with stars like Daleys Gold and I’m Slippy. 

They then crossed brilliantly back into the best tracking dam lines, notably the Maythorn Pride and Sheila At Last lines. 

Everything changed with the arrival of the imports.  

The dog who changed Irish/British views about imports was the American sire Sand Man. What a sensation he proved to be. 

Although only weighing around 29 kilos, the white and black son of American super dam Miss Gorgeous, brought a level of honesty to European bloodlines that ‘nicked’ so well with the traditional European track and dual purpose lines. 

Until then, the assumption among European breeders was that the American dogs simply turned out paceless stayers. 

There would be a gap between Sand Man and the second American breakthrough led by Michael Dunne through the imports of Hondo Black but more notably, Kinloch Brae. 

In between, Michael had looked further south and brought in Frightful Flash from Australia.  

Flash was an instant hit and was soon followed by Top Honcho. It led to an explosion of imports that included the likes of Roanokee, Smooth Rumble and Honcho Classic, plus semen from the likes of Brett Lee. 

The American and Aussie sires introduced an inherent honesty and desire to chase that was lacking in so many British/Irish lines. 

This has had a major effect on the numbers of pups that make the track. 

So back to ‘nicks’ where is this going? 

In my view, ‘nicks’ were simply about getting the right type of cross with the best possible bloodlines, rather than a ‘only one dog will do the job’ approach. 

In other words, you might take a track bred bitch to a track bred sire and end up with honest graders of average ability. 

Or you could take a dual purpose bitch to a dual purpose sire and produce a litter that couldn’t stay above 400 metres or turn their heads. 

Clearly – this is a huge generalisation but that is the theory. 

But if your sire throws the fastest, most genuine offspring, you don’t need to look for the mysterious ‘nick’ 

Put another way, Sand Man became a champion sire because he crossed brilliantly with the greatest number of bloodlines. 

The same applied to Top Honcho. If he had only ‘nicked’ with certain dam lines, he would never have been so successful. 

Their modern equivalent is Droopys Sydney – who has already established himself as one of the greats. 

And I would like to thank Sydney for so kindly illustrating my point by siring all six of Saturday’s Sussex Cup finalists  . . . and all from very different dam lines. 

Last weekend’s Category One winner Gingers Prince was bred by Eoin Troy from Co.Tipp but his dam line is one that was mentioned just a couple of weeks ago in a feature on Whitings Gift. 

Our graphic shows how the family fits together and we have taken the line back to the Ray Patterson-owned Skywalker Queen. 

A winner of the 2009 Irish Oaks and Dundalk International, Queen also finished runner-up in 2010 Oaks final.   

Had we taken the dam line back just another two generations we would have arrived at Seamus Graham’s incredible dam Nifty Niamh, and a graphic for which your screen would not be large enough.