Analyzing the 2008 Dam Standings

In January of 2008 I examined the final 2007 Dam Standings. More than a year has passed since then and a review of the 2008 Dam Standings is overdue. Again, the performance of the top litters in the country reaffirm the traits that contribute to an outstanding brood prospect: bloodlines, track performance, and the performance of her littermates. As we discovered last year, another important factor is the age of the dam, and the 2008 standings continue to prove that broods perform best from three to seven years of age.

Track performance: One of the top-20 dams was a stake winner—Fuzzys Lear Jet won the 2004 St. Pete Derby Consolation and made the final of the 2003 Tampa Derby. Four more were top-grade winners at Top-Six tracks and two others ran in top grade at Top-Six tracks. Eight ran grade A at Intermediate tracks, seven of which won in top grade. Two were graders, one at Lincoln and one at Orange Park. One was an Open race contestant in Ireland. Two did not race, but were from litters with more than one top-grade winner at a Top-Six track. Overall, 16 of the 20 ran in or won top grade ranging from the better intermediate tracks to racinos and the vast majority were top-grade winners.

Bloodlines: Unlike 2007 when Molotov ruled the roost by a clear margin, the damsires were spread out among 17 different dogs. Fortress* was represented twice, as was Flying Penske, and Flying Bookie was represented by the litter sisters Atascocita Pinto and Atascocita Sally. Overall, 15 of the 115 dams in the Dam Standings are Molotov daughters. Others represented in numbers are Fortress* (9), P's Raising Cain (5), Gable Dodge (5), Greys Statesman (4), Oswald Cobblepot (4), and Oshkosh Slammer (4). The Top-20 dams descended from several classic damlines led by Maythorn Pride (4) and Lear Jet (2). No other damline had more than one.

Age: The Top-20 dams in 2007 averaged 5 years, 7 months of age, while the 2008 group was far younger at 4 years, 9 months of age with the youngest being just 3 years and the oldest only 7 years, 2 months. Five were 3 years of age, six were 4, five were 5, three were 6, and one was 7.

Once again, the results confirm that well-bred females who performed well on the track, or were from good litters, and are in the prime of their lives, produce the best offspring.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Several years ago I tried to figure out the "real" Sire Standings based on strike rate, the ratio of top-grade wins to pups, rather than simply total numbers. As they stood, the Sire Standings were more about "how many" than about "how good." Simply using the totals in the Sire Standings to calculate strike rates didn't work well. Older studs looked awful because they had a high number of dogs on the books that had already retired. Young, upcoming studs didn't look good, either, because their pups hadn't been racing long enough to rack up a lot of wins.

In order to make things more equitable, I hit upon the idea of using a two-year cohort of dogs that were in the prime of their racing careers and cutting out most of the oldest and a portion of the youngest racers from the total. In the 2008 Sire Standings, for instance, pups registered in 2003 are counted toward the year's total. The bulk of these would be 2002 or even 2001 whelps and only a handful of the 2003 whelps left could still have had starts in 2008, let alone win top grade. Even most 2004 registrants were retired by the beginning of 2008. Similarly, some younger dogs registered late in 2006 would not have had time to amass wins in the full calendar year.

I used to do these by hand with a calculator, but a couple years ago Bob Fine took over for me because he knows his way around a spread sheet and I really don't. For year-end 2008 we used 25% of a dog's 2004 crop, 100% of his 2005s, and 75% of his 2006 pups. If you slide the cohort to the left, it favors younger studs whose totals will shrink. Slide it to the right and it takes larger numbers away from older studs and raises their apparent strike rate. In June the cohort will slide six months to the right, and the year-end 2009 strike rate will be calculated with 25% of 2005s, etc.

   Sire            25%04   100%05    75%06    total     wins    perc
1  Stan's Boy Flyer  105      473      300      878      510    58.1%
2  Lonesome Cry       20      213      617      850      454    53.4%
3  Kiowa Sweet Trey  346    2,219    1,277    3,842    1,770    46.1%
4  Fuzzy's Cannon      7      228      157      392      176    44.9%
5  Dodgem By Design  332    1,536    1,742    3,609    1,525    42.3%
6  WW Time Warp      137      367      171      675      273    40.5%
7  Get Over           11      103      101      215       83    38.7%
8  Gable Dodge       439    1,416      577    2,432      912    37.5%
9  Pacific Mile                 0      230      230       86    37.4%
10 Flying Penske     201    1,694    1,006    2,901    1,053    36.3%
11 Trent Lee           0       90      242      332      106    32.0%
12 Grey's Flamebeau   82      249       46      377      120    31.9%
13 Oshkosh Slammer   314      641      316    1,270      390    30.7%
14 Coldwater Konow    78      150       52      280       85    30.4%
15 Trojan Cruze      117      367      245      729      211    28.9%
16 Jimbo Scotty       51      642      431    1,123      316    28.1%
17 Teamster           29      167      107      304       82    27.0%
18 Elway Drive        28       84       92      205       54    26.4%
19 Cayman Went         2      307       83      391      101    25.8%
20 Craigie Whistler  418      737      477    1,632      404    24.8%
21 Larking About*      7      274      161      441      104    23.6%
22 Rooftop Moby       25      249       31      305       70    23.0%
23 Gable Oscar        88       62       99      249       56    22.5%
24 DK's Prime Time   158      316      416      890      194    21.8%
25 Fortified Power   134      206      151      490      102    20.8%
26 WW Apple Jax       92      316      344      751      154    20.5%
26 Dominator          81      198      101      380       78    20.5%
28 Clappin Thunder    21      158      110      290       58    20.0%
29 Be My Bubba        22       75      127      224       43    19.2%
30 WW Greys Drifter   45      114       53      211       39    18.5%
31 TNT Star Wars     125      352      244      721      126    17.5%
32 State Of The Art   85      276      119      480       82    17.1%
33 Impossible Dream   26      148      283      457       72    15.8%
34 Iruska All Star    57      183      110      350       55    15.7%
35 Aimin By Design    53      206       41      301       41    13.6%
36 Oneco Spirit       53      214       41      308       33    10.7%
37 San Tan Riffraff    7      126       89      222       19     8.6%
38 D's Jakethesnake   40      184       37      261        9     3.5%

Strike Rate is clearly more useful than the Sire Standings, but I think you still have to be careful when using these numbers. Studs with fewer than 300-400 pups racing can have their percentages seriously strengthened by just one outstanding litter or even one great dog. Get Over is an underrated sire, but Take It Over won 31 races in 2008, 37% of Get Over's total.

On the other hand, a dog that I don't think shows as well as he should is Jimbo Scotty. He has been heavily patronized by a number of West Virginia breeders, many of whom have several litters by him. As everyone knows, AA wins at Wheeling and Tri-State are awfully hard to come by and a disproportionate number of his pups run there. Note that he is ninth in the Intermediate Tracks Sire Standings, but sixth in the Top-6 Sire Standings. I wouldn't necessarily discount a dog because his Strike Rate is 10% lower than another dog without doing a little research first. There is still a lot of "hidden" information that affects Strike Rate. Breeders should still consult Winning Lines for accurate race results and Greyhound-data.com for pedigree information.

Don't forget that there are a number of dogs like Flying Hydrogen, Maryville Rumble*, EM's Mac Attack and the like who are producing—they just don't have 200 track-age pups yet. It will be interesting to see where their Strike Rates will land on the 2009 mid-year chart.