Will Take Charge & the UBS "unsoundness"

[bare it all]

So this colt has danced a lot of dances and is still chugging along. Knock on wood, but he hasn't been sidelined with any of the major maladies that normally hit the UBS offspring. What is the difference with him physically that has made the difference? How does he physically look compared to UBS or Dehere (dam sire)? Is it his training and racing regimen? I'm genuinely curios because he seems an anomaly of his sire.

[BaroqueAgain1]

In some ways, WTC looks like other UBS colts...big, strong and with a noticeable blaze. When I look at his chestnut coat, I am also reminded that Dehere was out of a Secretariat mare, and that Take Charge Lady was a pretty durable, really good race mare.
Maybe WTC takes after his female line more than his sire line?

[Izvestia]

He wasn't terribly precocious, I think he wasn't pushed super hard as a 2-year-old, although he danced all the dances at 3. Soundness from dam side. He looks like a big, burly horse.

[Ridan_Remembered]

I don't want to think of unsoundness and Will. Aside from never-proven rumors of drug use on horses, the one knock on Wayne Lukas as a trainer is that too many of his horses tended to break down. The list is a long one.

[Acadiana]

He only ran 4 times as a 2 year old and didn't start until August. Plus, he looks pretty solid boned and correct. That doesn't hurt either.

I personally think the UBS "unsoundness" is based more on the fact that he tends to throw fast babies that are big gangly things as 2 year olds. They get run hard/early are 2 year olds, when waiting to grow into themselves would probably be better for them, because they're fast enough to win. The smaller, quicker to mature/balance horses seem to tend to be sounder to run early.

[Indianapolis]

Is there any statistical evidence that UBS's are unsound? It seems like his runners are no more unsound than any other stallion.

[Flanders]

Is there any statistical evidence that UBS's are unsound? It seems like his runners are no more unsound than any other stallion.

I just ran the numbers, his starters average 11.44 starts. Storm Cat was the closest I looked at with 12.10 starts per starter. I just mainly looked at older or retired stallions, almost all were in the 13 to 16 start range per starter. I did this because if a stallion doesn't have many crops yet, they really haven't gotten a chance to race that many times and that is going to skew the numbers. However, I did run these, Tapit - 12.94, Street Cry - 11.96, Medaglia D'Oro - 10.64, War Front -10.28, Bernardini - 7.98.

Unbridled's Song also gets about 73% starters to foals of racing age, that is a solid number.

[sweettalk]

Is there any statistical evidence that UBS's are unsound? It seems like his runners are no more unsound than any other stallion.

i've read (but not seen any facts to back this claim) that UBS was unsound via unbridled, something to do with fappiano. but like i said, i haven't seen anything backing that, just stating it.

[Flanders]

Is there any statistical evidence that UBS's are unsound? It seems like his runners are no more unsound than any other stallion.

i've read (but not seen any facts to back this claim) that UBS was unsound via unbridled, something to do with fappiano. but like i said, i haven't seen anything backing that, just stating it.

I ran the other Unbridled sons that I could find stats for, except for Empire Maker, they all seem to have about what I've been finding to be the normal amount of starts per starter:
Broken Vow - 16.39
Eddington - 13.85
Empire Maker - 10.43
Free Thinking - 14.09
Mustanfar - 17.70

And a son of Fappiano, he is actually the highest that I've found so far:
Quiet American - 19.73

[BaroqueAgain1]

While starts-per-offspring might provides clues about whether the bloodline is intrinsically unsound, a factor that might skew those figures is if the horses were retired early for reasons having little to do with unsoundness. For example, Empire Maker is a pretty hot sire, and some of his stakes-winning sons and daughters might be heading to the shed ASAP.

[Flanders]

While starts-per-offspring might provides clues about whether the bloodline is intrinsically unsound, a factor that might skew those figures is if the horses were retired early for reasons having little to do with unsoundness. For example, Empire Maker is a pretty hot sire, and some of his stakes-winning sons and daughters might be heading to the shed ASAP.

Yes I know. But it isn't just Empire Maker who has foals retired early because of pedigree and ability. He also really only had 6 crops (aged 3 and up) with which to judge him by. That is why, in my previous post, I said its hard to judge stallions without many crops of racing age by average starts per starter.

[swale1984]

I've always thought, if anything, UBS tended to throw his own weak front legs to his progeny. I did some digging and found this rather scathing review of his shortcomings as a sire.

http://www.reines-de-course.com/unbridled's_song.htm

[BaroqueAgain1]

Interesting article, although it didn't completely throw UBS under the breeding bus. The author pointed out the success he had when the mares had a sturdy bloodline to offset his fragility.
I do remember that season when Old Fashioned started what seemed like a constant drumbeat of UBS colts exiting the racing scene due to injuries. Too bad more bloodstock managers didn't try harder to find those "big, broad, good-boned matron with some substance to her" mares to send to him.

[mariasmon]

I haven't seen Take Charge Lady since her racing days, but I don't recall her being a "big, broad, good-boned matron with some substance to her." She is average sized, but refined and a bit fine-boned. I think Take Charge Indy resembles her strongly and, although he matured, I found him very feminine as a yearling. In fact, I remembered him as a filly 'til he started racing.

Will Take Charge looks more like UBS. That's obviously where he got his size. Obviously there were at least some minor issues with both him and TCI, or they would've sold for a lot more as yearlings.

I don't know who the hell TCL's first foal, Charming, looks like. She's a big, strong, good looking thing and was as a yearling. She might be more of a chestnut version of her sire, Seeking the Gold.

Here's a pic of her Storm Cat daughter, Elarose (9 starts, never broke maiden): http://finalturngallery.com/g2/main.php ... filly2.jpg

I guess my point is, the mare has been bred to quite a few different stallions and it appears that more of her offspring take after their sires, with TCI being the one who resembles her most, along with the Indian Charlie 2YO filly. TCL was a durable racemare, despite the fact that she wasn't a broad, big-boned type. It seems she has passed that on to WTC. You would generally think of A.P. Indy's offspring as a bit more durable than UBS's, yet it was TCI who had more soundness issues. Charming lasted just 2 races before being retired with injury.

It took WTC some time to come into his own, but he's withstood the rigorous D. Wayne Lukas program and even thrived in it, even though he is huge and was obviously still quite immature throughout the TC trail. Does that disprove the theory in the article?

[swale1984]

Could it be that WTC has just managed to win the genetic lottery and gotten the best of both parents? Maybe there was enough correctness in TCL to balance out the incorrectness from UBS.

[serenassong]

Could it be that WTC has just managed to win the genetic lottery and gotten the best of both parents? Maybe there was enough correctness in TCL to balance out the incorrectness from UBS.

Could be the case. Interesting to read all the takes on this. On a personal note, I would love to found out what the problem with Night and Day was. She was a beautiful looking horse(and still is) from the day I saw the first pic of her as a foal. I really believed that she was going to be Serena's shining star in her broodie career- runs once and retired not soon after. Something was really amiss for that to happen- not sure if it was the run or something that happened at the barn. I look forward to seeing her babies run- just posted pics of her 2014 More than Ready in the Breeding section.

[Calypso]

Could it be that WTC has just managed to win the genetic lottery and gotten the best of both parents? Maybe there was enough correctness in TCL to balance out the incorrectness from UBS.

Either that or he takes after one of his grandparents. How were Unbridled and Dehere on the soundness scales?

[Izvestia]

Unbridled was big-boned, rangy, ran 24 times from 2-4.
Dehere is finer-boned (danty), precocious, ran 9 times and retired after his win in the Fountain of Youth.

I'd say WTC takes after Unbridled's side of the family.