Firebreak

Lol, yes!

Well he was a very hard-knocking and very good racehorse. He also was a tremendous specimen, who deserved better than the patronage he's had at stud, his books have lacked quantity, and severely lacked quality.

Evening

I had Firebreak on my list this year, but i have back heeled due to inbreeding with Warning as i have a mare by Fraam out of a Piccolo mare and feel this is to close.

I have viewed him at stud and is a lovely horse but on the small side, so would not send a small mare to him.

I was thinking it would be too close in the generations. I like the idea of inbreeding to Warning and the cross works well with my fraam mare.

My mare is fine and retired sound at 5, winning 8 races. Her confirmation is fine.

I do not know how to use the hypathetical mating website you mentioned.

magical music

I have never used these methods for research.

Have you enquired about Firebreak?

Cheers, sounds like he is back in on my list. Especially with free return with filly foal.

PS one of my other mares is in foal to Misu Bond. Nice looking horse and like you have a decent mare i do not want to spend big bucks with stallion fees.

Although Firebreak has not had great mares, no stallion in the low fee category would have. However his foals and yearlings have sold well and Bearstone will probably race some by him. He has as good a chance as any to make it.

I thought Misu Bond was a good looking horse, a typical Danehill Dancer.Andrew Spalding is a decent guy to deal with as well.I did enquire about Firebreak but I got a better deal with Misu Bond and the Danehill Dancer/Kahyasi cross works well and is current. Head over heart!

I wish you the best of luck.

I do have an interest in Firebreak, he is a horse I have followed closely from the beginning. I am vaguely familar with the family and in actual fact looked at Firebreak as a yearling ( and was in the ring when he made 525,000 at HIT). Speaking to Emma Balding, she said that the syndicate that owned him, Kennet Valley, were sorry to lose him but it was thier policy to sell 2yos. Some of them tried to form a seperate syndicate to buy him but they couldn't compete with the Maktoum buying power. There is a theory that says that Godolphin bought him so as not to be against him in his races as a 3yo. How true this is I don't know.Another point that isn't generally known is that he was the yardstick at Goldolphin for their top horses. He had (in Sam Bullards own words) a 'race every week at home. If the horse could beat or match Firebreak, it was in with a good chance.' All this and still competing at Gr 1 level on the track. But for Darley he had no end value as a stallion,(being by Charnwood Forrest) so he was easily pushed aside to make way for more 'commercial' horses even if he was better.

As far as I am aware the family is a straight correct family.I looked a a Librettist colt this year at the foal sale out of Firebreak's Fantastic Light half sister and he was a nice, if a bit small, strong and correct colt. I was not keen on the sire though so he had to be a no. But this is another horse I shall follow with interest. I have heard time and again what a lovely temprement Firebreak has. The Stud Groom who had him as a yearling told me the horse had never put a foot wrong and was the easiest to deal with.

I really do feel this horse has been so wrongly overlooked for all his good qualities, and hope he can prove people wrong with his 2yos next year. Bearstone seem to be a bit lax on promoting him, with no updated pictures of his progeny on thier site from his first foals last year. And in fact they have not updated the poor picture they use of him.There has been very little in the Racing Post sales features about him having a foal and yearling average more than 3x his advertised fee, and in fact last year his foal average was 4x his fee. (sales stats courtesy of RP website so any errors are theirs!) There was no mention of him in the Horse and Hound stallion issue. Even when he was racing and after his many Group wins, there was never a Tony Morris pedigree analysis despite him having a more unusual pedigree.Not even his breeder won the Small Breeder of the month award from the TBA despite , I believe, only having a few mares at the time. He is almost an invisble horse.Sometimes I almost feel like taking out a full page ad in the Racing Post myself for him. Though I must stress I have absoultley NO financial interest in this horse at all, just a bit of a fan. I wish I had a mare for him myself,but sadly none of mine are suitable for him. As I have said above I would have purchased the Bishop of Cashel mare just to send to him.

I really do wish you all the best of luck with your Firebreak progeny, if they are anything at all like their sire they will be tough, genuine, sound and fast!

Dear Mrs Slick,an incredibly detailed answer -brilliant.Mismanagement of their breeding stock is a common criticism levelled at Godolphin,so I am not surprised to hear you express it again.His career might have been better served had he stayed at Andrew Baldings.All that aside,I am delighted with our fellow,even more now after your hearing your comments.Lets hope he can get a nice two year old next year.PS I dont suppose you would know where I could see some of his races ?

I think a lot of GB races were deleted from Youtube over rights issue

Firebreaks HK Mile win is still on the HKJC website.....

http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/results.asp?racedate=12/12/2004&raceno=7&venue=ST

I was given a DVD of his performances when i first viewed him. I agree though Bearstone have not promoted him well.

Does anyone know which trainers have them for next year?

Some early entries now appearing for Firebreak inc two in the Brocklesby. Pat Eddery has a very nice colt, and one each for Kevin Ryan and Bryan Smart

Perverts

how are you dom?


atb

Shame you chose Firebreak YBFW.....doesnt suit your mare on any level...too many sons of stallions in the mating to be successful...and your mare already returns the strains that Firebreak has....just not going to be effective...hopefully produce a runner for you, but certainly nothing of note...but good luck

Benkers,
Firebreak was a fast,early,tough, sound and geniune racehorse. He is the best son of his well bred sire, who was by a useful influence of precosity and speed and out of a mare form a top producing family by a very good broodmare sire. Firebreak's dam was also early and a minor black type mare who has produced other minor black type horses from deciedely moderate coverrings.

He is a smallish,neat and correct good looking horse, who, from the stock I've seen gets nice correct,racy sorts.

YBFW's mare is I think by Fraam out of a Piccolo mare. With another cross to Warning, I **uld hope to increase my chance of an early fast 2yo. I can't believe that anyone would think that Fraam is such a high class broodmare sire that you are likely to breed a champion from a covering in the mares price bracket. I would think that some good wins and perhaps a black type placing would not be unexpected though.

All stallions are the sons of the same number of stallions, whether those are multiple champions or selling platers, so I don't really see your point, I will assume you have omitted some words in that sentance.

After all this I suppose YBFW could send his mare to the wildly commercial stallion you suggested in another thread Benkers. Perhaps First Trump is the son of the right number of stallions for you...................

To explain.....Magical Musics 2nd dam is by a SON of Warning in Piccolo...through the Firebreak mating, you are breeding back in a son of Warning in Charnwood Forest.

Magical Music herself is actually well bred in terms of structure, she has full brothers Alycidon and Acropolis....one through a son in Alcibiades and the other through a daughter...Fab, her 3rd dam. There are 3 daughter strains of Big Game.

Breeding daughter strains is not a bad thing, since they only carry the x chromosome, only passed on through daughters....something that cant be passed on by sons. But it doesnt tell the whole story.

There are lines in every pedigree that when reintroduced via other siblings enhance the pedigree. This mating to Firebreak doesnt do this.

But good luck with her anyway

Mr Barnes.It has been a long time.Agg. seems to have disappeared.Shame liked that horse.My own horse has been running well,despite several high profile jockeys not riding like high profile jockeys.Mrs Slick - glad to see you are still flying the flag for Firebreak.Our one has improved again over the winter.Absolutely nothing wrong with him.Like a lot of people on this thread,I am praying his two year olds perform well.Watched his win in HK - what a gutsey horse.

Benkers, There are no donkeys on my stud; so whilst I may at times get on my high horse, I will never get on my donkey, high or otherwise!

YBFW is breeding to sell, therefore his main consideration IMHO should be how commercial a mating is, not how many 'strains' or 'sons of stallions' there are. As with some adivice you gave on another thread, it may have been correct to the Nth degree re strains etc (I couldn't tell you as I did no research) the choice of First Trump was laughable form a commercial point of view.

The belief in, or doubts, over linebreeding/inbreeding/strains etc are largely personal and tend to be affected by past personal experience. Remember the old adage, 'if it works it's linebreeding, if it doesn't it's inbreeding' But your reasoning above is IMO slightly confused, either sons of stallions cannot be relied upon to pass on genes to a greater or lesser extent when appearing multiple times, in which case then it will have little effect on the progeny so wheres the harm; or it can be a benefit, and so where is the problem in trying? Breeding is a massive gamble anyway (even with a professors expertise in genetics) so why not try and create a nick? You mentioned on your previous post that 'if I knew anything about breeding, I would know about Domino and his impact' well I hold my hands up and confess I have no idea what you are talking about, but I like to think I know a little about breeding racehorses as I have bred many listed horses, several Group horses , a Classic placed horse, and a Group 1 winner. If you enlighten me about Domino then maybe I could breed a few more! BTW all of these were commercially bred with fashion first and foremost in my mind.

YBFW original point to me was that he wanted to use Firebreak but was put off by Warning already appearing on his mares page. I merely said that IMO this would be a benefit NOT a negative. I did not suggest Firebreak as the ideal stallion for his mare, but if he is looking for a cheap, fast precocious sire then he can't go too far wrong. Also unusually for a Warning line horse he is 100% straight and correct.

It would be a shame if this thread about a very tough and worthy horse got sidetracked by nit-picking and name calling.

well a few differing opinions. Me, i'm happy with my selection using my own methods and ideas.

Like the idea of the inbreeding to Warning as nick with Fraam works well so why not repeat?

Firebreak - 2 year group winner that continued winning at group level until retirement.

Form on differing surfaces, as my mares best results are all weather.

Firebreak won up to a mile again suiting my mares wining distances.

Fee value and market sales

I really liked the stallion when initially viewed for another mare.

Fraam as a broodmare seems to get gritty runners 13% winners to runner in 2008 with 57% wins to runners and good start to 2009. No big winner but only 54 runners last year according to RP. Lucky Leigh (Piccolo) 4th in Group 2, top performer.