Hat Trick

We have recently made some changes in how our nick rating system treats stallions in descent of Sunday Silence, and, because Walmac International stands his son Hat Trick, I want to let you know how this will affect his nick ratings.

Our nick rating system gets input from a sire-line analysis that is crucial to the accuracy of the system. Among other things, it prevents a mare from, say, Mr. Prospector line from getting a nick rating based on her descent from Raise a Native. Years ago Mr. Prospector emerged as a distinct sire line, both in terms of the number of stakes winners that represented him and in terms of his distinctiveness from other branches of Raise a Native. So, at that point we included in our system a sire-line input that prevented Mr. Prospector-line mares from being treated as Raise a Native-line mares.

Within the last year or so, we established a similar sire-line input on behalf of Sunday Silence. At the time, compelling arguments could be made for doing that, based on his performance in Japan. However, having monitored the ratings for Hat Trick, we have since realized that we overlooked an even more compelling argument. Because most of his opportunity has occurred in Japan, Hong Kong and Australasia, and because opportunity there differs so markedly from the opportunity Hat Trick and others are going to get in North America, we concluded that nick ratings for Hat Trick would be more accurate without that new sire-line input. Therefore, we have removed it from our system.

This means that nicks for Hat Trick may go back as far as Halo as a basis for a nick rating, rather than being limited to assessment on the basis of descendents of Sunday Silence. In fact, it is possible that those ratings that go back to Halo will be even more accurate for North American breeders than the ones that are based on Sunday Silence. Most importantly, this change will provide breeders who use our system with a much more useful range of consideration with respect to Hat Trick. We would encourage breeders who have considered Hat Trick in the past to have another look in the light of the broader perspective represented by this change in our approach to his nick ratings. In many cases, they will find new grounds for an interest in Hat Trick.

Kind regards,

Jack Werk
Werk Thoroughbred Consultants
3315 Seldon Ct., Fremont CA 94539
P.O. Box 1926, Fremont CA 94538 (mailing address)
(510) 490-1111 - (510) 490-4499 (fax)