Nicks That Click – The Start of Something?

Line breeding to two stallions from the same female family is something a lot of breeders tinker with and two winners on Tuesday highlight the possibilities of uniting the blood of these two well known sires.

Smart Missile has had a landslide of winners this season , but the two on Tuesday, two year-old gelding Evening Glory and three year-old filly Smart Decision are significant as they are from daughters of Northern Meteor.

Both bred by Gooree Stud, Smart Missile (Fastnet Rock) and Northern Meteor (Encosta de Lago) are closely related.

Smart Missile is from Comical Smile (USA), who is a daughter of Northern Meteor's dam Explosive (USA).

To date there are only six named foals line bred to these two sires, three of them have raced and now two are winners.

It's very early days for this breeding theory, but it won't be lost on pedigree students that Explosive traces directly back on her tail female line to Rough Shod, who is her third dam.

Rough Shod is the fourth dam of Sadlers's Wells and the third dam of Nureyev, two champion sons of Northern Dancer that have combined to great effect in the pedigrees of some 600 stakes-winners.

Among those 600 stakes-winners are champion racehorses and now leading young sires Dundeel and Pierro.

Another key family member of the Rough Shod stallion family is Fairy King, the sire of Encosta de Lago, who is turn the sire of Northern Meteor.

It is fact that some thoroughbred families consistently deliver superior results to others and endeavouring to duplicate those genes to create further success can be no bad thing.