by Floyd Amphlett
As editor of the Star, I am required to have a reasonable understanding of many different facets of this sport: race form, politics, betting, current affairs, history, etc etc.
But first and foremost my favourite subject is, and has always been, breeding.
It began in the early 1970s with notes made in requisitioned school exercise books.
Why do certain stud dogs have so many winners? Why is that litter so good?
That led to studying results and bloodlines from before I was born. So many authors to learn from!
There were always new patterns and trends to be uncovered. Secrets to uncover. Myths to disprove.
In the years since, I have picked the brains of some of the greatest breeders from all over the world. I have met nearly all my heroes, the bulk of whom are no longer with us.
From the earliest days I soaked up as much knowledge and information as I could.
Encouraged by the benevolent editor Alan Lennox, I started writing about breeding for Greyhound Magazine in the early 1980s. So many interviews with people who knew so much more than me. So much kindness and willingness to share.
That led to a Sporting Life breeding column, then the Sporting Press and I published In The Blood in 1992. That was followed many years later with a tribute to the greatest of them all, Savva.
I will never write another book on breeding but I still get asked for advice. The questions are often similar but the answers are often complex and I feel an obligation to share thoughts as others have shared with me.
So I decided to put some of the answers into this feature.
I don’t know how many topics will be tackled in the coming weeks. There will inevitably be cross-over between the subjects.
When everything that I want to say has been said – that’s me done!
Two final points.
1) Not a single thought in any of these articles is original. They have all been borrowed, stolen, refined, combined and regurgitated.
2) Remember – there is no such thing as a breeding ‘expert’. Experts expect to get it right. In breeding, we are all merely students . . . and that education is open ended.
Breeding is not an exact science, but nor is it random
Studying breeding is a fascination for people with a certain type of mentality. Curiosity, disciplined study, an ability to make good judgement calls and attention to detail all make for a good breeding student. But just when you think you have it cracked, Mother Nature can always throw in a curved ball. It’s just another lesson.
There is no such thing as a breeding certainty. But there are definitely unwritten rules to follow. There are clues and indicators if you know what you are looking for and they will hold you in good stead.
Perhaps the best analogy, is to consider it similar to race betting.
Odds-on chances get beat every day of the week, but they still win more often than outsiders. A good breeding student is someone who can distinguish between a 4/6 chance from a 20/1 outsider.
Rearing v bloodlines
When I wrote In The Blood, I split this subject into three sections and included ‘feeding’
Feeding is a fundamental but might easily come under the umbrella of ‘rearing’
When I first started learning, it became obvious that certain rearers seldom produced good pups and when they did, they were prone to injury.
I still recall being told about a particular ‘cut price’ Irish rearer who was randomly visited by the English owner who discovered his pups were being fed potato peelings.
(And yes – there were tales of failed pups going into the mincer. True or folklore, I don’t know)
I do recall a bygone era though where a cow who had died during calving and seeing a litter scavenging the carcass .
Certainly modern all-in-one feeds (an EU regulations) mean those days are long since gone.
The problem in comparing the relative importance of rearing set against bloodlines might seem obvious.
Are the pups so good because of how they are reared, or how they are bred?
But think it through – if you haven’t already – and the answer is obvious.
Imagine a breeder like Nick Savva. All his pups would have been reared meticulously in the same way.
So the rearing was a constant. Were all his litters top class? No.
It was virtually unknown for pups not to chase and the vast majority were of a decent standard. Very few pups were less than top heat, over dozens of litters.
But why wasn’t there is Westmead Hawk in every litter if his rearing was so good? A litter containing five Category One winners might be reared in a paddock alongside a litter who ran A1/S2 at Walthamstow?
But rearing is absolutely relevant, no matter how well bred the pups are.
For example, I was always a huge fan of the late great Northern Irish breeder, Dessie Loughrey.
I can recall umpteen occasions, while researching the history the history of a big race winner, whereby the litter was bred ‘down country’ but the rearing trail led to Limavady.
Dessie had bought in a couple of the pups (there was no obvious prefix linking him to the pups) but the rest of the litter failed to make anything of note.
It happened time and time again.
So when I am asked, ‘should I breed with this bitch?’, the answer always comes in two parts. Even if it is a ‘yes’ . . . the rider will always be, ‘but unless you get your pups properly reared, you might as well burn your money now.’
Don’t overthink bloodlines
In my view, there is often too much emphasis made of bloodlines – or there is the potential to get carried away with them.
In the first instance, I have no doubt that many of the bloodlines in the not too distant past are completely bogus. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s you might have found the Australian Stud Book in the ‘fiction’ section of the library.
Certain stud keepers were exposed and warned off having deliberately falsified the parents of hundreds of litters. There were rumours of ‘false litter accounting’ by many more. Think of how complicated it becomes when even the sire’s own parents were incorrect.
It happened a lot in Ireland too. A benevolent stud keeper might agree to sign off a mating to his best, but indisposed stud dog, when the bitch was mated to a second or third string. That way the breeder got top dollar for the litter.
(Not claiming any moral high ground for British breeders here, but since the vast majority only bred for themselves, and didn’t sell on as pups, there was no benefit to fiddling the paperwork.)
There were also countless tales of litters being swapped or intermingled.
I recall one particularly famous bitch whose pups were all lost at birth. But “her” expensive litter was still registered. (No wonder she was considered a failure as a brood).
But beyond that, in my view, there is too much pseudoscience associated with bloodlines.
Yes, it can be relevant when a particularly strong line is slightly in-bred. For years the Aussies’ whole breeding format was based on a 2 x 3 cross.
Most commonly, the paternal great grandsire, the top dog in the ‘line of eight’ in the pedigree, was also the sire of the dam. The third greyhound from the top in the ‘line of four’.
It can work to great effect if the bloodlines are good enough.
Where we have a problem is some obscure link “we’ve got a three by four cross of Roanokee which is the same as in so-and-so who won the Derby, blah blah”
Coincidence! Looking for an entirely random connection.
Pick the lowliest grade of the week at the worst track in the country, check out who finished last, and I guarantee that with minimal detective work, you can find a decent hound related to either the dam or the grand dam.
Remember, the litter sisters of the greatest broods share their bloodlines. Why didn’t they all produce to similar standard? After all, they would all have the advantage of that ‘magical’ nick.
But very few ever delivered.
The breeding of the parents is (potentially) massively important but it declines exponentially with every passing generation.
Busiest Irish sires 2023 (litters): Ballymac Cashout – 122, Ballyhimikin Jet – 109, Grangeview Ten – 97, Coolavanny Hoffa – 96, Malachi – 90, Ballymac Bolger – 74.
A total of 140 litters were registered for 2023. The deadline for registering was March 31 though later litters can still be registered at the discrection of the Keeper of the Stud Book (Liz Mort).
That equates to 887 pups (423d 464b) or 6.4 pups per litter.
Even allowing for new registrations, this sets a new low for British bred hounds, down from 168 in 2022. In 2013, the figure was 295. Back in 2003 the figure was 788.
British based sires: Brookside Richie – Coolavanny Shado
