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[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

IDK if Secretariat sired any "great" horses (that's obviously a debate), but he sired a horse of the year and certainly one of the best racemares of the 1980's, Lady's Secret, and sired Risen Star, who was one hell of a 3 year old and who might have even won the TC with some better luck and a better post position in the Derby. He did sire General Assembly, who was a very nice horse, as you noted. Terlingua was another really nice one from the same era as General Assembly. And he excelled as a sire of broodmares, although the specifics of this would probably be best left to one of our breeding experts such as Spalding No!

That said, you are absolutely right that there's considerable guesswork in the breeding industry. A very nice example of that was Citation, who really was one of the greatest American racehorses of the 20th Century (in fact, if he hadn't run into another top horse, Noor, as a 5 year old, he might be recognized as the GOAT), and who was absolutely royally bred (Bull Lea from a Hyperion mare; in the 1940's, it didn't get any better than that), but was never the sire his owners at Calumet Farm hoped him to be.

And meanwhile there are other horses like Cee's Tizzy who weren't thought of as anything when they started their stud career and turned out to be wonderful sires. You never know for sure.

War Emblem. The poster boy for “retired means retired”