My posts of May 26 and June 4, regarding birth order in relation to performance, prompted one reader to recall an article published several years ago about Thorougbred birth order.
As he remembers, the findings indicated that “the fourth foal of an 11-year-old dam were the most robust and most promising candidates for performance.”
Along those lines, another reader wondered which dams of NCHA Futurity Open champions were themselves money earners and which ones were the best (money earning) producers. I was curious, too, so the results are listed below:
24 of the 44 dams (information not available for the dam of Rey Jay’s Pete and Poco Lena produced two Futurity winners) were money earners with three of them ranked among the Top 100 all-time cutting money earners:
- Playboys Madera – $570,819 – dam of Playboy McCrae, 1996 champion
- Royal Blue Boon – $381,763 – dam of Peptoboonsmal, 1995 champion
- CD Chica San Badger – $279,038 – dam of CD Olena, 1994 champion
12 of the 44 dams are ranked among the Top 100 all-time cutting producers (through 2005), with earnings of more than $425,000, including 5 among the Top 10. Royal Blue Boon (pictured with owner Elaine Hall) tops the list of 100:
- Royal Blue Boon – $2,609,608 – dam of Peptoboonsmal, 1995 champion
- Jazabell Quixote – $1,239,452 – dam of July Jazz, 1989 champion
- Lynx Melody – $1,191,951 – dam of Shania Cee, 1999 champion
- Smart Peppy – $1,153,762 – dam of Smart Little Lena, 1982 champion
- The Smart Look – $1,055,191- dam of One Smart Lookin Cat, 2003 champion