Tell us which sale you're going to and what you're looking for. We analyse every pedigree and every family page in the catalogue, and send you a ranked shortlist of sprinters, milers, middle-distance horses and stayers — before you set foot on the sales ground.
Every buyer wants the same thing from a catalogue: which lots are bred to do what they want, and which families actually deliver. Finding out means reading hundreds of dam pages, cross-checking pedigrees and remembering which races are run over which trip. We do that reading for you.
A single book can run to hundreds of lots, each with three generations of family history in small print.
Catalogues name the races a family won, but not how far they were. Sprint family or stayer? You have to know every race by heart.
Classic dosage ignores today's stallions and every mare. On its own it can call a middle-distance family a sprinter.
Which sale you're going to, colts or fillies, the trip you want, and any lots already on your list. That's all we need.
Every pedigree and every family page in the catalogue — cross-checked, with the right horse found even when dozens share a name.
A report ranking every lot by trip and family class, the lots that fit your brief picked out, and the evidence behind every verdict. We're happy to talk it through.
Family evidence takes every black-type race won by the dam, her foals and the second and third dams' families, looks up its distance, and weighs closer relatives more heavily.
Dosage scores the influential stallions in four generations of the pedigree — the classic Roman–Miller method, calculated exactly as the leading pedigree databases publish it.
In a recent 470-lot yearling sale the two agreed on fewer than half the lots. Our reports show you both, and flag where they differ.
Sprinters, Milers, Middle Distance and Stayers — each ranked with the strongest families at the top.
"Gr.1 dam", "Listed family (2nd dam)" — plus the dam's winners-to-runners record and her best relatives.
The female-line family number for every lot, and a Families tab showing which families are strongest in the sale.
Dosage Profile, Index and Centre of Distribution — plus separate speed and stamina shares that flag mixed pedigrees.
Every race and its distance listed on one sheet, so you can see — and question — how each verdict was reached.
Every race behind every verdict is listed, so you can see exactly why a lot is called a sprinter.
Dosage estimates whether a pedigree leans towards speed or stamina by scoring the most influential stallions in the first four generations.
Only stallions on the chef-de-race list score. Their points go to their group, and add up to the Dosage Profile — for example, Frankel's is 5-2-23-15-1.
Speed points against stamina points. Around 1 is balanced; higher leans to speed.
A balance point from +2 (all speed) to −2 (all stamina).
Dosage has real blind spots, and taken alone it can badly misread a pedigree. Here's what goes wrong, and what we do about it.
See the six problems →We tested classic dosage on a full 470-lot yearling sale. It called a Gr.1 middle-distance family a sprinter, rated sprinter-stayer crosses as "balanced", and put most European pedigrees in the stayers' column. So we rebuilt around it.
Genetically, a foal takes its main DNA half from the sire and half from the dam. But the dam passes on things the sire never does: all of the foal's mitochondria — the energy factories in every muscle cell — and, to a colt, his only X chromosome. She carries the foal, feeds it and raises it.
Most importantly for a buyer, her record is evidence. A stallion has hundreds of foals, so his average tells you little about this one mating. A mare has a handful — and every one of them has run for the same family you're about to buy into.
That's why our analysis is built around the female line: what the dam, her foals and her family actually won, how far, and at what level.
Research into whether a mare's mitochondrial type affects racing ability is still mixed, so we don't score it. What we do score is her family's proven racing record.
Three stallions imported into England around 1700 — the Darley Arabian, the Byerley Turk and the Godolphin Arabian — founded the breed's male lines. On the female side, every thoroughbred traces its bottom line back to one of a few dozen foundation mares.
The Australian researcher traced classic winners' dams back to 43 foundation mares and numbered the families by how many classic winners each had produced. Families 44–50 and separate American and colonial families were added later.
The number is the family; the letter is a branch within it. Lowe's claim that some families were "running families" and others "sire families" hasn't stood up — which is why we measure each family by what it has actually won.
Mitochondrial DNA passes unchanged down the female line, so it can test the old records — and it found some horses don't match their recorded family. On the male side, the great majority of today's thoroughbreds trace back to the Darley Arabian.
Every report includes a Families tab: each female family in the catalogue, how many lots it has, how many come from Gr.1-producing dams, and which trip it leans to — measured on real results, not a 130-year-old theory.
Pedigree data is full of traps — dozens of horses called Frankel, countries recorded differently, races that change their names. Our analysis is built to catch them rather than guess.
The right horse, every time. A sire or dam is only accepted when its own sire matches the catalogue pedigree.
Arithmetic double-checked. Every pedigree's dosage is recalculated and compared with the published figure.
Gaps shown, never hidden. Anything we can't find or confirm is flagged in your report, not quietly guessed.
Tested on a real sale. In a 470-lot yearling sale every sire, dam, grandsire and damsire we read matched the official sale list.
Every brief is different, so we agree the scope and fee with you before we start. Get in touch and tell us about your sale.
Every lot in the catalogue ranked by trip and family class, with the full evidence.
Tell us what you're looking for. We pick out the lots that fit, explain why, and talk you through them.
Talk to usReports and shortlists for every sale you attend, all season.
No. We tell you what the pedigree and family point towards — trip and class of family — so you can focus your inspections. Conformation, the horse in front of you and your own judgement still decide.
Our method has been built and tested on a major UK yearling sale. Tell us the sales you're going to and we'll confirm we can cover them.
Once the catalogue is published — in time for your inspections. Tell us your sale when you book.
Just the sale you're going to and what you're looking for. Your report comes as an Excel file you can sort and filter, with your shortlist on top.
Tell us which sale and what you're after, and we'll take it from there.