THIRTY years ago a Brisbane-based greyhound fanatic by the name of Alan Capper produced some fascinating statistics about the breeding of greyhounds.

Alan, you see, is uniquely placed to be able to dissect greyhound racing because he has been keeping records of city winners throughout Australia since the early 1960s.

Thirty years ago he went looking for a recipe for success, just what was needed to produce that elusive city winner.

By "city winner" I mean those dogs that win at The Meadows and Wentworth Park on a Saturday night, Sandown, Albion Park and Angle Park on a Thursday night and Cannington on a Saturday night.

It is the elite of racers.

Thirty years ago, Capper used his statistics to find a fascinating insight into what makes a city winner.

This is what he found.

Putting any broodbitch to any sire, Capper's statistics showed, would produce ONE city winner from 27 pups.
Putting a non-city winner to a TOP sire would produce ONE city winner in 27 pups.

Putting a city winning broodbitch to any sire would produce ONE city winner in 18 pups.

Mating a city winning bitch to a TOP sire would reduce your odds to ONE city winner in every seven pups.

But Capper found if that city winning broodbitch had a mother who had won a feature race, or had produced a feature race winner, and the city winner was put to a TOP sire, the odds greatly reduced.

This mating could be expected to produce ONE city winner from every four pups produced.
Thirty years later, and now with thousands and thousands of results to call upon, Capper says the statistics have not changed one bit.
If your aim is to produce a city winner, then if you breed with a bitch that herself won on a city track and she had a mother that was either a quality race bitch or producer, then chances are she could produce (on average) two city winners in a litter of eight pups.

While Alan's figures have been out in the greyhound world for some time now, and have been ridiculed by all those greyhound breeders who do not have city winning broodbitches to breed with, the stats stand firm.

Obviously every bitch has to be taken on her merits.

There are exceptions to every rule.

During last week, an email came through to my home from Alan Capper.

He was in statistics mode once again and had produced a chronicle of the really great broodbitches that had graced Australia's greyhound world.

Remember, these bitches are based on stats kept by Alan since 1960.

Asked to name the best producer of quality greyhounds since 1960, Alan says his stats showed Travelling Girl (Tegimi-Freckled Pick) that legend producer for Dennis Reid on the Northern Rivers of NSW, is the best.

Dennis Reid and I have been friends for 30 years. There is no more astute dog man. His son Mathew has a gift as well.

Travelling Girl NEVER won a city race.

Well, I can hear you all saying, the best producer of feature race winners in Australia since 1960 NEVER won a city race. Doesn't that defeat Alan's argument?

As I said earlier, there are exceptions to every rule, but Travelling Girl was no exception.

Travelling Girl was a litter sister to Kenthurst Kate who was a sensational stayer winning the Gabba Gold Cup.

But when that pair was broken in, it was Travelling Girl who showed the most potential.

At the first trial Travelling Girl was given after breaking in, she smashed the track record at Lismore. At her second trial she smashed a wrist.

From then on, Travelling Girl was unable to handle bends. She won a half a dozen races up the straight.

She was always going to be a broodbitch for Dennis Reid and his family and that she became.

(Kenthurst Kate would eventually producd Association Cup and Gabba Gold Cup winner Clover Park a bitch Dennis Reid would refuse to breed with when she retired because of her poor nature.)

Travelling Girl's pedigree shows 4x3 line breeding to Venetian Babe and her half brother High Louvre. She was also sex balanced to the import Which Chariot.

But more importantly than any of that was the fact her sire Tegimi was out of a bitch called Viola Lee (Tivoli Chief-Temora Lee) which made her a sister to legend Temlee.

Viola Lee was perfectly positioned in the pedigree of Travelling Girl to be able to impact immensely with any stud dog she mated.

She only had to cross with Temlee somewhere in the pedigree of those stud dogs and a genetic explosion was waiting to happen.

Dennis Reid always lamented putting Travelling Girl to Acacia Park. The litter was an absolute dud.

Acacia Park had NO Temlee in his pedigree. When Travelling Girl was mated to Brother Fox and Pretty Short, both with LOTS of Temlee, she produced star after star after star.

This is the damline today of Lochinvar Marlow and his full brother Godsend.

Byam Rose (Byamee-Enabek), according to Capper, is next best on the all time top feature race winning dams.

The Victorian bitch was intensely line bred 3x2 to Lassalla and her litter brother Percyton Lad both racetrack and breeding legends from the 1940s.

There was no doubt with such intense in-breeding to sister and brother that Byam Rose had to have inherited the best of both their genes.

Rowan Vale, second dam of champion sprinter and sire New Tears, is heavily in-bred to Byam Rose.

Tegimi, while a moderate stud success, also produced champion stayer Bay Road Queen who also became a legend at stud.

Of the latter day broodbitch stars, Capper says Gold Rush Bale (Lansley Bale-Jindara Bale) is a goldmine for the Wheeler family.

Oddly, says Capper, she does not stem from the famous Gail's Beauty damline that has been the mainstay of the Wheeler family juggernaut for decades.

But Gold Rush Bale's fifth dam Namor Star (Roman Earl-Glendale Star) is bred identically to Gail's Beauty.

Both carry intense line breeding to Brenda Gay. In Namor Star's case it is through Brenda's Daughter and her litter brother Top Linen.

If you look at the pedigree of legend Temlee, you will see that he carries intense line breeding to none other than Top Linen and Brenda's Daughter.

So tell me, would you think Temlee and Namor Star would be a pretty good mix within pedigrees?

Yes, I do too!

Other broodbitch legends include Elsie Moss, Winsome Blue, Tenthill Flyer, Fullock, Supreme Dot and Britmarc.

Youd have been all over the breeders generations before, telling them not to breed with such skunks. No chance in hell Travelling Girl and Kenthurst Kate would have seen the light of day, had youd been in ears shot! And worse still, they listened to you!

Sure, I like to see some ability close enough. But, Ill take putting the right pedigree together to give me the best chance over any statistics. Theres an absolute creativity to getting a mating right, that statistics will never show.

Note . He didnt just rely on a quality race Bitch to do the job ! He also picked , assumed or guessed , call it what u like ! Hes mentioned a few sires and dams that were a must in the stud dogs being used as when they werent , they were duds !

Looks like he also likes to have the right ingredients in place based on a calculating formula , not really just throwing it all up in the air and saying shell be right !

Thanks for the post

Thus deemed by Dennis Reid as worth breeding with. I am sure there would have been a legless sister that he didn't bother with.

Whilst not as prolific as Dennis, Wayne Thomsons bitch All Fired Up, the dam of Zinzan Brooke, Judicial Man, Saldana and others was the 2nd fastest pup to ever break in at Postmans Ridge but she damaged a wrist as well and only was able to go up the straight. Thats why Wayne bred from her.

I think that is the point being pushed here.

We don't really know if Temora Lee wasn't injuted esrly on or suffered an accident that spooked her or was a trial track wizard but wouldn't do the same in a field.

Tivoli Chief is a stud dog who obviously had talent and like all stud dogs, they don't go to stud unless they have obvious race talent.

Whether breeders use them or not in the initial stages is irrelevant as most breeders mainly choose stud dogs to sell pups.

If those early sires produce, they become the flavor of the month. Rightly or wrongly, that's how it's always been, and history will keep repeating itself.

It still relates to a combination of talent, the passage of the right traits and genes through the female and the overall pedigree matching, that is before they are born, then there is the handling and education and training that goes in afterwards.

And a good slice of luck in every stage of the process

From what I found TEMLEE is basically a gift from the heavens. They wanted champion stud dog Worthing - not a bar of an unwanted 7yo stud, that had never been to stud before. Tivoli Chief himself, shows why non-commercial sires could be goldmines waiting to happen and of course history time and again, has shown that to be true - Gun Law Osti etc. Imagine if greyhound forums had been around in the Tivoli Chief - Temora Lee days! And Paul Dicks and no doubt plenty more let loose on them.

-

Now the task Marino set himself trying to promote a seven-year-old dog who had never before been to stud, virtually unknown to Victorians and now standing for a $40 service fee, was a mammoth one.
"I got a few bitches, but everyone kept coming to Worthing and Clay Moss which was to be expected because they were the top sires in Victoria at the time," he said. "I remember Barry Bailey coming down with Temora Lee to have her mated with Worthing. She was a nice type of bitch by Mister Moss from Venetian Babe and had been bred by Tony Duke. Tom Davidson paid $800 for her as a pup. Her dam was a litter sister to Venetian Court a great sire in Victoria.
"Tom died and Temora Lee was given to Bailey to breed with. Anyway, Bailey wanted to put Temora Lee to Worthing but when the dog was brought out to mate the bitch he would have nothing to do with her. I suggested they use Tivoli Chief but Barry didn't want him. So I had to convince him.

I remember reading that Princess Diro may have been not the most motivated chaser

PRINCESS DIRO & GLEN AUSSIE

I promised that when I got the behind the scenes story on Princess Diro I would put it on here.
Here it is. It will appear in the March edition of the Qld Greyhound Journal.
It is in a couple of parts.
JOHN Kennedy is a country Victorian car salesman, has been for most of his life.
One of his cheapest sales was a 12-month-old black greyhound bitch that has become a household name in pedigrees in this country.
It was Princess Diro (Black Diro-Glen Aussie) who Kennedy bred and hoped to race himself.
I was in my early 20s and just into greyhound racing, said John, now 62. My dad was a punter and I wanted to get into dogs. I headed down to Ararat to see Fred Homberg who was breeding a lot of dogs at the time.
He had a litter by Nulla View-Bandalla for sale and I bought a bitch, paid $250 for her. She was the first dog I owned.
Bandalla had been a top class stayer.
Named Glen Aussie, the bitch was given to Max Tisdall to train. Glen Aussie had two race starts for Max, running fourth in a maiden at Sale (on the old track) and then a fifth at Traralgon.
I was going into hospital at the time so I suggested John take her back, said Tisdall of Glen Aussie.
He remembers Glen Aussie as being a beautiful bitch, great nature but only a plodder.
But I never really got to find out, said Max. She was only young when I had her and I could only give her those two race starts.
John Kennedy took Glen Aussie home and she came on season not long after. Fred Booth was standing Black Diro at the time at Cranbourne and I decided to put Glen Aussie to him, he said.
Glen Aussies entire litter was sold by Kennedy with the exception of a black bitch John kept for himself and reared to 12 months. He said he did not even follow the deeds of the rest of the litter.
He reared Princess Diro in his back yard and remembers her, and her mother, as being extremely docile.
I had sold a car along the way to Robert Lynch and we got to talking about dogs one day and I said I had this black bitch pup at home, he said. Lynch came and had a look at her and asked if he could buy a half share in her for $50.
Kennedy agreed.
I was to get half of anything she won over $100.
Princess Diro, according to Kennedy, was no world beater. But she won a qually at Warragul and another at Sale and then won three races.
She was just a provincial dog.
Princess Diro was just two and a half when she whelped a litter of pups to Second Stage that would include the mighty Bowetzel.
I had dogs with Peter Giles by this time, said John. Lynch had sold all the pups from Princess Diros litter but I got one and another from her second litter.
Glen Aussie, in the meantime, produced a second litter, this time by Giles former smart Melbourne stayer Darcay.
She had six pups in the litter and five of them won including a dog called Darla Gold who won 25 races, said John. I had kept him for myself but eventually sold him to a friend.
Id sold the other five from the litter to Noel Rodda for $100 in total. Rodda had raced Alpine Emblem the litter brother to Bowetzel.
John Kennedy is still racing greyhounds today and owns Petite Mamselle (Carlisle Jack-Hollys Deb) a high class stayer in WA and a National Distance finalist. One of the in-breedings in Petite Mamselles pedigree is to Bowetzel.

XXXXX

EVEN to this day, Robert Dore (or Bobby as he likes to be called), scratches his head when he sees the name Princess Diro among the pedigrees of the rich and famous in greyhound racing.
Bobby helped start the Traralgon track in Victoria. He was the clubs initial vice-president and hes been breeding and racing great greyhounds for many decades.
Now retired, he was a hairdresser in Traralgon for much of his life. Around the 1970s one of his customers was Robert Lynch.
He was a good few years older than me and I had known him for some time, said Bobby of Lynch.
Hed been a cyclist in his younger days but in the 70s decided to get a couple of greyhounds.
One would be a Black Diro-Glen Aussie bitch he would call Princess Diro. No one would have guessed when Princess Diro was among the also-rans in Grade 5 distance events around Traralgon and Sale that she would become a broodbitch legend.
Her dynasty is so dominant today it is impossible to imagine greyhound racing without her impact.
Bobby Dore remembers Princess Diro well.
She had a near side wrist problem that affected the way she walked, he said.
Dore reasons that could have been behind her moderate racetrack performances, but can never be sure. She was not a bitch you took a great deal of notice of, he said.
Bobby reckons Lynch could do what some people might think as strange things when it came to training Princess Diro.
I remember he trialled her over the distance after the last race at Traralgon one night and argued with us that the clock was wrong. He thought she had gone better than the time shown, said Bobby.
So the next morning, around 6.30, Im told he took her to a trial track at Moe and she went around again.
But Lynch got Princess Diro to win three races, a 500m and 730m at Traralgon and a 622m at Sale. She had plenty of racing, mostly over long distances.
Dore even has a race book for April 15, 1976 when Princess Diro was engaged in a 730m Grade 5 at Traralgon. Her form read:
7th Traralgon 20-1 beaten 12 lengths
6th Traralgon 15-1 beaten 15.5 lengths
8th Sale 20-1 beaten 15 lengths
7th Traralgon 20-1 beaten 23 lengths
7th Sale 20-1 beaten 17 lengths
Hardly the stuff of champions and hardly what you would call broodbitch material, but by then Princess Diro had already produced a litter of pups to Second Stage.
Robert Lynch had approached Bobby Dore to take Princess Diro as a broodbitch. Dore declined.
I had some outstanding race bitches at the time, like Noteworthy, and was content with them, said Bobby. But Robert put Princess Diro to Second Stage because I was putting a couple of my bitches to him at the same time.
Dore even has a greyhound sale catalogue from June 22, 1975 at the Dandenong Selling Complex which has some of the pups by Second Stage-Princess Diro included.
I remember Kevin Dagg who was running the sale was a bit short on entries so I suggested he give Lynch a ring and from that he got three of that litter, including two dogs, said Bobby.
The two dogs from Princess Diro were sold for $250 and $200 and they turned out to be Bowetzel and Alpine Emblem. Im not sure which pup was sold for what.
Alpine Emblem went on to be a multiple city winner, but Bowetzel became the superstar sprinter of his time winning the Champion of Champions Sprint at the Gabba among a host of top class performances.
Not long after that Bobby Dore headed to the US to live but has been back home for the past eight years and amazingly is now breeding with bitches that trace directly to Princess Diro.
With the success of Bowetzel, Lynch had a broodbitch goldmine on his hands.
He approached then leading studmaster and trainer Kevin Richards to take Princess Diro for her breeding career.
We got her after she had produced Bowetzel and she lived with my family until she died as a 13-year-old, said Richards. In fact, she became the pet of my eldest daughter Jemima.
Richards describes Princess Diro as a lovely big black bitch. She had raced at 29kgs during her career.
She had a great life with us at Blue Gums, he said.
For Richards, Princess Diro had litters to Lively Band in 1978, Satans Legend in 1979 and Tangaloa in 1980 and again in 1981. Her litter to Second Stage that produced Bowetzel was whelped in 1974 and Princess Diro came back to racing after that.

Gauging by you, itd be for sure breed with Heres Hayley, just dont breed with her mum or grandma. Yep thatll work.

So, looking at Travelling Girls pedigree. You condone breeding a brood to an imported fighter (Lively Band)? Y / N?

Also, you recommend breeders put their broods to a second tier (grader) and imported stayer (Which Chariot)? Y / N?

Interestingly, within the Quarter Horse industry , they are a number of very expensive actual clones of some of the best performance and breeding horses of all time, and even though the genetics are EXACTLY the same, generally these horses have not produced anything like what the original horse did - evidence that the individual animal's mind set, ability, conformation, temperament, environment,etc etc must come into the mix when selecting a high level breeding animal.
Purely doing a cross because a pedigree looks perfect on paper and certain animals are in the "right positions" in a pedigree, and percentages are "right", seems to me to be the hardest way to consistently breed top performers?
Just my opinion. :-)

But, youre absolutely correct, just banging on about something on paper, is dreamtime stuff. The best lessons learnt are through ones very own hip pocket! Thats the only way of truly getting it right. Not just once mind you, a number of times over!

The nature over nurture discussion is a fantastic subject, that you've bought up. My old mate always said. "There haven't been a few ordinary dogs made great by good rearing, but thee's been thousands of great pups ruined by bad rearing."

Will the current dog have some genes from an ancestor a few generations back? Probably. Will it have genes that affect racing ability? Maybe. The further back the less chance. As I said elsewhere, this is why 'hands on' is best, so you can (possibly) see the traits you're after in the parents.

To give yourself the BEST chance of breeding good dogs you have to start with the best performed brood you can get your hands on. If you can't get a well performed brood, next best is to get one who's surrounded by class, ie, parents and siblings, because your brood will have some of their genes.

Only then should you be considering pedigree. But you know that.

Absolutely!
I agree Darren - its a set of criteria that is not a golden rule. There are exceptions - BRILLIANT dams that appear not to be able to run out of sight on a dark night and/or have no race record or a very ordinary one. BUT they are the exception - and there must have been SOMETHING that made bitches like Princess Diro such breed shapers. Someone must have seen something to justify breeding them?
I wonder why Princess Diro and her dam Glen Aussie were such poor performers? Did they have speed but was not super committed to chasing, did they have an injury that stopped them trying hard? Ordinary box manners? If they were born now, with the rearing, training techniques, nutrition, vets, rehab.... would they have been city class? Who knows?
I have certainly incorporated bitches in my program that never raced at all, I saw enough on the trial track to know they were worthy of a litter (and to be honest a good brood will earn you more with good pups than what she might earn on the track)or knew their injuries or that they had been fought with or fell but anyone just looking the bitch up could certainly ask "why would you breed with that bitch, she's not a city winner, she never even won a race!"
I would never say you should ONLY ever breed from city class bitches - there are too many good dogs to negate that theory- BUT there are many, many, many more dogs that have shown this is the least risky way of trying to breed those good dogs.
As we all know, racing greyhounds is a numbers game and SO many elements can influence ANY dog and its ability on the track. No dogs are brought up EXACTLY the same, different things happen to different dogs even from the same litter, on the same rearing farm, with the same breaker, with the same trainer......
Choosing a breeding and getting those pups on the ground is clearly a very important part, but only a small part of the big picture and its a picture that requires a LOT of good luck, a passion for the dogs, patience, hard work, trial and error, knowledge, experience, patience, a deep hip pocket and, did I say, patience? :-) .

These breeders shouldnt be discouraged from breeding. Look at Amron Boys dam Fernando Bale over all the great imports to have come to this country. From a champion Irish dam line. Genetically on paper, she was well worth a try! And I comeback to regulatory body controls. Along with self regulation when it comes to lesser broods. Remember two of the greatest breed-shapers have come from this category - Temlee and Princess Diro.

Yes, hands on is the best - why I have a great team behind me in every aspect after I put my matings together. Just like a lot of people organisations success in all walks of life its a team effort. However, the buck always stops with the one creating and funding it all. Again, the latter is the best leveller and way to learn if youre on to something or not. Easy to burn a hole in your pocket, if you dont get it right.

I know the breeder of Amron Boy is on these forums. Would love to know what exactly made him contact the owner and try and get Miami Fernando. From what I read she was headed to GAP. Until the breeder of Amron Boy contacted the original owner and took her on.

What I can see, as mentioned above. Not entirely legless, but Fernando Bale over all the great imports to this country and from a champion dam line. Would have been fun finding a sire for her.