Let BRIS Broodmare Produce Report #255 help with your pedigree research

Brisnet.com offers many helpful pedigree products, and the one we'd like to highlight today is #255 -- the Broodmare Produce Report that lists all progeny with start-by-start records. Simply enter the mare and a beginning activity date.

This tool is especially useful because of the degree of detail about the mare's offspring. Aside from just listing career records, stakes credits (if any) and earnings, the performance lines identify the foals' racing characteristics -- sprinters or routers, mud specialists, turf aficionados. Moreover, their relative merits can be assessed by the BRIS Speed and Class ratings for each start. With such a wealth of data available in a single product, you may notice patterns of development among a mare's offspring.

For a case study, let's look at the 255 for Broodmare of the Year Oatsee. The complete product is available here, but we'll snip a few illustrative excerpts.

The mare's 2-cross pedigree appears at the top, along with her lifetime mark (and a separate category for turf), earnings and SSI (Standard Starts Index). The SSI is "a numerical index based on average earnings per start of a runner in North America." The average is represented by 1.00, so Oatsee's SSI of 1.97 means that she earned almost twice the national average in each start. More detail on the SSI can be found at this link.

As we can see from Oatsee's first runner, Grand Portege, the owner and trainer are listed for each foal. Note that Grand Portege posted her top Speed (SR) and Class (CL) rating as a four-year-old.

Oatsee's second runner, Baghdaria, was a multiple Grade 3 winner with a healthy SSI of 14.57. Her top SR also came at four, albeit in defeat.

Oatsee's third runner, Grade 1 victress Lady Joanne, amassed nearly $1 million in earnings and registered a lofty 29.09 SSI. Observe that her best Speed ratings came in the second half of her sophomore, and final, season of racing.

Skipping ahead to Oatsee's fifth runner, Afleeting Lady, and we see a Grade 2 heroine who peaked at five.

Next came Oatsee's best runner, $3 million-earner Shackleford, flaunting an SSI of 48.83. Although the star of the 2011 Preakness was obviously a top three-year-old, he maintained his high level of form at four, and recorded his top Speed rating in the 2012 Met Mile.

Fast forward again to Oatsee's current sophomore, Play Pretty, who broke her maiden routing at Laurel. If the family tradition holds, the Graham Motion trainee should improve with maturity. And although she's by a speed influence in Indian Charlie, her half-siblings Lady Joanne (by Orientate) and Shackleford (by Forestry) both stayed much farther than their sires, underscoring that Oatsee is imparting stamina.

As you can see, the Brisnet.com Product #255 is a valuable resource for pedigree research -- particularly at this time of year when we're scouting out Kentucky Derby hopefuls.