Tags
apex ratings, bill oppenheim, david miller, john sparkman, nicking, opportunity in statistics, pedigree controversy, sid fernando, thoroughbred daily news, werk nick ratings, werk thoroughbred consultants
Even with the sale of a seven-figure mare at the Keeneland January sale, the real heat on the internet has been generated by the ongoing controversy between rival camps of pedigree specialists in the nicking business.
It began over an interesting and seemingly harmless article by Bill Oppenheim in the Thoroughbred Daily News a week ago. Oppenheim wrote about inbreeding to Northern Dancer as part of the piece and noted that his APEX ratings system and database didn’t take into account “opportunity” (the proportion of successful horses bred on a cross compared to all horses bred on that cross).
Not surprising and no big deal, really, because most mating approaches, when used with a large enough population, will show results that are either at par or below par with regard to their “opportunity.”
But the even-handed and candid manner of evaluating the pedigree data caught the attention of Enicks founder and matings guru Jack Werk. He latched onto Oppenheim’s comments, noting in a post (here) that this was also the same general approach he used to develop the Werk Nick Ratings and other pedigree evaluation tools he and associate Roger Lyons use in the operation of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants.
Although this post drew the attention of pedigree commentators like Sid Fernando, John Sparkman, and me, this acclamation in print would have passed into cyberspace with little fanfare, except that it got under the skin of Alan Porter and Byron Rogers, who cloned the Enicks business model to produce the rival nicking company TrueNicks in partnership with The Blood-Horse.
Perchance Porter and Rogers thought Oppenheim and Werk were ganging up on them because the TrueNick-ers fired back with an incendiary pair of posts against the method used by Oppenheim and Werk. (Read them here and here.)
And then the fireworks started.
Roger Lyons wrote a post addressing Porter’s histrionics that Fernando likened to “treating Porter and Rogers as featherweights” (here). This engendered a series of tweets and onlines comments between Fernando and Rogers about the merits of the controversy. And then Lyons fired the second post that lambasted Porter and Rogers for fundamental contradictions in their methods of evaluating pedigrees and advising clients.
In a post today at his blog, David Miller has an entertaining photo and commentary about the fracas (here) that notes quite sensibly that “‘Nicking’ in itself is only part of the equation when selecting stallions for mares” and urges the parties to chill. He says, “This is no time for sniping over the [mating] business that is left,” but here we must respectfully part company.
There is no time like the present to chop your opponent off at the knees, watch him bleed in the snow, and throw his wasted carcass on the garbage. The problem, of course, for Porter and Rogers is that it’s never a good thing to have Jack Werk go all ninja on your ass, and I think that’s about to happen.
sidfernando said:
Frank, thanks to you, I’ve pulled a muscle laughing.
fmitchell07 said:
Laughter is the best medicine.
Roger Lyons said:
Frank,
I doubt that very many people know this, but Jack was star center on his high school basketball team. When his good friend, Gary Mariani, who played guard, passed the ball to Jack and the defense collapsed on him, Gary knew he could rely on Jack to either power the ball to the hoop himself or pass it back for an open jump shot. I didn’t know Jack or Gary back then, of course, and I was always just a second stringer, anyway. But I’m happy to come off the bench anytime Jack wants me in the game. Jack is not the kind of person who looks for fights and neither am I, but, when somebody commits a blatant foul against him, well, I’m going to protect my center, just as I’m sure Gary did all those years ago.
sidfernando said:
Roger,
Seems like you’ve had the open jumpers lately, but I’ve been impressed with your own moves to the hoop through traffic — and one of your reverse dunks and the finger point at your opponent afterward sent a message.
Jack Werk said:
Frank,
Very entertaining piece. It really got my ninja juices flowing!
gary mariani said:
The best Werk story of all time is when we played against Rocky Ford, a great black player from Hayward High. We ended up beating them both times we played them, primarily because of Jack. Jack was skin and bones, not very atheletic and could jump about an inch. However, he was like a frigging misquito and kept pestering Rocky. He would elbow him, knee him, push him, anything to upset the man. Finally Rocky had enough and reared back to hit Jack in the mouth. I grabbed Rocky and saved Jack’s butt. Rocky, in the process got tossed and we go on to win. Just Jack being Jack.
sidfernando said:
Gary,
Jack must be a pretty good guy to have old-time friends around to come to his defense when needed.