Byron Rogers was on the podcast in 2014 and it was refreshing to discuss his efforts in quantifying both breeding and type when identifying yearlings to purchase.

That discussion is well worth a listen, but if you want the super-simplified summary of how he tries to find Group performers:

(1) Young-ish sire and dam

(2) Fast dam

(3) Good heart, body type and DNA

(4) Raised on a suitable farm

(5) Sent to an excellent trainer

Byron is back this week to talk about all that's happened since then.

Punting Insights

Why breeding a stayer is so difficult

Why non-stayers can win the Oaks

How the trainer effect is often under-estimated

Why their success tends to be at the 'edges' of the horse population

How and why the model gets smarter every 6 months

The machine learning software he (and the NY Yankees) use

How some of this can be applied to the betting market

Today’s Guest:

Byron Rogers

Dave Duffield: I was chatting to you last week to come on the show, but you had a nice weekend.

Byron Rogers: Yeah we had the filly Indarra for Phil Sly we'd purchased as a yearling out in New Zealand at Karaka for 150 thousand and she broke her maiden in good style in a stakes race which is obviously the best way you want to do it with a Filly.

Dave Duffield: And so, we'll speak in general terms as we chat but specifically for her, what appealed when you're going through the yearling catalogue and then also doing the various tests and inspections that you do.

Byron Rogers: I think the main thing with her was, she’s by Stravinsky who obviously hasn't had a lot of good horses recently, he's been a very good sire but he hasn't in more recent times hasn't had a lot of good runners but when you physically looked at her and Phil Sly was pretty specific about wanting to get fillies that were going to run to ten furlongs.

He likes horses that can try and get a mile to ten furlongs and you know he has got a lot of luck with horses like Mosheen and those sorts of horses. So he was very specific about what he was trying to get to. When we looked at her physically she didn't look like a one dimensional horse. She was very much like her broodmare sire, like a Zabeel and you probably see that when she's at the races you know she does have that Zabeel attitude to her. But physically she's a well-balanced filly and we just thought she fit the bill and when... Obviously when we do what we do in terms of looking at the genetics, DNA markers in relation to muscle fibre type she had the right sort of balance for what we see to be a horse that would get the ten furlongs.

More importantly she also had the cardiovascular capacity. She has got a good sized cardio and so a Filly like her, for us, stood out. We did have to pay 150 thousand which was a decent price for a Stravinski filly at the time and she has worked out. I mean she was a bit unlucky, we probably thought she was going to be a Filly that would come to the races and be competitive in a VRC Oaks because what we find is that an early in their 3 year old year the genuine stayers are actually a little bit behind the horses that aren't genuine stayers in terms of…. You can win an Oaks with a filly that actually doesn't really sort of stay a mile and a half given a VRC Oaks. They can be milers that get there by the fact that they're more mature and more forward and we thought she was a filly like that but unfortunately she got an ulcer under her tongue we sort of had to back off her. It was a bit of a blessing in disguise we sort of got her going at the tail end but she's a filly that will end up getting to ten furlongs whether she gets to the mile and a half in the Autumn remains to be seen.

The other horses tend to catch up to you there so that's the new challenge, just to see how Robert Smerdon handles it.

Dave Duffield: So Indarra is one example, but just going back to the last time you were on the show,