SSR (Stallion Spectator Ratings) is a private consulting service operated by bloodstock journalist Bill Oppenheim and his protégé, Dr Emily Plant, which produces proprietary sire analysis for 40 subscribers worldwide.
Besides creating ratings for sires already at stud, Predicting Sire Success is a priority for SSR subscribers. We have created a nine-point scale, based on sires’ race records, which rates the prospects of stallions going to stud becoming top 10%, 20%, or 30% sires.
We originally studied the race records of 344 sires whose first foals were born between 1994-2008 (15 sire crops). Of these 344 sires, only seven, in 15 crops of sires, scored 9/9 on this predictive scale. Of those seven, five (71%) became top 10% sires, and six (86%) became top 20% sires. So the odds of a horse scoring 9/9 becoming a top 10% sire are 2 to 5, and of becoming a top 20% sire the odds are 1 to 6 (or, in betting parlance, 6 to 1 on).
Too Darn Hot is only the fifth sire since 2008 (12 sire crops) to achieve a rating of 9/9. Only two of those five have had runners: Henrythenavigator (1st foals 2010), who proved to be one of the worst sires with one of the best opportunities in history; and Sea The Stars (1st foals 2011), who indeed is a top 10% sire. But even if we include those two in the analysis, the odds are still 1 to 2 (6 out of 9) of a 9/9 being a top 10% sire, and 2 to 7 of being a top 20% sire. Those are the best odds for future sire success we have ever seen.
Of course, nothing guarantees sire success, but no analysis we have ever done or seen is a better predictor than SSR’s 9/9 metric, and Too Darn Hot is only the 12th horse in 27 crops of sires (1st foals 1994-2021) to meet all of the benchmarks and score 9/9 Sire Prediction Points. Our message to our subscribers could not be clearer: Too Darn Hot is as good a bet for major sire success as we can know about.
