In The Blood—Jazlyn and a Balancing Act
When James Payne and Jazlyn entered Will Rogers Coliseum for the finals for the National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Open Super Stakes they were on a roll. Jazlyn (Hashtags x MK Cats Kitty x Spots Hot) is bred by Slate River Ranch. Her pedigree provides an opportunity to expand on knowledge of balanced pedigrees through line-breeding, as well as learning how balancing the pedigree has been used to breed great horses.
They had gotten better in each round starting with a 217 in the first, then a 218.5 in the second and a win in the Semi-Finals with a 224. They came back in the finals with a 228 and a win for owner Kathleen Moore. Jazlyn’s earnings now sit at $155,872 according to EquiStat.
Jazlyn’s Bloodlines
Jazlyn’s sire, Hashtags (Metallic Cat x Dual Rey Tag x Dual Rey) earned $485,293 in his career. She followed in her sire’s footsteps as an NCHA Super Stakes Open Champion. Hashtags followed up his 2017 Super Stakes Championship with the 2018 NCHA Open World Championship. He is now an EquiStat $1 Million sire, his leading money earners include MS Milania ($145,784), Jazlyn, Dirrty Shirley ($104,038), and Insignia ($97,537).
Jazlyn’s grandsire, Metallic Cat (High Brow Cat x Chers Shadow x Peptoboonsmal) was the 2008 NCHA Open Futurity Champion and the 2009 NCHA Horse of the Year. He earned $637,711. He is a $70 million sire and the first Five Million Dollar NRCHA Sire. His money winners include Catillac Reys ($486,861), Stevie Rey Von ($420,599), and Purple Reyn ($361,880). Add Hashtags to this list, and note that all of these earners are out of Dual Rey mares, which will become an important piece of the balanced pedigree. Jazlyn’s great-grandsire, High Brow Cat (High Brow Hickory x Smart Little Kitty x Smart Little Lena) is the EquiStat all-time leading sire of Performance Horses with off spring earnings in excess of $95 million.
James Payne pats Jazlyn on the neck after one of their winning runs. * Photo by Amy Olson
Chers Shadow was an Abilene Spectacular Open Derby Finalist. She is the dam of three money earners with Metallic Cat being her highest money winner. Her dam is Shesa Smart Lena (Smart Litte Lena x Shesa Playmate x Freckles Playboy) and she earned $224,005 and was an NCHA Open Finals Champion.
Dual Rey Tag (Dual Rey x Playin Tag x Playgun) is an NCHA Bronze Award winner with earnings of $56,706. Her foals have earnings of $1,236,677. She is the dam of horses like Tagging, an NCHA Open Futurity Reserve Champion; Pound Sign, an AQHA World Champion Junior Cutting Horse and Stag, the 2023 PCCHA Amateur Classic/Challenge Champion. Metallic Cat sired all these cutters.
Dual Rey (Dual Pep x Nurse Rey x Wyoming Doc) sired the earners of over $55 Million. His leading earners include Duramax Dually ($525,919), Reysit N Kittens ($502,370), Don’t Stopp Believin ($463,7 94), Grey Zee ($448,151) and Lil Rattler ($338,967). The interesting part of this is these cutters represent the Magic Cross of Dual Rey on High Brow Cat’s daughters.
Dual Pep sired winners of over $26 Million. When crossed with Metallic Cat the Dual Pep daughters have produced EquiStat earnings of over $2 million with such winners as Metallic ($275,953), Hevvy Metal ($189,526) and Tommy Mo ($182,028).
MK Cats Kitty (Spots Hot x MK Cats Lil Kitty x High Brow Cat) earned $121,526 and was the 2016 NCHA Open Derby Reserve Champion. She produced foals that have EquiStat earnings of $239,679 the leading earner is Jazlyn followed by Lil Emma ($82,342) who is sired by Metallic Cat.
Spots Hot (Chula Dual x Sweet Shorty Lena x Shorty Lena) was the 2004 NCHA Open Futurity Champion and earner of $525,918. At five and six he went on to be the 2006 NCHA Non-Pro Classic/Challenge Reserve Champion, the 2006 NCHA Super Stakes Classic Non-Pro Reserve Champion and the Co-Reserve Champion at this event in 2007.
The sire record for Spots Hot shows that his foals have EquiStat earnings of over $9 million and they include Second Spot, winner of the NCHA Open Futurity; Hottish, an NCHA Horse of the Year Reserve Champion and Cinca Im Hot, a Breeders Invitation Open Derby Champion.
The daughters of Spots Hot have EquiStat earnings of over $3.7 million. His leading money winner is Birdy ($256,280). This horse is followed by Vince Von ($248,817), Metallic Casanova ($200,821),
Kattalyst ($199,510), Luminous ($182,683), Katt Von D ($142,843) and Playin Heavy Metal ($139,684). The sire of Metallic Casanova, Kattalyst, Luminous and Playin Heavy Metal is Metallic Cat while the sire of Vince Von and Katt Von D was Stevie Rey Von (by Metallic Cat). Birdy’s dam was MS Early Bird, by High Brow Cat. Notably Stevie Rey Von is out of a daughter of Dual Rey.
Chula Dual (Dual Pep x Smart Fancy Lena x Smart Little Lena) earned $171,134 while winning events like the 1999 Polo Ranch Classic 4-Year-Old Open and the 1999 Royal Santana Futurity 4-Year-Old Open Championship. He sired the winners of over $2 million, and his leading money-winner is Spots Hot.
Adding Chula Dual to Jazlyn’s pedigree creates a breeding pattern of 4 x 4 to Dual Pep. Dual Pep is the sire of horses that have EquiStat earnings of over $26 million including Dual Rey Me ($818,177.) He is the broodmare sire of over $31 million. This includes Dont Look Twice ($449,843) and Louis The Cat ($245,348) both sired by High Brow Cat.
MK Cats Lil Kitty (High Brow Cat x Sweet N Lou x Haidas Sugar Doc) has EquiStat earnings of $43,820 and was the Bluebonnet CHA Open Derby Champion. She is the dam of horses that have EquiStat earnings of $353,640. Her leading money winner is Sweetnlous Gunpowder with earnings of $82,332. Her other money winners include George Ah Cat ($66,841) by High Brow Cat and MK Dual San ($30,191) by Dual Pep.
When it comes to line-breeding, a balanced pedigree is a pedigree that places the common ancestor or ancestors throughout the pedigree, a common ancestor is on both the sire and dam side of the pedigree. This allows us a variety of avenues for the desired genes to flow to the foal.
The horse genetics text Genetic Principles In Horse Breeding by Dr. John F. Lasley discusses line-breeding and the benefits of this breeding theory. Dr. Lasley defines line-breeding “as a special form of inbreeding that allows you to keep a close relationship to an outstanding ancestor or ancestors.” He uses several pedigrees to illustrate line-breeding. One of those pedigrees is listed in Figure 1.
As you can see individual 5 shows up in the third generation of this pedigree four times. Thus, Individual A is linebred to individual 5. Lasley says, “Pedigree 1 shows that the sire and dam of Individual A are related only through ancestor number 5. For this reason, there has been a deliberate attempt to concentrate the inheritance of ancestor 5 in individual A by such a mating.”
This not only demonstrates a classic example of linebreeding, but it is a balanced pedigree. The balance comes from the four branches of the pedigree that connect individual A with 5. This allows the genes to pass down the pedigree to individual A and hopefully produce gene combinations that made individual 5 such an important horse. Lasley says that this is one reason for calling it linebreeding.
One of the great breeders of Thoroughbred racehorses believed in balancing the pedigree. His great stallion Nearco was an undefeated racehorse and the sire of Nasrullah and Nearctic. Nashrullah was the grandsire of Secretariat and Neactic was the sire of Northern Dancer. Nearco has a breeding pattern of 5 X 4 X 4 X 5 to St Simon a famous and successful sire, another example of a balanced pedigree.
Tesio would carry his balanced pedigree one step further with “male strains” and “female strains” of the common ancestor. Pharos, the sire of Nearco has a breeding pattern of 4 x 3 to St Simon. Phalaris, Pharos’ sire, is out of Bromus, who was a daughter of Cheery by St Simon giving him a “female strain” of St Simon. The dam of Pharos was Scapa Flow by Chaucer by St Simon giving him a “male strain” of St Simon. Nogora the dam of Nearco was sired by Havresac by Rabelais by St Simon and the dam of Havresac was Hors Concours who was out of Simona by St Simon giving the pedigree another “female strain” of St Simon.
Kenneth McLean in his biography of Tesio (Tesio, Master of Matings) reported, “The intention (of the male strain and female strain) is to maximize the genetic impact from a dominant ancestor (be it a stallion or mare) via both sex channels–male offspring and female offspring.” This means that linebreeding to male strains and female strains allows the breeder to have the opportunity to put sex linked genes into the scheme of his linebreeding program. By using a “male strain” and “female strain” of the common ancestor you get the opportunity to pass genes or gene combination into your foal that might not be possible if the linebreeding to the common ancestor comes through only his sons or daughters.”
Jazlyn is a great example of this breeding pattern with her 3 x 3 breeding pattern to High Brow Cat with the “male strain” coming from Metallic Cat and through her second dam MK Cats Lil Kitty with a “female strain” by High Brow Cat. Then we add the linebreeding to Dual Pep with a breeding pattern of 4 x 4. The breeding pattern to Dual Pep is not as clear cut as what we see with High Brow Cat when it comes to the male and female strains. Hashtags out of Dual Rey Tag by Dual Rey by Dual Pep would be a female strain of Dual Pep through her sire Dual Rey. MK Cats Kitty sired by Spots Hot by Chula Dual by Dual Pep as a female strain of Dual Pep.
The significance of the pedigree of Jazlyn shows an overall balance to High Brow Cat and Dual Pep and as we have seen this combination has been a successful magic cross so far.