In the world of opera over the last 200 years, it was a given that if prolific composers Verdi or Donizetti produced a new opera, it would be a ’hit’.

However, they had ongoing intense competition from the likes of Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Massenet, Bellini, Wagner, Strauss, Gounod, Bizet, Offenbach and others who forced them to maintain high quality work so that opera as a business grew from strength to strength.

Though Mozart died in 1798, Donizetti in 1848 and Verdi in 1901, their operas are still sung every week across the world. Isn’t that amazing?

As a weak analogy, thoroughbred breeding in Trinidad and Tobago in the last 30 years has been dominated by Bandsman and Freshly Squeezed (Verdi and Donizetti), whose yearlings were always seen as potential ’hits’, but the local competition has been almost non-existent despite threats from Jamaica.

Therefore local breeding-unlike opera-has gone backwards.

One only has to look at the stallion records on pages 18-20 of the 2009 Stud Farm Association (SFA) Yearling Sale catalogue to conclude that pinning one’s hopes on the stallion side of a pedigree is like trying to win the Lotto.

All the stallions listed are well bred on paper, but their stud results so far have been near dismal for whatever cause. There has been no budding Verdi on the annual horizons.

However, their fortunes may change this year as there are many more well-bred mares in the 2009 sales catalogue than for several previous years and poorly-bred mares have certainly contributed to poor stud results.

I am viewing with special interest the latest newcomers Babel, Big Country, A Great Team and Settle Up, though only A Great Team had an acceptable book of mares for next Sunday’s annual yearling sale at Santa Rosa Park, Arima. Therefore, most of my selections will focus on ’new’ stallions as the others have had their chances to show their worth.

Each year I am asked by some potential buyers to list my ’preferred yearlings’, which always provides a wonderful opportunity to lose friends and influence no-one! However, the basics for purchasing remain the same.

- Decide if you want an early winner or are prepared to wait and win the Triple Crown. If the former, then look at the birth date of the yearling (January, February or March), and if the latter (April and later). You don’t have to go to Harvard to conclude that a horse born in early February should be more developed/advanced in August than one born in mid- May.

- Ensure you see a yearling BEFORE it enters the sales ring and ask a respected horseman his opinion on the yearling’s conformation. No matter how well bred a horse may be, if it has a ’broko’ foot and never runs, you will be wasting money.

- Check the farm where the yearling was born and raised. How many winners has the farm produced? How large are the pastures? Was the mare well fed while in foal? Was the foal well fed? What is the daily routine regarding exercise? Who is the farm manager and what are his/her credentials? Does a vet pay weekly visits to the farm?

- Looking at a yearling’s pedigree, what is the breeding record of the sire? Does he have a racing record? Did he know how to win? Does he have important/influential names in his own pedigree? Does his pedigree suggest speed or stamina? Has he sired outstanding horses? If he was unraced, then that should raise a red flag because transmitting unsoundness is very common. If your favoured yearling is by an unraced sire out of an unraced mare (worse if the second dam is also unraced) the amber light should start flashing.

- Pay attention to winning families on the dam’s side. Use Lot 45 as an example-Magnificat won, Tempest (dam) won five races; Whistling Wind (grand-dam) won eight races and, in between, Tiger Lily won twice, Uniqua four times, Golden Empress five times, Sonic Wind three times, Undisputed eight times and Windjammer seven times.

In this particular case, you now have to enter a new sire, Settle Up, to the equation, which is what makes racehorse breeding so exciting and unpredictable.

There are many winning families in the sales catalogue-the three dams in Lot 38 cover nearly 50 years so the family blood is still ’thick’.

Lot 53 traces back to the dam (Nogara) of the great Nearco born in 1935.

Gin Sling (Lot 76) is by Starjinsky by Nijinsky by Northern Dancer, and her dam Dancing Diana is by Bandsman by Northern Dancer. How often do you find Northern Dancer (1961) in both the second and third generations of any race horse these days, and did the first foal Sugar Boy send a positive message?

- If and when you do buy a yearling a key decision is the selection of a trainer--a subject in itself. However, ensure as best you can that the trainer employs grooms who have a genuine love for and are kind to horses and know how to ’break in’ a yearling when it turns a two-year-old.

Experience and statistics show how many horses never reach the track because they ’break down’ due to careless or ignorant handling along the way.

I anticipate a very aggressive and successful sale as there are far more well-bred mares in this year’s catalogue than in recent years.

Auctioneers should be pleased that nine of the first ten Lots listed have attractive female lines so bidding should be fast and furious from the start, as Lot #1’s dam Resalah has already thrown two good fillies and her third dam is an Irish Classic winner and champion three-year-old filly.

Lack of space does not permit me to list in detail the reasons for my 18 top choices (after starting with an original ’field’ of 45 attractive options)--nine born before March 31, 2008 and nine born after April 01, 2008 in an attempt to make things fair to breeders.

Here are my well-intentioned selections, always remembering that up to sale time, conformation is the most important criterion. After the sale, you are at the mercy of the racing gods!

Remember I have not actually seen any yearling and am going purely ’on paper’.

Lots 1 - 13 - 29 - 38 - 45 - 49 - 69 - 103 - 106 (all born before March 31, 2008)

Lots 20 - 26 - 41 - 43 - 71 - 76 - 83 - 113 - 116 (all born after April 01, 2008)

Check the racing records and number of starts of A Great Team, Babel, Big Country and Settle Up and you will note that they all won and placed several times and actually started on six, nine, 29 and 21 occasions, respectively, which suggest that they were sound racing propositions. Their breeding, too, is superb.

Good luck to all buyers and breeders! Feel free to prove me wrong--that’s why horse racing is the industry of HOPE!