gr V. ._     _. M .   _ V  methodology, really taught me ing program. Knapp walks or rides horse
V,  `it ` '*-     Y V i ·'· * V . . . . .
aa      · V.   gg    ~ · well how to think about things. back over his property almost daily. His
VV M i af  ..  V   r xx';}   _V   Ilcamcd how to ask good hands-on approach at the farm comes from
    —    _ .,   if ` questions and then how to an- an appreciation for good stewardship of
V`¤        °j   r swer those questions? he said. the land, a trait he learned from his father
` I K if 'V`_  v i    Y “I also was taught how to bring on the family acreage in Minnesota.
.  L;  T   T" I ‘   [I I ‘ empirical data to bear on that “It’s a wonderful way to see your farm
V   gsi V_ ` *  » ,•¤»s. l - mjswcy, V V V V and keep track of things. I’m sure people
- ` Vi x . The training in business working on the farm may think I m a real
  I {V a V) `   principles and practices was fanatic? he said, citing what he tells his em-
~   Q .     fantastic but teaching me how ployees about water quality as an example.
.,4/-     j Vi  to think — how to make deci- “If the water is not clean enough for you to
`_ . _   Y rj ‘\ V sions in my life and career — drink it, why would you expect the horses
Vi  A w if lj was the most important thingI to drink it ?”
  __   took away from UK? Knapp has had thousands of trees
 . _ ‘ V 7- Knapp said he thinks the planted on the farm based on a profes-
  Y     NFL and professional golf are sional landscape design created by Morgan
        way ahead ofthe Thorough- Wheelock of Boston and Palm Beach. That
 ii   _, bred industry in terms of using includes spruce, pine, maple, oak, gingko,
I  I I I   I biometrical analysis on ath- redbud, beech, birch, yellow wood, dog-
Gary Kpapp viaitawithppapfaavaralvaarlippapprp ip letes. va, apiaya that is ma ma, chinese am, and Sycamore. rr like
2008 at Mpptiapla Fam" small or too slow by empirical to grow things and I like a lot of landscap-
in elite company (fewer than 30 owners standards will outperform expectations, ing. That initial plan that we developed for
have produced horses that won both the but going with the percentages projects Monticule in 1997 includes a lot of drifts
Derby and the Preakness), Knapp is not more success over the long term. of trees and we’re still working on that
following a course of déja vu. I·Ie said ex- Knapp believes merging biometric stud- plan? he said. “ The variety of trees planted
pecting the same result from the same mat- ies with an analysis ofthe pedigree of po- here are interesting to me?
ing represents unscientiHc thinking. tential matings and how certain breeding Interesting — that’s a good word to de-
“Big Brown is a huge outlier, a deviation patterns have worked in the past can be scribe Gary Knapp, who represents a merg-
from the statistical norm. We’re not going summed up in a simple fashion. “It’s the ing of right-brain analytical thinking and
to get that result again even if we repeated epitome of breed to the best and hope for left-brain dreaming to form the makeup of
everything? he explained. “You have to be the best? he said. But he emphasized that a successful Kentucky horseman.
realistic about what you can control and the “best” is a subjective component in  
what you can’t. There’s so much data in the that he tries to match the mare that best Tom Leach is an award-winning Kentucky
Thoroughbred industry that has tremen- Hts a particular stallion from both a bio- sportscaster known as the Voice of the Wildcats
dous skews to it. Very seldom, in this in- metric and pedigree standpoint. and owns Tom Leach Productions in Lexington.
dustry, are you going to see any data with a His somewhat unconventional tech-
normal distribution. It’s going to be niques extend beyond Monticule’s breed-
skewed one way or the other?
Knapp said that he believes many breed- —·
ers are likely to be drawn to averages found j
in the data, but that this approach is not »-   `~ j . I
the best. “They need to start taking the _ aa     · I l  
mode or the median/ mode. That gives you l.   é gi   ;_ I j
a much more representative number ofthe _ V   I   j
distribution than the arithmetic average VV `·   '\V 6 ’   j
does? he said. “\When you’ve got a really if ‘‘·· r I   Tl ‘
skewed distribution, which is most ofthe I   Q j `
data in the industry, and you’re using the X   V
arithmetic average, you’re not getting a       T ° [ V j V
representative number of that data at all? Bj j ;     "Y I \\\   V
Knapp said it was the training he re- `§· __?, · A V fz V_·    
ceived in his days at UK that helped fash- V; I  i       I  E
ion the way he has operated businesses V .'`.   · A V I _ I
ranging from mortage-backed securities to _ A   __ h?"°` _
communications to horses. V s _ { ,   i e,  7***
“ThC Uammg that the Qoucgc pf Bush Dominique Tijou, manager of Monticule Farm, and Gary Knapp discuss the daily oper-
Hess and Economics P “’Y1d€$» P émcularly ation of the facility. Tijou, from France, previously has worked with Standardbreds in
the program that I experienced in research France and Italy
www.uka|umni.net 13