By default, any time you're going to try to hand out the title, "Biggest IMPACT on the Breed," the individual is going to
have to have put out a lot of puppies all over the world (or at least all over America). Otherwise, how in the hell is anyone going to have a "big impact" on the breed, if he keeps all his pups to himself?
So "biggest impact" doesn't necessarily = "best percentages" or anything like that.
Biggest impact means what it means, which is
affecting the game more than any other breeder. It is my opinion that Tudor and Carver affected the game more than any other breeders ... with Boudreaux, Patrick, Chavis, etc. deserving honorable mention. That doesn't mean these guys could whip Ozzie Stevens 10-0 if they faced him, that means they had a bigger impact on the game AS BREEDERS (which is the question

), and that is all that it means.
Hollingsworth had a massive impact on the game, considering the little bit he bred dogs, and his percentages were legendary. He had the best "Patrick dogs" of his time, but not as big an overall impact as Patrick himself.
I did not have anywhere near the impact Patrick did overall, but most people who have run both lines prefer my dogs over his, and it is a matter of record that the 5 times "pure Patrick dogs" faced dogs directly from my yard, my dogs whipped Patrick's 5-0, with 4 of Pat's quitting in under the hour mark, with only 1 dog of his showing game, that was still picked up in less than 1 hour. For that matter, I would compare my own percentages (Wins versus Losses %) to any breeder who has ever put dogs out there, but that does not mean what small amount of dogs I put out there had the same "overall impact to the game."
So it helps if people learn to study the question
I can think of one breeder who has had a HUGE impact on the game, with many Champions produced, but for every dog that comes from him that "wins" ... 2 dozen never make it because they quit. So "impact" does not necessarily mean "quality across the board"; it only means put enough dogs out there to change the face of the game.
Surely Carver and Tudor
both had a huge impact, and a lot of quality dogs, foundational to everyone else ... but that doesn't mean some small-time, local breeders couldn't and didn't have as good (or better) dogs on their yards. It only means that whatever these small-timers did, it didn't really have as big an impact as Carver or Tudor (though these men had superb dogs for themselves).
An example would be, and I can't remember the name of the man (Paul Sweeney, I think), but I believe he whipped Tudor 3-4 times in a row ... but he still didn't have as big an impact on the game as Tudor did.
Jack