Colonel John sold to South Korea

[SnicklefritzG]

I saw Colonel John when I was in KY earlier this year and was surprised to learn that he sold to South Korea this fall. According to the article in Blood Horse, the KTBA is very excited about adding him to their breeding program.

I personally like Colonel John a lot, even thought he might not be a big commercial stallion. I think his stud fees have been dropped a lot over the last few years, is he not getting enough stakes winners? Or do farms like WinStar and others only want to keep stallions if they can sustain a fee above a certain level. If the latter is true (and I don’t know if it is), why would breeders in S. Korea be so excited?

I’m asking mostly out of curiosity to understand more about how race breeding works.

[gotpaints]

WinStar seems to to be more willing to publicly move horses out if they get the right offer (unlike some others who just kind of have the stallion disappear off the roster). They also moved out Drosselmeyer (whose leaving wasn’t a surprise with how he’s been doing) and Take Charge Indy after the breeding season. Every fall it seems you can expect announcements from them about multiple stallions moving.

I’m not sure what their criteria is for moving them out but I wouldn’t think the cheapness of stud fees would play a big part, however, the reason the fee drops probably does. Colonel John is a useful sire so I was a bit surprised they sold him but he never really seemed to live up to the promise he showed. In 2015 he looked like he had a nice group of 2yos but they never really trained on to the heights some expected. It probably also helps that they have other promising son of Tiznow in Gemologist and Tourist (although, as a turf horse he may have an uphill battle) so if they got a nice offer, it probably made it an easyish choice.

Korea is really building up their roster, it looks like they aren’t playing around with recruiting stallions that may be overlooked here. It’s nice to see they’re so serious about building their industry.

(I’m not sure if that answers your question at all)

[ASB_Stars]

Do we have any deal to get them back out of there upon retirement?

And what happens to their get that don’t run well.

Yes, I AM a bleeding heart, and these things DO concern me.

[gotpaints]

A decent amount of farms have return clauses in the contracts. In the case of horses like Hansen and Take Charge Indy they could come back here earlier than after retirement if their foals run well.

[SnicklefritzG]

@gotpaints, yes that does explain it. Thank you!

[gotpaints]

In my opinion, if South Korea was a U.S. state, it’d have the second strongest roster after Kentucky. They’ve bought some nice stallions and useful mares from the U.S. in the last 5-10 years and have slowly been upping their per-horse budget.

[Shammy_Davis]

Snickers: I don’t recall many threads on this subject, but it is a good question. Back in 2007 or 2008 an Aussie forum (TBV) took on the subject for a few pages and as I recall came up with so many conclusions it lost track of itself. Didn’t do a fact check but 9 out of 10 stallions in OZ were reported as failures. Wouldn’t be surprised if North America was not in a statistical dead heat. Whatever the reason for culling, the stallion bloodlines have so narrowed that selling a horse like Colonel John won’t have any impact on the breed, even in ROK.

Looking at the overall industry, the major obstacle for a stallion is the fact that buyers are looking for precocious colts and fillys. Patience is not a stable characteristic in the sales and training sector any more. Historically, stallions like Colonel John appear to have no more opportunities in Asia than their predecessors like Silver Charm, Charismatic, Temperence Hill, or Ferdinand. There is a reason for that. Races in Asia are programmed primarily at 1600m or less. Late maturing colts and fillys and stayers will be no more prized than they are in the states.