[QUOTE=harvestmoon;7884866]
Wait, Boundary won the King’s Bishop? Also, isn’t it restricted to three year olds? Or has it not always been?
Maybe I’m misreading. Quite possible. It’s early and I haven’t had coffee. ;)[/QUOTE]
Coffee or not, you’re correct. He did not win the King’s Bishop.
http://www.equibase.com/profiles/Results.cfm?type=Horse&refno=1289263®istry=T
[QUOTE=LaurieB;7884918]
Coffee or not, you’re correct. He did not win the King’s Bishop.
http://www.equibase.com/profiles/Results.cfm?type=Horse&refno=1289263®istry=T[/QUOTE]
Thanks Laurie for “fact checking” and you are correct. For me it was late and I was having coffee, but with some “Irish” in it, maybe too much Irish. It was 20 years ago but I should have checked to make sure my “memory facts” were correct.
Looking at his PP’s the offer might have been turned down after winning Roseben H’cap at Belmont. But I seem to remember being at Saratoga and watching the race. Even though my client was based in Argentina it was a very strong offer. The stallion market was pretty thin then. The Argentine economy was strong and the breeders took advantage of the “down” stallion market here.
Looking at the chart of the A Phenomenon H’cap I did buy another horse in that race. A son of 49er, Dalhart for a different client in Argentina. A really nice horse who came down with EPM shortly after arriving in Argentina. I brought some very successful stallion prospect for the client, Shy Tom being one but he blamed me for the horse having EPM and fired me. The horse passed a multitude of blood tests for export before he was paid for also. Go figure.
[QUOTE=Flash44;7884684]
The mares make the stallion. Ken Ramsey is very selective about who gets bred to Kitten’s Joy.[/QUOTE]
Gives one pause to think, even though they have been significant players for a long time, why their “star” took off with their stallion KITTENS JOY. I know some Aussies who are “down in the mouth” because there was apparently an opportunity to have KJ shuttle to OZ but some of the investors backed out. Ramsey has never offer to shuttle KJ since.
Respectfully, that is why “claiming” offers better opportunities for the majority of the “poorer classic pedigreeless” folks. 
[QUOTE=Shammy Davis;7885412]
Gives one pause to think, even though they have been significant players for a long time, why their “star” took off with their stallion KITTENS JOY. I know some Aussies who are “down in the mouth” because there was apparently an opportunity to have KJ shuttle to OZ but some of the investors backed out. Ramsey has never offer to shuttle KJ since.
Respectfully, that is why “claiming” offers better opportunities for the majority of the “poorer classic pedigreeless” folks. :)[/QUOTE]
Another interesting factoid: Ramsey was racing both Kitten’s Joy and Roses in May concurrently and they retired at about the same time too. He offered both for sale, deciding to sell whichever one got the higher offer and keep the other. Roses in May sold to Japan and KJ stayed home.
[QUOTE=gumtree;7884376]
I have known Rob Whitely since the early 80’s. A personal friend and a person I have tremendous respect for.[/QUOTE]
Agreed. A good man, and very smart. Such an interesting person.
Breeding is also a matter of exact timing. Breeding to a horse the first year or two is deemed safe and profitable. The third year can be iffy, as the horse’s first foals are yearlings.
The fourth year is VERY iffy, and very often good deals can be made. In a stallions 4th year, his first foals are now 2 years old, and they are starting to sell thru the 2 year old sales, and later on in the same year will start to race. The market can be extremely unforgiving. If the horse doesnt fire right out of the box (ala Super Saver this year), mare owners will go to a different stallion, even if the horse really isnt bred for early 2 year old success. By the time your foal is a yearling, either a new sire power is revealed or (more likely) the bloom is off the rose, and the sire is doomed for a new home in New York or PA.
Often the market is wrong. Curlin, who’s first foals are now 4, only bred 54 mares in 2013, the year his first foals were 3. They had sold okay, but the 2 year olds didnt set the world on fire. Truthfully, they werent supposed to, but the market doesnt want to wait, and are afraid to at that point, since a wrong breeding decision can be devastating money wise.
Later on that year he had the winner of the Belmont Stakes, but thats really not enough to move the market. At the start of 2014, Lanes End was offering huge discounts on his fee, as Im sure they believed, as did market breeders, that the writing was on the wall. In fact a friend of mine took them up on the offer at the end of the time frame, since I watch racing pretty closely and could see what was happening.
He started getting winners, good winners. More stakes winners showed up. Palace Malice came back with a bang, winning the GP Handicap and New Orleans HD in March. The deal was now over, breeders were calling, this year he bred over 150 mares and he’s now a solid proven stallion who is getting the respect he deserves.
Its all about the timing.
In the horse business, there is nothing more expensive than potential.
(Except, possibly, proven results)
Don’t know whether anyone has seen this study.
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/131185/2/JAB,Spr2010,%2302.pdf
If you are “research challenged” like myself, the conclusion to the study is worth reading.:yes:
[QUOTE=Shammy Davis;7889766]
Don’t know whether anyone has seen this study.
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/131185/2/JAB,Spr2010,%2302.pdf
If you are “research challenged” like myself, the conclusion to the study is worth reading.:yes:[/QUOTE]
Really cool article! I don’t think that mare owners are shopping for the best “value” wrt stallion selection, but I don’t breed so can’t say for sure.
[QUOTE=SnicklefritzG;7883969]
I knew he had moved there, but was curious why go to NY instead of staying at Three Chimneys?[/QUOTE]
He was purchased by one of the people who was partner in him during his racing career. As a NYer, he wants to stand him in NY. BB has had a decent bit of success with some of his NYbreds already and I imagine that he’ll get support here.
LaurieB did a good job of explaining the stud fee. Typically the high fee for a stallion fresh off a successful career is more “hype” and to be honest, speculation. In BB’s case, the market plunged just after he retired so he was hurt by that but his foals sold moderately and ran moderately, thus the decline.
I agree that many people disliked IEAH and chose to avoid Big Brown. He was a classic case of he horse that “out runs his pedigree.” The fact that his hooves were often “more patch than foot” didn’t help either.
[QUOTE=Flash44;7884684]
The mares make the stallion. Ken Ramsey is very selective about who gets bred to Kitten’s Joy.[/QUOTE]
I agree, but Ramsey built KJ from his own band of cheap claiming mares. Now Ramsey has better mares many by KJ and many bought to support him. Imagine if KJ had covered a strong book in his first couple of crops!
(Sorry to keep bombing this thread, CoTH won’t let me edit prior posts.)
Halo, I remember the hype around Curlin’s first yearlings at Saratoga. Like many, I went over to the sales yards to have a look. They were OK looking but none looked “special” and I heard mumbles that since none seemed to be the talking horses of the sale, that they might not meet reserve. I don’t recall many having tremendous families and that is what is needed at elite sales. I think that Curlin will prove successful long term but it has taken a few crops to find what works. He is by a stallion (Smart Strike) who was only finding his groove belatedly around that time and Smart Strike didn’t have a bunch of sons already at stud to act as guides.
[QUOTE=SnicklefritzG;7883292]
I’ll use Big Brown as an example since I followed him quite actively when he was racing.
His initial offering was $65k, granted that was during a different economy, but it is now only $10k. It dropped substantially in 2013 from $35k down to where it is now.
I think he used to be at Three Chimneys, but last I checked he was at a small farm in NY.
Has he not had enough successful offspring in order to maintain a higher fee and stay at one of the larger farms in KY?[/QUOTE]
Big Brown apparently thriving in NY.
https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/articles/big-browns-new-beginning-and-hes-absolutely-thriving-it/
[QUOTE=Linny;7891749]
I think that Curlin will prove successful long term but it has taken a few crops to find what works. He is by a stallion (Smart Strike) who was only finding his groove belatedly around that time and Smart Strike didn’t have a bunch of sons already at stud to act as guides.[/QUOTE]
Interesting this thread popped up.
Almost 2 years later, BH posted an article on Curlin’s (standing at Hill ‘n’ Dale) 2017 fee. $100,000 in 2016 and $150,000 for 2017. He’s the third leading sire on the general sire list with four grade I winners.
Curlin has also had a classic placed horse (two winners) in every crop. Not bad stats for a horse who everyone jumped off of for a year (granted, the “jumping off the bandwagon” crop is just two).
FuPeg is another horse who crashed. It did not help that Ashford had FuPeg and Giant’s Causeway come in at the same time. FuPeg’s initial stud fee was about $10k less, but both started over $100,000; anyone who can afford a 6 figure stud fee is not going to haggled about $10K difference, and clearly the farm (and the owners) thought more of GC, than of FuPeg.
Personally, FuPeg was more my kind of horse.
But the truth is on the track, and FuPeg just did not have it.
[All of the above has been written from memory, which may, or may not have any relationship to reality.]
How about Smarty Jones, who started at $100,000 and is now at $7,500? Heck of a drop there.
The drop for Smarty was results driven, and because he really didn’t ever have the pedigree to support his racing success. (He far outran his pedigree.)
I guess it took a few years but my prediction about Curlin was right.
LH, As impressive as FuPeg was in winning the Derby, he was proven to be smoke and mirrors. When he won he looked like he could never possibly lose, yet when he was challenged, he never had anything to offer. I understand why breeders thought that he could be the “heir” to Mr. Prospector. His sire was 30 when FuPeg retired and everyone was searching for the next supersire. Mr. P had finally sired a Derby winner despite his reputation for speed. He was a darling of the industry. He just couldn’t get it done.
Many of the FuPegs I ran across (back when the stallion was young and popular) had the double whammy of being both nutty and not the sturdiest horses. They needed a lot of training to get to a race (to overcome the “I’m not listening” temperament) but then as training went on, they got physical issues. When given time off to heal, they forgot everything they’d been taught about racing. So back to square one. It was a very frustrating cycle.
[QUOTE=Shammy Davis;8917042]
Big Brown apparently thriving in NY.
Nice article, to die for pictures too. Glad this horse outran the weight of his unsavory connections even if it has been in a not in KY breeding shed. Hope another burdened until recently by a regular sideshow outruns his tomorrow at the track.
Odd that, no matter how hard we try, it’s hard to like a horse if you have a problem with some of the connections, even as a bettor much less a quality mare owner.
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