Why does no one question horse prices?

[Scribbler]

@red_mares

Thanks all for the early morning laughs.

Laundering money through horses in the past has been a thing. Pretty much as McGurk described. It’s harder now for the reasons given. Way back in the 60s or 70s a good friend of my mothers was killed for not keeping his mouth shut about some sketchy deals. Killed his dog, then him. Moral or the story is keep your mouth shut if the Mafia is involved. This again was like 60 years ago. The horse business today is not nearly as shady as it was back in the day.

My father worked horses in Chicago in the 40s & 50s. The OP has no idea what shady is. You want papers on this horse? Sure, I have the papers (newspapers). That was ACTUALLY done.

Track racing was a huge focus of gambling in early to mid 20th century. Legal gambling always seems to attract shady money. We have straight up provincially operated casinos all over the place here, and they’ve still been implicated in money laundering plots. Apparently you can buy huge amounts of chips for cash, redeem them at the end of the night, and then bank that money as legitimate casino winnings.

Anyhow I’m sure as the major source of legal gambling in the mid 20th century, organized crime would have been all over the race tracks.

[red_mares]

If he had two plain bay geldings the lame or crazy one went for meat and the sound sane one got the papers.

An Amish friend sold his plain bay standardbred gelding at a local sale. When he came back from getting the hip number, he couldn’t remember which plain bay standardbred gelding was his. He picked one. The wrong one. Someone else sold his horse. The owner of the horse he sold ended up getting the money for it. Nobody 'fessed up to selling his horse, so I don’t think he came home with anything.

[beowulf]

@lazaret

Anyone assuming that what they’re getting in a European young horse is any sort of complete training has never imported a horse before;

For sure I have sat on some fresh imports that might have steered worse than the fresh TBs I pick up stateside from the track.

[fledermaus]

nm

[Spudsmyguy]

A friend of mine has a cob that she shows in upper level dressage. Used to jump him too, now strictly dressage and doing a bang up job.

[sparkygrace]

If she is in the PNW, I probably know who she is. The cob world is quite small!

[Spudsmyguy]

Sent you a PM Sparky