Foaling month

[Ron G.]

I have a question regarding two-year-olds and Thoro-graph figures based on  their foaling months.  

For example, lets say you have two horses, one foaled in mid-january and the other in mid-april.  They both make their debuts in early August and each runs a \"15\" which is a true representation of their ability at this time in their careers.  Just for this question, everything else will be constant -- similar breeding, similar trainers, etc.  So my question is, if they run the same figure in their first start, would you eventually (in the coming months or years) expect the younger horse (the one foaled in mid-april) to be faster?  If so, is it significant -- in other words, do the horses that are born two or three months earlier have a significant advantage early in their careers?

[TGJB]

Ron-- that\'s an interesting question. It might be worth running a study at some point to see whether early foals develop less later on from a top run by a certain date (I don\'t know)-- but I would be pretty sure that early foals have an advantage in early season races. A couple of months represents a pretty big percentage of their lives at that point.

[Ron G.]

Thanks for the response.  I would be interested in a study seeing if early foals that run a figure by a certain date then develop less later on, or vice versa.  I have a follow-up question.  If you are evaluating a two-year-old horse for a client who is considering purchasing the horse privately (let\'s say a two-year-old that has a race or two, or even a three-year-old that was a late foal) -- Do you consider the foaling date at all in your evaluation/recommendations?

[TGJB]

Ron-- if I were looking at an early 2yo (pre-Labor Day), I might give it some weight if the situation were extreme, like Jan/Feb, or late May/June. I pay a lot more attention to the the development in the sire profile, and the siblings.

And in general, I try to stay away from early 2yos-- they are a trap. Most of the time they are simply precocious, and succeeding because only 5% of the crop is ready to run at that point. My rule of thumb is that they are only worth buying if they are fast enough to be worth the money with no development at all through the end of the year.

We did that with Birr for Prestonwood-- bought her off a big figure maiden claiming win opening day at Saratoga for 120k, she went on to be third high weight on the experimental the same year-- without getting any better. But that\'s the only pre-labor day 2yo I can remember buying that we did any good with-- and in fact I can\'t remember buying more than one or two others, ever. One is a filly called Ring And A Prayer who just ran third in an allowance at Delaware-- in her second start after about 10 months off.