Alex, Bellamy, FD, who next?

[miff]

Rich,

I may be wrong but the Sheiks do not buy perception,they buy bloodlines, conformation and race record.

[richiebee]

Miff
    ...all of which they will conveniently disregard if they see a 2YO who works an eighth of a mile in less than 11 seconds at a 2YO in training sale..

    Between driving up the price of racehorses, and then bringing the ones they buy for the most part to Europe and Dubai, I think its fair to identify the \"Dubai Brothers\" as a part of the problem when it comes to the lack of quality racehorses at the upper levels of the sport in this country.

    Speaking of the \"Shifty Sheiks\", I am looking forward to to taking a pretty strong stand AGAINST Godolphin\'s Ruler\'s Court in Belmont\'s feature Wednesday. He will be largely overbet due to the presence of JD Bailey and his tour de force performance (TG # 0, Beyer 102) in the Norfolk Stakes, a race which was run nearly 2 years ago. One of my stabs will be with Marylou Whitney/ D Wayne runner Storm Legacy who was eased in his last at Spa, but has run to a \"1\" twice, once at Belmont.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Richie, you are on top of the entries.

I tend to agree with your assessment of the shieks. I think that they are just as prone to being influenced as everyone else. Perhaps more so, because they have the deep pockets.

This particular sale they seem to be after Storm Cats. For the life of me I can\'t recall any Cats that have run recently as classic threats. Storm Cat is beginning to get a little long in the tooth and his earnings have fallen off a bit the last couple years as well as a drop in his percentage of stakes winners.
if I\'m not mistaken. (which admittedly are both still high)
 
He\'s a fabulous speed sire. No one can contest that. Whether his are sound and really want ground is another issue. The only one I can recall running on was Cat Thief. He must have been made of Titanium.

Heres a list of the sire and grandsire winners of the Derby for as far back as I can recall without a reference. You can do the same for the Preakness and Belmont and what you\'ll find is Classic horses can come from anywhere, but that they rarely come from Storm Cat.

Mr. Prospector got a winner in each of the Classics. He however had much greater impact in pedigrees where his distance limitations and unsoundness were crossed with horses to offset those liabilities. Don\'t grill me about FuPeg. I still can\'t figure that one out.

Holy Bull/Great Above
Elusive Quality/Gone West
Distorted Humor/49er
Our Emblem/Mr Prospector
Maria's Mon/Wavering Monarch
Mr Prospector/Raise a Native
Summer Squall/Storm Bird
Quiet American/Fappiano
Silver Buck/Buckpasser
Unbridled/Fappiano
Gulch/Mr. Prospector
Cormorant/His Majesty
Polish Navy/Danzig
At the Threshold/Norcliffe
Alydar/Raise a Native
Fappiano/Mr. Prospector
Halo/Hail to Reason
Caro/Fortino
Alydar/Raise a Native
Nijinsky II/Northern Dancer
Buckaroo/Buckpasser

[NoCarolinaTony]

Oh No..then why are Rag#\'s assigned to Thorogbred Times Stallion Directory Books?

Just curious about that..since we are talking about it.

NC Tony

[NoCarolinaTony]

Not so sure the analogies make much sense in that while you chose track stars for you purpose, what about footbal players or baseball players who seem to be injured more often than their predecessors due to increased speed and stregnth?

I think we need to keep this to horses. Harness Horses are not facing the same fate as TBred\'s and they most certainly have gotten faster than Tbreds over similar periods (can be proven by on track speed and records broken over past 10 years). I think it\'s the breddeing of speed over speed, and lack of overall endurance conditioning. We are training them to go fast for a shorter period of time. (Back to Human analogies) Sprinters are hurt much more often than endurance runners. I thought Tim Ritchie bringing back some old school training was on track to maybe change things, but even Alex got hurt, thus his detractors remain with amunition.

Anyway This year edition of the Classics will be or rather poor quality excpet Distaff, Sprint, and Turf. Classic will be won by the one who is coming into the race in best shape/condition. Everyone else is hurt or on the DL.

Bottom line, it\'s a business and economics will always win. ROI  and CASH FLOW is KING.

NC Tony

Here\'s some of the latest prices.

http://www.drf.com/news/article/68536.html

I would love to see Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum\'s operating results from his thoroughbred purchases. I\'d be willing to bet he is getting buried in a very deep sea of red ink.

This has been my point. If someone is willing to pay these kinds of prices for yearlings, then naturally those prices will help support higher prices for stallions. That in turn helps tilt the economics of racing vs. retirement towards retirement.

Setting aside the intangible benefits of horse ownership that make normal business principles (like an adequate return on invested capital) only partially applicable, there will have to point where even guys like this conclude that they are overpaying. Perhaps that\'s not true of the sheiks because they have more dollars than God without the \"sense\" to match. But at the margin, IMO other bidders will back off when the losses pile up past a certain point.

[HP]

Mohammed rode to heaven on a horse.  None of what they do has anything to do with economics.  HP

[miff]

Did Mohammed ride a slow New York Bred Rat to heaven or a horse running negative figs? If the NY bred slow rat, he may not be there yet.

[HP]

I don\'t think they bought too many New York Breds back then either.  HP

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- evolution isn\'t really accurate. If it were only that, the species (both human and equine) would evolve in a lot of ways, and the bones, tendons etc. would evolve along with the muscles. But what is happening is that market forces are driving the advances in just one area (ability, or speed), while ignoring soundness. Weight training, supplements, etc are generally designed to just increase muscle mass (and other performance aspects) in humans, and the equivalents in horses. When you get muscles too strong for the support system you get (from my era) Koufax and Mantle. And really fast, unsound horses.

My own opinion, and it comes in part from dealing with a lot of horses and top trainers over the years, is that many injuries are caused by the stress of running too fast, but it\'s not always a simple, direct cause and effect. Sometimes a big effort can cause a horse to feel pain (minor injury, muscle soreness etc.) and alter his stride in subsequent works or races. Given the huge amounts of weight loads landing on small areas and the complex mechanics of the racehorse, a slight change can have disastrous effects-- the same thing happens when pitchers alter their deliveries because of an injury.

One of the things Jon Forbes told me is when you find an injury, look elswhere to see if it happened because the horse was trying to \"get off\" (not put weight) somewhere else. That guy is a very good trainer, by the way-- one of the very best, if not the best, horsemen I ever dealt with. The Maryland guys in general are really good pure horsemen.

[jimbo66]

Thanks Jerry.

Is that the same John Forbes who trained a lot at Monmouth and had Tale of the Cat?  

[TGJB]

Yes. Back when I was running Dennis Heard\'s stable (back at Ragozin) we had had success with Leatherbury, and asked him for recommendations of a young Maryland guy for a Jersey trainer. He gave us 3 names, we met John at the Meadowlands one night and were impressed. He moved to Jersey went on to win about 15 training titles, and became head of the HPBA there, I think.

[rando]

Miff  I don\'t think you can find a better statement than this post by Jerry ,interested in your comments.

[miff]

Rando,

For the most part I agree with what Jerry says especially that horses sometimes try to compensate for \"ouchiness\" by changing leads to try to get \"off\" the pain or they may bear(in or out) or become rough gaited.Another example is that habitual bad breakers are frequently \"off behind\".Their are many anatomical issues which come in to play when horses run their eyeballs out.


I differ that horses who run \"very fast\" are more prone to these problems than say a hard trying ouchy/lame one who is slower but lays is all on the line each time.Just remember that 90%(or more) of all horses have some soundness issue even if the connections do not admit it.Jerry sort of said it but more to the point, race horse were NOT made/created to have someone on their back banging, slashing, and urging them to their limits.It\'s amazing to me that many more do not break down whether they run negatives or 10\'s.

[rando]

Miff  I agree with your post. One area that hasn\'t been fully explored is the condition of AQU. and Gulfsteam track that produced these stratospherfic figs. I was in the stakes barn after the Preakness and was told by an employee of Frankel that he was going to Fairgrounds not Florida next spring. I asked why and the answer was the surface. I guess now we will never know about that statement