96% PROVEN FAILURE RATE TELLS PEOPLE TO AVOID BECOMING RACEHORSE OWNERS

09/01/13

The Magic Millions sale kicks off today at the Gold Coast and 900 Lots are due to be sold between today and next Sunday evening. Once Magic Millions is over, then the focus moves to the Inglis yearling sale in Sydney before the end of January and so on and so forth. Therefore it would seem an opportune time for prospective buyers of such yearlings to take one step back and smell the roses.

Last year at the same Magic Millions January yearling sale some 989 Lots were catalogued in six sales sessions, meaning this year’s 900 across five sessions is down one session and about 9% numerically on last year’s sale, which is all good, as you may recall Justracing wrote an article at Magic Millions sale time last year querying as to how some of the rubbish got into the alleged January “select sale”.

What I thought we’d do today is go back in time to see if some high priced yearlings of recent years that have been sold by either of Australia’s two big bloodstock companies – Gold Coast based Magic Millions and Sydney bases Inglis – finished up paying their way in life or not.

To that end the following group were all yearlings sold in 2007 at yearling sales conducted by Magic Millions and Inglis. The subsequent cumulative results, or moreover the distinct lack of results of the group, show why the madness of yearling sales prices around Australia in that era had no option but to thankfully evaporate given the passage of time, to the point where hopefully today the industry has more respect for the mighty dollar than it did back then. It’s a no brainer that some of the prices that have been paid for yearlings in the past have been nothing short of rampant stupidity.

A regular website reader from Ballina in northern New South Wales has kindly sent me through a list of the highest priced yearlings of the 2006/2007 breeding season and the names they were then given by their hopeful owners. It should be noted that to be eligible to be included in Bob’s work, the yearling had to sell at a public yearling sale for a figure of $1,000,000 or above. The list Bob researched and sent through is below. I have updated all prizemoney earnings to be correct as at today. Source of the number of starts and their current prizemoney earnings is the Stud Book website, as there is some slight variation for some strange and ridiculous reason around various form websites, even on the number of starts a retired racehorse has had:

SEX

SIRE/DAM

NAME

Price

($m)

Trainer

(initial)

Racing

Starts-1st-2nd-3rd.

Earnings

($)

c

Rock of Gibraltar/ L’On Vite

Mount Olympus

3.0

W/house

20-1-2-0

19,215

f

Encosta de Lago/ Twyla

Movin’Out

2.2

Snowden

8-1-1-1

40,750

f

Redoute’s Choice/ Tycoon Lil

Estee

2.1

Freedman

23-3-4-1

250,735

c

Redoute’s Choice/ Urge to Merge

Master of Design

2.1

Freedman

17-7-1-4

320,709

c

Sadler’s Wells/ Sunday Joy

Seventh Reason

2.0

W/house

15-2-3-0

44,290

g

Redoute’s Choice/ Egyptian Ibis

El Cairo

2.0

Perry

29-1-2-4

48,965

c

Redoute’s Choice/ Procrastinate

Time Thief

2.0

Freedman

7-2-3-1

369,738

g

Elusive Quality/ Republic Lass

Libertarian

2.0

Snowden

24-3-4-2

73,230

f

Redoute’s Choice/ African Rain

Mozambique

1.6

Hawkes

12-1-1-1

23,215

c

Redoute’s Choice/ La Bamba

Valens

1.6

Messara

5-1-1-0

12,550

f

Redoutes Choice/ Tambara

Chamatry

1.6

Hayes

11-0-4-0

21,060

g

Redoute’s Choice/ Liberty Rose

Grand Jardin

1.5

Freedman

22-5-1-0

168,950

f

Encosta de Lago/ Hasna

Hades

1.5

Pride

8-2-0-2

33,350

f

Redoute’s Choice/ Milliyet

Samantha Miss

1.5

Lees

12-7-2-2

1,763,260

g

Redoute’s Choice/ National Treasure

Gravitas

1.5

Messara

45-3-11-6

83,885

g

Redoute’s Choice/ Rich Silk

New Silk Road

1.5

Freedman

No starts

Nil

f

Redoute’s Choice/ Snippets Lass

Viennese

1.4

Freedman

9-3-1-1

162,725

g

Redoute’s Choice/ Bella Sunday

Don’t Doubt Me

1.4

Messara

7-1-0-2

11,300

c

Elusive Quality/ Blue Quail

Mullfit

1.4

Martin

3-0-0-1

6,630

f

Encosta de Lago/ Oceanfast

Azumi

1.4

Martin

No starts

Nil

f

Encosta de Lago/ Push a Venture

Glowlamp

1.4

Connors

28-1-2-7

300,350

f

Elusive Quality/ Quays

Boca Chita

1.3

W/house

9-2-0-3

67,150

f

Encosta de Lago/ Subterfuge

Mothwing

1.25

Conners

20-2-4-3

57,850

c

Encosta de Lago/ Piavonic

Von Costa de Hero

1.2

Hayes

19-1-2-3

1,117,450

g

Exceed and Excel/ Skating

Petrenko

1.2

Freedman

16-2-4-4

38,017

g

Redoute’s Choice/ Mascara Magic

Definitive

1.17

Moody

34-3-4-5

106,350

f

Fusaichi Pegasus/ Monsoon Wedding

Climatic

1.0

Hayes

8-2-0-2

36,365

 

 

TOTALS:

$43.8m

 

410-56-57-55

$5,795,589

 

It should be said that there must surely be an extraordinary number of hopeless judges out there when it comes to selecting thoroughbreds on type, pedigree and all the other criteria that they all use. How else could anyone explain spending $43.8 million on 27 yearlings that each cost $1 million or more and only getting a return of $5,795,589? That’s disgraceful and surely points the blame fairly and squarely on bad judgment in one or more facets of the selection process, for they all went to what most in mainstream media call “top trainers” – not that I’d use such terms with such gay abandon.

Only two of the 27 yearlings (7.41%) that cost one million dollars or more didn’t get to race meaning at least a healthy 92.59% made it to the track, thus affording them every opportunity to repay their purchase price.

Of the 25 of the 27 that made it to the racetrack of dreams, only one – Samantha Miss – (4% of those that raced) showed a profit on her purchase price of $1.5 million, earning $1,763,260 during her career, meaning that an incredible 96% of the yearlings didn’t show a profit on their purchase price, let alone any other costs incurred, such as training fees, etcetera.

Of the 27 yearlings above, only two managed to win a Group 1 race and they were Samantha Miss (referred to in the previous paragraph) and she won in fact three Group 1 races, namely the Champagne Stakes, Flight Stakes and VRC Oaks. The sole other one from the group to win at Group 1 level was Master of Design which beat five rivals when he won the Group 1 T J Smith at Randwick on 14/4/12. Even following his Group 1 victory and the associated prizemoney, Master of Design still finished up being retired to stud having earned only $938,209 – which is just $1,161,791 short of his purchase price of $2.1 million and that’s without paying for as much as one day’s training fees, spelling costs, etcetera, during his racing career, the point being that even after your yearling purchase subsequently wins a Group 1 race, you can still be out of pocket over $1 million, without training fees when the horse is retired. In the case of Master Of Design he was never gelded – so he obviously has a chance to make up that financial deficit as a stallion.

In another interesting statistic 14 of the aforesaid group of 27 (51.85%) yearlings were by Redoute’s Choice meaning only the one Redoute’s Choice progeny – Samantha Miss – paid its own way in life whilst racing. That’s amazing given that Redoute’s Choice which went to stud in the Year 2000, as at today has just over 75% winners-to-runners and just over 11.50% stakeswinners-to-runners from 825 runners (stats correct as at current 2013 Magic Millions catalogue).

In a final amazing statistic, the 27 horses cumulatively faced the starter a total of 410 times, recording 56 wins between them, meaning the group had an extremely abysmal winning strike rate of just 13.66% – and those statistics are from any racetrack around Australia, in any class of race, including lowly non-TAB events.

Clearly the moral to all the aforesaid is if someone buys a $50,000 yearling, $100,000 yearling or even a $3 million yearling at the Magic Millions or Inglis yearling sale and wants to sell you a share in it, be blatantly aware that your chances of showing a profit if you buy a share in it are at best what I’d call “very ordinary” – as even the best bred, best conformed, well related and most expensive thoroughbreds – trained by the “top trainers” in the land like John Hawkes and Peter Snowden – can finish up costing you an absolute motza.

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there is the first of two montages of photos from Eagle Farm last Saturday and others of interest including how the LNP has all this money to give away to sport, so where’s the dough for racing? On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s the story about Lonhro’s continuing success and on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls looks at Part 3 of his 12 part review of 2012 highlights.

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