Tracking Sales
With the yearling sales coming up, I’ve been thinking about how much the information from these sales—and the experiences I’ve had buying horses—has helped me with my handicapping.
The sales shape what happens later.
That’s something I don’t think enough people understand.
Let me first say this: it’s easy to buy horses.
Yes, it is.
If you have a sugar daddy, or seven figures to spend.
Some of us have less than 10% of what other people have to spend. We have to make do with what we’ve got. That’s reality.
And I’ll tell you something else. I rail and draw my rants against handicappers who use auction prices as a handicapping tool. They see a horse sold for $500,000 or $1 million and somehow that becomes part of their handicapping equation.
What does the price actually tell you?
It tells you somebody had enough money to buy a pretty hoss.
That’s it.
Money can buy you a pretty horse.
It cannot buy you a racehorse.
My experience with the sales has introduced me to an awful lot of good people. And, of course, the opposite. That comes with the territory.
But after all these years, I keep coming back to one thing:
The key to the sale is the individual horse.
Not the pedigree.
Not who the sire is.
The horse.
I do think the mare is important. Very important, actually. But probably not in the way you might think.
Look at some of the people who spend seven figures on highly accomplished racemares with impeccable credentials. They have the mare, the pedigree, the family, the race record, everything you would think you need.
And then they swing and miss with the mating.
And swing and miss again with the progeny.
That’s why I tend to follow more along the lines of Federico Tesio’s thinking.
Look at the individual.
Study the horse.
Try to understand what is standing in front of you.
My objective is simple: find horses in our price range with the highest possible upside.
That’s it.
A few weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I had absolutely zero intention of buying a horse.
But I always look at the digital sales.
You never know.
My routine starts with the horse. I want to see how they move. Their mannerisms. How they carry themselves. Their attitude. I’m trying to understand the individual.
And remember, you’re looking at a yearling.
You have to project.
You’re looking at what the horse is today and trying to imagine what that body is going to look like when it matures. You’re projecting the body mass. You’re projecting the development. You’re trying to see what might be there six months, a year, two years from now.
That’s the art of it.
Hip 62 in the July Digital Sale immediately caught my attention.
She reminded me of a filly I bought as a short yearling at the January sale at Keeneland in 2015.
We paid $17,000.
She became a $1.8 million Graded Stakes-winning mare, Ms. Locust Point.
She had everything you wanted to see. She was by Dialed In and out of a First Samurai mare.
But she didn't have the royal blood that would attract the big-time spenders.
And that didn’t matter to me.
Hip 62 was a Lexitonian filly out of Mission City Girl.
Now, there is a wrong way and a right way to do this.
I have a checklist.
And the first item on that checklist comes before I even look at the pedigree.
My veterinarian.
We’ve got a good one.
They call him “Dr. No.”
No, he’s not a James Bond character.
He’s a sharp-as-a-tack veterinarian with a no-nonsense attitude.
I love working with him.
He’s my first call.
His job is to go through the X-rays on file and the scope. What’s going on inside those joints? How does the breathing apparatus function?
Those things are imperative before you go any further.
With Hip 62, he had one small note on the stifle and a possible cyst. But the angle at which the X-ray was taken made it difficult to determine exactly what we were looking at.
Cysts are not something you want to have in the bone.
Outside the bone?
That’s a different story.
And the way the stifle had been filmed was questionable in the first place.
Her throat and function, however?
Awesome.
Check off the vetting as positive.
Now comes the homework.
The mare didn’t accomplish anything herself. But she was a daughter of Canadian Champion
Always An Allstar.
The second dam?
Full of Stakes horses.
Fast ones.
Now we had to determine what the horse would cost us.
The stud fee for Lexitonian—a sire who doesn’t exactly ring the bell for most people—was $7,500.
That doesn’t bother me.
These digital sales can be tricky because everything happens in the last hour.
The filly was sitting at $4,500 at that point.
I was willing to go under $10,000.
I had to live up to my Dollar General mentality at auctions.
That’s how you make money.
You don’t have to buy the most expensive horse.
You have to buy the right horse at the right price.
I’ve got the confidence to do it because I’ve done it before.
We got her for $7,500.
When we got her back at the farm we took digitial x rays and she was clean in that stifle, the xrays was shot awkwardly.
That’s the positive side of the digital sales.
But there’s another side.
In the August sale, which had just concluded, there was a New York-bred Bustin Stones yearling I liked on video.
He moved well.
But the right hind ankle was questionable.
So Doctor No went through the X-rays.
Hip 65.
He was concerned about the way the X-ray had been filmed.
It was almost like they were hiding something.
Doctor No used another angle and believed there was a cyst in the ankle bone.
Those are inoperable.
Those are best left alone.
The X-ray was inconclusive, but that was enough to make us cautious.
Then came the throat scope.
A mess.
The video was upside down. It was short. Virtually useless.
So we contacted the sales company.
To their credit, they were very helpful. They contacted the sellers and had them make a second video of the throat and its functions.
That’s what you want.
You want the information.
You want the opportunity to make an educated decision.
Doctor No——immediately called me with the result.
His assessment:
“Horse has a grade 2 epiglottis (short and stubby). Easily displaced a few times during examination. Marginal throat to me and likely to need a Llewellyn.”
For those who don't know, a Llewellyn is a minimally invasive throat surgery performed on horses to correct dorsal displacement of the soft palate, a condition that can create a breathing problem and limit athletic performance during fast exercise.
So now you have the combination.
A questionable hind ankle.
A suspected cyst.
A marginal throat.
A likely surgical procedure.
That makes this one a tricky buy.
You would be amazed how many people don’t want to pay the veterinarian for this kind of insight when buying a horse.
I don't understand it.
I rely on my vet to make good purchases.
I don't take chances with my money.
And I don't take chances with my partners' money.
The horse sold for $8,000.
I never once opted to bid.
That’s the business.
But here’s another thing people need to understand.
I don't work these sales for commission.
I buy a piece of the horse myself.
I don't just sell the horse.
I am invested in the horse.
That changes your perspective.
Years ago, one bloodstock agent who represented some very high-profile clients told me about a $12,000 yearling purchase.
“That horse isn't worth my time.”
He meant it.
But what did he really mean?
A $12,000 horse represented roughly a $600 commission for him.
A $250,000 horse?
Now you’re talking about a $12,500 commission.
That’s a completely different proposition.
And that’s one of the things people don't want to talk about when they talk about buying horses.
There are commissions involved.
There are owners looking for tax advantages.
There are people accustomed to buying the best—or what they believe is the best—with their dollars.
I encountered that myself with Ms. Locust Point.
When I bought her as a yearling, I was told by two potential partners:
“She’s cheap.”
And:
“I want good horses.”
They equated money spent with class.
That is absolutely the wrong way to approach a racehorse.
There is no correlation between money spent and class in a racehorse.
None.
The only thing money can really help you accomplish at the sales is volume.
If you buy 20 horses instead of two, the law of averages says you have more chances to find one.
That’s the shotgun approach.
Spread it out.
Hope you hit something.
But buying horses at auction when you have limited capital?
That's different.
For us, we buy one.
Two at best in a year.
So we have to make it count.
Fortunately, we have.
And the funny thing about this game is that you never know where the next good horse is going to come from.
Look at our Banksy.
A Paynter colt out of one of our second-generation Racingwithbruno mares.
The late Paynter stood for $5,000.
The mare was unraced.
But talented.
And her foals have been outstanding.
Banksy has earned more than $200,000 in his career. He is making his mare.
He has been handled flawlessly by David Fawkes and Eric Gary.
We keep our mares and foals at Margaux Farm, which is a great place to raise a horse.
And that brings me to the part people sometimes forget.
It doesn’t stop when you buy the horse.
Buying the horse is only the beginning.
You need a support group.
Like your family.
You need your veterinarian.
You need the farm.
You need the trainer.
You need the people who handle the horse every day.
You need people who will tell you the truth, even when the truth isn't what you want to hear.
That’s how you survive in this business.
You can't buy your way out of bad decisions.
You can't pedigree your way out of a bad individual.
And you certainly can't spend your way into a good horse.
You can only do your homework, trust your people, know your limitations, and wait for the horse that fits.
That’s what the sales have taught me.
And those lessons don't stay at the sale.
They follow you to the racetrack.
Because the sales shape what happens later.
You can get more information in being part at Bruno@racingwithbruno.com
