The Big Question

Just when you think you are beginning to understand the horse sale business, you find another level of complexity.

By diving into analyzing the horses available in Ocala, I really missed the big question.

Should you be looking at any of the 2-yr old in training sales at all, or should you only be focused on the yearling sales?

My starting point was looking at the West Point website. They added the 3 that they just bought, but there staring back at me were 20 other magnificent 2-yr olds. Best I could tell, 18 of them had been purchased at yearling sales (I guess either Saratoga or Keeneland), 2 more came from the March Ocala training sale.

At first the scoreboard looks like 18 to 5 yearling vs 2-yr old, lets assume West Point adds two more at the Timonium sale, that would make the simple score 18 to 7.

75% yearling. — 25% 2-yr old

But then you at the big dollars paid in the yearling sale and you see the answer is really

95% yearling. — 5% 2 yr-ols. in dollar terms

West Point’s answer to the big question is clear – Focus on the yearlings

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Let’s look at it another way.

There were 23 Frosted’s in the Ocala catalog, 8 were withdrawn before working, 3 were sold but RNAed (avg $120,000), and 12 sold for about $100,000 each (with a range of $185,000 to $9,000). Remember the the Ruler of Dubai and I liked the same one for $65,000.

Of the 15 that worked, 3 were fast, 6 were average, and 6 were slow. About the same distribution as all the other horses.

It would be easy to conclude that Frosted had a poor Ocala sale. Of the 9 that appeared to have been pinhooked 2 made a $100,000 profit, 3 made a small profit, 2 broke even, and 2 had substantial losses, and in total the 9 essentially broke even. The pinhookers could not have been happy.

Does that mean Frosted is in trouble? No it does not.

There were 35 Frosted’s that sold at yearling sales for over $200,000, only 2 of those were brought to the Ocala sale. The rest remain in the barns of some very good owners. What you saw at Ocala was only a glimpse of the bottom end of the Frosted market. It very well might mean absolutely nothing.

West Point bought a Frosted for $250,000. He was appropriately named Magnificent. He is now my favorite for the 2021 Kentucky Derby. He is out of and unraced Pleasant Tap mare that has already produced a $700,000 winner. As well bred as Magnificent is, West Point have several other that are even better. Just go and look at the website. It looks like the New York Yankees “Murder’s Row”, and the horses from the Ocala sale look like at best the Toledo Mudhens.

OK, that looks easy, focus on the yearlings. Except for one thing, when you look at the prices paid for the well bred yearlings the picture becomes very cloudy again.

What is left is a very difficult puzzle. The seemingly bargain prices 2-yr olds in training, or the pricey yearlings.

Every MSW and allowance/stakes race I watch for the rest of my life will be a competition between the two ideas. I knew that this competition existed, I just never really focused on it. I was trying to pick winners, but if you are in the horse buying business every non-claiming race has a meaning other than picking the winner. Of course, every claiming race is a stark reminder of what NOT to do.

The world just got even more complicated, that’s good