How Little Should I Pay?

The question at these auctions is often:

How little should I pay?

and not the more obvious, How much should I pay?

This deserves some explanation.

I you are bidding on horse with decent pedigree and a premium work (9.4 or 10.0 this year) you really cannot expect to buy a horse for less than 4-5x the stud fee. If the bidding stops “too soon”, it might be a strong indication there is something wrong with the horse.

Can you really avoid paying “to little” given we should expect the seller to have a “false buyer” that will at least bid the horse up to its reserve? I wish I knew the answer to that question. In a perfect world you should have confidence in your own vet work, but maybe you should also be watching to see if other real bidders have the same opinion.

In reality bids from the internet, or from a shadowy figure in the back of the sale will often make it tough to know who you are bidding against.

In most cases this really only applies to horse with premium works. Horses with average works, or questionable pedigrees, might sell for 1-2x the stud fee if no one is paying attention. This is how Brooklyn Strong sold for $5,000 with a 10.2 work at Ocala last year.

Let’s see if I can find a horse where this principle applies.