Expensive Horses

On day one of the Ocala sale I stayed with my discipline and “bought” two value oriented horses.

On day two of the sale I got into the spirit of things and spent money like the “cool kids” do. Valuation be damned, I want the horses I want. I hope this will be a good lesson on why this is a bad strategy, but let’s give it a try.

Larry Hirsch got and MBA from Wharton and then ran major companies like Centex and Eagle Materials. He seems like a rational man. Today he paid $260,000 for a son of the unknown stallion American Freedom. By my calculations that is 43x the stud fee.

Why would he do such a thing? Maybe he has too much money, and lighting it all on fire would create a big pile of ashes that would be difficult to clean up.

Or maybe Mr. Hirsch noticed the very fast work of 20.4 and the great looking walking video that showed a long bodied horse that in anything but a sprinter. Maybe he noticed the pedigree which adds such stamina influences such as Chester House, With Approval, and Hawaii to AP Indy and Pleasant Tap on the sire’s side. Maybe he noticed this horse worked fast despite being born on May 12th.

I hope Mr. Hirsch found the winner of next year’s Kentucky Derby.

#461 – c – American Freedom – Divine Happiness by Divine Park, 5/12 foal – $260,000

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As I kind of expected the son of LDK at #362 went way past my price range. In fact it was my friends at West Point that bid him all the way to $300,000. To me that was way too much for a horse that worked 10.1. I guess that the $300,000 reflects the fact that this horse could become a sire if he has a great career. There are no sons of LDK at stud, and there are not many left. Maybe that is a great strategy, but for now I want to focus on fast horses and not the stallion business.

My backup plan included hip #448. This son of Maclean’s Music sold for $120,000. The work was an OK 21.3, but given all the Euro turf breeding on the dam side (Galileo, Sadler’s Wells, Danehill) a slow time can be expected. What happens when you mix Maclean’s Music with turf horse? That’s is what we will find out. Let’s hope for another Cloud Computing

#448 – c – Maclean’s Music – Dazzling by Galileo, 3/23 foal – $120,000

The real world buyer was an agent name Kim Valerio. She has bought horses in the past for Mike Dubb. In an interview, Ms. Valerio says she like long horses with big shoulders, so do I. I am not thrilled by the price, but as the say in the movies:

Sometimes you just have to say “what the ………..”

Maybe next week I can buy some Into Mischief’s for $1,200,000 at Gulfstream. Only kidding, I will return to my value seeking methods for the April Ocala sale.