Building the Best Strategy

Let me try to consolidate all I have learned into the best strategy to employ going forward.

1. I am 90% sure I want to buy yearlings rather than 2 year olds in training. I would rather bring a horse along slowly, rather than rush their training.
2. I am 75% sure I want to pursue a filly rather than a colt. The possible residual value of a filly for breeding purposes seems to reduce the risk of buying a filly.
3. I am 50% sure that I want to try and find a turf horse. Maybe this a poor strategy without going to European sales. There just seems to be a lack of decent turf sires. This could be a difficult strategy to execute, so I will pursue both strategies.
4. I am 95% sure that I want to use the “empty mare” theory. I want to get decent prices by only buying horses where the mare has produced very few successful offspring. This might be controversial. I took me awhile to understand this strategy, but now I am sold.
5. I am 75% sure I want to focus on a horse by one of my top 10 sires. I understand the idea of choosing any sire to get the best “physical”, but the only way to deal with a 5000+ horse sale is to limit what you are looking for.
6. I am 75% sure my main focus will be the price range of $50,000 to $100,000, but I will also consider $100,000 to $150,000, and also under $50,000.
7. I am 60% sure I want to only consider mares that were decent two turn horses, or that at least were bred to go two turns. This is a controversial part of my strategy. It often leads to what Liz Crow calls plodder/plodder horses. My main reason for employing this strategy is to get a good price. Any horse that might be speed/precocious oriented, is a horse where I will have to compete with the pinhookers. Maybe I should pursue more “balanced” horses. The poor performance of my yearlings from the 2020 sale has caused me to waver a little on this strategy.
8. I am 75% sure that I want to pay 3x the stud fee or more for a horse. This might fall to 2x for expensive sires. I want to avoid buying “problem” horses.
9. I am 75% sure I want to buy a horse with a nick rating of at least B. Maybe I should ignore this concept, but again I want to avoid problem horses
10. I am 75% sure I want to shop at the Keeneland September sale, but I want to understand why horses end up in the October FT sale.