stud fees in argentina

Tags

argentine stud fees, fee pricing, shuttle stallions, supply and demand

Regular commentator Observer asked earlier this week about the stud fees in Argentina and how they stack up against fees for the same or similar horses in the US.

A bit of investigation among the horse breeders here showed that they are paying half-price “or less” for stallions standing in the Northern Hemisphere, and those stallions year round in Argentina are likewise flexible in pricing.

For example, when Giant’s Causeway was imported to stand on a lease arrangement, the cost to breeders was in the neighborhood of $2 million for the ticket.

Lease members bought into the group for a $20,000 fee, and then seasons were sold for $25,000 to those not willing to sign on for the lease group. With a hundred mares subscribed intially and more than 130 covered, the son of Storm Cat more than paid back his lessors, and provided everybody in the Southern Hemisphere with extraordinary value for the opportunity to breed to one of the premier stallions in the world, especially considering the horse has recently been as high as $200,000 + plus in Kentucky.

The shortcoming to the pricing of NH stallions leased or shuttled to the Southern Hemisphere is the discrepancy between “SH” pricing and that farther north. There is NO value for the breeder in Kentucky, England, or France compared to the stud fees paid in the Southern Hemisphere (with the exception of More Than Ready in Australia).

One of the reasons for that is that the sales market in South America is not as robustly developed as in the States. Another reason is that most of these stallions are leased or purchased by groups of breeders, not stood at stud by farms that sell a great number of seasons.

In the next few years, we will find out which horses strike it rich in the El Dorado of South American breeding and whether that has the effect of raising stud fees.

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to those of you without benefit of flan

Tags

culture and food, food in argentina, travel and eating

My heart beats for your loss and general deprivation.

Aside from the excellence of horse breeding and racing in Argentina (which is actually the reason for my being here), one of the wonders below the Equator is the cuisine of Argentina.

“Yum” doesn’t get it. We are far beyond pure taste. There is smell and sight and sound of food, as well as the flavor and savor of it.

There is an astonishing amount of very good food available in Argentina. It is fresh and strange (in an interesting way), as well as great tasting. The menu also strongly leans toward meat.

As traveling companion (and business associate) Bob Fierro put it at dinner tonight, “If you have an enemy who is a vegetarian, give him a one-way ticket to Argentina.”

But as good as the carnivore diet has become here locally, the very best thing is the dessert. And as my title suggests, the custard that goes under the name of “flan” is an outstanding item. Even compared to flan from the US, which cannot be made so differently, there is a subtle tang in the local product, whether from the milk or other delicate ingredients added during the process.

Then this fresh, firm feast is topped with dulce de leche (the thick caramel sauce that is unlike anything sold out of can in the States).

Perhaps it is good that this delicacy is so hard to find at home in the same rich mixture because I might swell to 300 pounds.

Tomorrow, it is back to a focus on racing and breeding, with a visit to La Leyenda and their shuttle stallions Exchange Rate, Freud, and Offlee Wild.

the juice from argentina

Tags

argentine breeding, argentine racing, bernstein, carreras de las estrellas, easing along, international breeding, marcelo duran, pure prize

BUENOS AIRES — This is actually Bluegrass South with gauchos.

At the Estrellas (Breeders’ Cup equivalent) on Saturday, I spoke with Marcelo Duran, commentator and television journalist for ESPN Argentina.

During a lull in the 19-race card, Duran interviewed me for his TV show and among the questions he asked was “What do you see as the results of the shuttle of stallions on breeding in Argentina?”

My reply went something like this:

In the past 20 years, we have seen an increasing traffic in stallions to Argentina from the Northern Hemisphere. Chief among those early imports was the great South American stallion Southern Halo, whose offspring showed such speed and dominated the short racing in Argentina, as well as occasionally stretching out to become major influences in the classics.

Now, we are seeing the first full results of the shuttle stallions coming down from Kentucky, and clearly the next great stallion for Argentine breeding is the Storm Cat horse Bernstein.

[In racing at the Estrellas, Bernstein’s Que Vida Buena and La Liz ran one-two in the Sprint over 1,000 meters.]

The Storm Cat stallions such as Bernstein, Pure Prize, Easing Along, and others have added a dimension of speed to racing that is coupled with the potential to get horses who stretch out to race eight, 10, even 12 furlongs.

The shuttle stallions who fit the racing, training, and breeding needs of Argentina will be adding an extra dimension of speed and class to the best local families, creating stock that can take Argentine breeding into greater competitiveness with all other countries.

[As I venture out onto the stud farms around Buenos Aires, I will be adding further information and observations about racing and breeding in Argentina.]

foreground the strengths of racing

Tags

commentary on racing, public relations in racing, rifat hussain, sport and the public

The following is a guest commentary from Rifat Hussain, MD, who has bred and raced horses on a small scale for more than 30 years. His best-known racer was the fleet Shimatoree, winner of the True North Handicap and Bay Shore Stakes (as well as second in the Wood Memorial and Gotham) and later sire of G1 winner Feel the Beat, among others.

Yesterday, I closed with the question: “What is the one most attractive aspect of owning a racehorse?”

Simply stated, it is the ability or chance to compete on an even playing field with the big cats. It is only in this game that the Joe Blows have the same chance of coming up with the winner of the Kentucky Derby as do the fat cats. The industry should play this aspect of the sport to the hilt. I do not think the “elitist” theme that seems so dear to the press and to some others in this industry has done any good for attracting new owners. The great attraction of the United States for the people of the world is that they have the opportunity to succeed if they are willing to work hard. Why not use this as the theme of the racing industry?

An attempt must be made to locate the “little guy made good” stories. That should be the theme of the media advisers to racing and breeding organizations. After all, the Breeders’ Cup, the Kentucky Derby, and the Triple Crown employ a number of media experts who can influence what image the racing industry puts forth.

Some of the emotions between horses and humans would be another aspect of this industry which has not been touched upon. The grooms, hotwalkers, and exercise riders all love “their” horses. All children love horses. The fans of tomorrow are the children. Why does it take an amateur to point this out? The children of today are the owners of tomorrow. A good feeling toward racing in childhood will be a good investment for the owners of tomorrow.

I would like to take the Thoroughbred industry and shake it and tell it to wake up and use its assets (public relations) and think about the future. Don’t think of the short term, “fix it” gimmickry. You must have a plan and follow it. Mostly, you must think of the future and learn to look at the past and present and not bury your head in the ground. It is difficult to set the pace, it is difficult to be a pioneer, but the sales companies have the opportunity to start the integrity ball rolling, and maybe others will follow.

bringing in more owners requires vision and analysis

Tags

challenges in racing, difficulties for buyers and for sellers, reason and analysis of racing

The following is a guest commentary from Rifat Hussain, MD, who has bred and raced horses on a small scale for more than 30 years. His best-known racer was the fleet Shimatoree, winner of the True North Handicap and Bay Shore Stakes (as well as second in the Wood Memorial and Gotham) and later sire of G1 winner Feel the Beat, among others.

Before new owners are recruited, racing should identify why it can’t keep the owners it already has.

I would like to make a few comments on a topic which seems to be on everyone’s mind these days in the Thoroughbred industry: namely, how to get more owners in the business. The many plans which have been put forth either by individuals in their comments or by organizations have failed to recognize or mention the problems before coming out with solutions. As one might expect, these solutions are not oriented toward correcting the causes behind the gradual disenchantment of owners in the Thoroughbred business. More important still is the fact that no one seems to want to analytically examine the problems while they keep coming up with various proposals to do a “quick fix.”

When one considers owners, we must separate owners who breed to sell and those who primarily race. The latter can be subdivided into those who breed to race and those who buy at the various auctions in order to get their racing prospects.

Let us start with the problems of the owners who breed to sell. This person is usually someone who owns a few mares which are kept at a boarding farm. Usually the owner makes arrangements to sell the progeny of his mares through the farm where he boards the animals. He pays for the stud fees or owns shares in one or more stallions. Now, since the market’s downward slide, his bloodstock has dropped in value quite a bit. He expects to take losses and he accepts that as part of the business. What he does not accept or does not like to accept is the fact that while the value of the bloodstock and his stallion shares has dropped, the other expenses have not. Perhaps they have gone up. The board has not dropped, the vet fees have gone up, the blacksmith fee has gone up, the price of hay has gone up, the stallion board bill has gone up, etc.

As thought this was not enough, in some cases the sales person who sells his horses may give him a rather optimistic evaluation of his yearlings/mares when they are placed or entered in the sale. On the day of the sale, the sales agent may appear somewhat grim, saying that the horses might not bring what he thought. The horses sell, but at less than half of what was expected. Right after the sale, the sales agent tells the owner that in his opinion the horses brought what they were wroth. If this seems a rather far-fetched story, it is not. It has happened far too often to too many people.

Like all military generals who have fought battles on a real battle front know, before you can advance, you must consolidate what you already have. As is obvious in this case, an important first step is to keep the owners we already have. If you lose just one owner, statistics have shown that he will prevent many others from joining in.

The owner who breeds to race gets the double whammy. He not only has to deal with all of the above, but he has to deal with the tricks and treats of the racetrack. There is no central clearing authority which provides any information to the racing owner as to whom to go to when seeking a trainer. It is not as simple as some may think, although you can learn through a few ups and downs at the school of hard knocks provided through the courtesy of the commonly described “unsavory characters.”

Owners do in fact pay the bills most of the time. If that is the case – which essentially means that they pay the trainer – then the simplest way around this obstacle would be for the trainer to educate the owner. Some trainers “train” the owner not to be a nuisance. Call them and they are rude, obnoxious, not available, and they never return your call. When one of the horses runs, the trainer might grant you the privilege of telling you what happened in the face, although the truth seldom gets told. Some trainers do not like to say that the horse was “no good.” Trainers always seem to tell a story; perhaps they like telling stories, and many owners believe these stories – for a time anyway.

It is high time that the sales companies stood up in a leadership role. It is, after all, up to them to sell a good product. No one is asking them to guarantee each yearling to be a Man o’ War, but everyone would like them to sell a sound product. They already do that to some extent in the summer sales. Don’t they have a group of vets going around and examining the yearling prospects for the selected sales? Do they accept yearling who are back at the knees or with shin splints and curbs. No, they do not. If they do not do that, then what, I may ask, is the idea of hiding behind the conditions of sales? It is a question of reputation.

The sales companies have failed in this respect. If Detroit tried selling cars with the same type of conditions of sales that the horse auction companies have, there would be no American cars at all. The people who buy Mercedes Benzes do not worry about warranties. Do you know why? Because the reputation of Mercedes is good enough. Now you would suppose that the sales companies would give the question of reputation some thought. Detroit has learned that now that they are making good cars, they still can’t compete with the Japanese, and the reason simply is “reputation.”

The problems that are facing this industry are many and complex, but there are some simple facts that should be noted, especially by those who have appointed themselves to the task of getting more owners:

1. There is a great need for a central office or guiding agency that steers new owners to trainers who are interested on the overall welfare of the industry, and who know that without new owners this or any industry is dead.
2. What is the one most attractive aspect of owning a racehorse? Simply stated, it is the ability or chance to compete on an even playing field with the big cats. It is only in this game that the Joe Blows have the same chance of coming up with the winner of the Kentucky Derby (G1) as do the fat cats. The industry should play this aspect of the sport to the hilt. I do not think the “elitist” theme that seems so dear to the press and to some others in this industry has done any good for attracting new owners. The great attraction of the United States for the people of the world is that they have the opportunity to succeed if they are willing to work hard. Why not use this as the theme of the racing industry?

why we struggle

Tags

boardroom suits, interactive media, katy perry, marketing racing, ntra, r2collective, racing and its audience, racing's wrongheadedness

The excellent blog R2Collective has yet another insightful post on the challenges that racing must address if it wants to find new fans and enlarge its appeal among fun- and excitement-conscious youth.

The blog begins with a discussion of singer Katy Perry and how she and her team of promoters use interactive media as a way to involve fans in everything they do. Katy Perry is the IT GURL of today because she understands what moves her audience and she gives it to ‘em. It ain’t art, but it’s damned smart marketing.

We don’t have much of that among the suits in boardrooms who make the decisions that committees carry out … and that result in nothing year after year.

Racing does not have to be stuck in this mire, but it is. And a large part of the reason is this:

About a decade ago, a friend of mine made a detailed proposal to the NTRA about developing an interactive site with videos, profiles, stats, etc. about the top racehorses of each year, their owners, breeders, etc.

This was years ahead of YouTube and other forms of social media, but the proposal was well thought out and would have melded seamlessly into that entire program of interactivity.

When this was presented to the NTRA board, little Timmy Smith, that overpaid nonfriend of racing, killed it because it didn’t appeal to HIM. When my friend urged some of the other high-ranking members of the NTRA board to consider the merits of the website development after the meeting, word was passed back to little Timmy, who essentially managed to run the idea’s originator out of his job and largely out of the industry.

That is the attitude that we are all struggling against.

lady shakespeare another strike for owner-breeder fipke

Tags

chuck fipke, jack werk, joe estes, la troienne, lady shakespeare, lady shirl, new york stakes, owner-breeders, plebeian pedigrees, quality in female lines, quality producers, sid fernando, successful broodmares, theatrical

The following story appeared on Paulick Report earlier this week.

The victory of Lady Shakespeare in the Grade 2 New York Stakes on Saturday reminds attentive breeders that the genes that create a successful racehorse – wherever it comes from – are the best indicators that the colt or filly is likely to be able to transmit similar traits to its offspring. In other words, good horses breed more good horses, and the best Thoroughbred statisticians, Joe Estes and David Dink, have proven this in study after study.

Lady Shirl, the dam of Lady Shakespeare, could run. She had a sturdy record of 19 victories from 41 starts and a bit more than $1 million in earnings. It’s important in evaluating her produce record to note where she won and where she earned. She was a good racehorse, but on turf Lady Shirl was a really good racehorse.

On her preferred surface, Lady Shirl won 15 of 29 starts and earned more than 90 percent of her earnings.

So, it’s no surprise that Grade 1 winner Lady Shirl has been a very good producer. From eight foals to race, Lady Shirl has seven winners, with three stakes winners and a stakes-placed winner among them.

Lady Shirl, however, did not start out start out as a producer with great expectations. She had too plebeian a pedigree to inspire much confidence in most breeders.

The daughter of the Hey Good Lookin stallion That’s a Nice was the best offspring of her sire by a country mile and was the best offspring of her dam, the Native Heritage mare Canonization, by a similar margin. Nothing in her first two generations of pedigree could hold a light for Lady Shirl. She was vastly superior.

So, how did a top-flight racemare come from such ancestors? The simple answer is “a fortuitous recombination of genes.”

And when mated to the right stallions, especially the outstanding Nureyev horse Theatrical, Lady Shirl became a really good producer. Both her offspring by Theatrical are graded winners, and both showed their form on turf, which went perfectly with their mechanics and racing aptitudes.

And when Lady Shirl went to auction in 2005, the combination of a proven producer in foal to the right stallion and tracing to a fabulous family proved too tempting for breeder-owner Chuck Fipke, who bought Lady Shirl carrying Lady Shakespeare.

When he looked at the pedigree of Lady Shirl, Fipke didn’t worry about the intervening horses of middling ability. Instead, he saw Lady Shirl’s fourth dam, Glamour. A foal of 1953, Glamour is by Nasrullah out of Striking, by War Admiral out of Baby League, by Bubbling Over out of La Troienne.

Yes, it’s that family again. And Glamour is one of the reasons for its fame. She produced four stakes winners, including Poker (who actually beat Buckpasser on turf and is the broodmare sire of Seattle Slew) and Boucher (who won the St Leger).

Carrying a full sibling to Shakespeare, twice a Grade 1 winner, Lady Shirl was a pricey item at the sales. She brought $485,000 at the Keeneland November sale in 2005, with Jack Werk signing the ticket for Fipke, the luckiest man in the world when it comes to finding diamonds and good horses.

Sid Fernando is president of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, and owner-breeder Fipke is a longtime client of the company.

Fernando said, “Lady Shirl was purchased specifically to breed to Chuck’s own stallion Perfect Soul, and like several other mares Fipke purchased, the foals they were carrying at the time have proven highly successful racehorses.”

Among the other top horses bred by Fipke are Not Bourbon, a Queen’s Plate winner by Perfect Soul’s full brother Not Impossible; Internallyflawless, by Giant’s Causeway out of Tapatina; and Perfect Shower (Perfect Soul), winner of the Breeders Stakes, the final leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

In evaluating his rapport with Fipke, Fernando said that “Chuck is a throwback to an older style owner-breeder like Marcel Boussac or Lord Derby, breeding his own mares to his own stallions according to his own theories with no commercial consideration at all. Chuck makes the final decisions for all matings.

“I will only intervene with mating arrangements if something is totally off the wall, because Chuck pays me to offer my candid opinions. It’s a terrific relationship because Chuck finds such endless enjoyment in the game, beginning with breeding a horse, then racing, and finally hoping to breed and race others from his own successful stock. That’s what made the history of the sport so great, as we’ve seen with great owner-breeder operations like the Phippses, Greentree, Paul Mellon, Elmendorf, Allaire duPont, the Wideners, and Alfred Vanderbilt.”

where to find stamina

Tags

giant's causeway, qualities of the thoroughbred, sires of stayers, stamina

Some would worry that we are breeding stamina out of the Thoroughbred, and so far as a consistent strain of horses who can only find their best form at 12 to 20 furlongs, yes, that is pretty much a thing of the past.

Yet if a pattern of distance races were available, with sufficient prize money and breadth of class gradients, there would be horses to race in and excel in those events.

We have only to look at the experiment in New Jersey at Monmouth Park, and the evidence is immediately clear. If there is an opportunity available, the trainers and owners will find the horses to take advantage of it. And they should.

To take advantage of a rich surplus of races for stayers would be no greater difficulty than boosting the profile of Monmouth Park. The Thoroughbred has such a diverse variety of genetic material in its makeup that the breed regularly produces outliers from the norm of the six- to eight-furlong horse. There are plenty of horses who are life and death to get past a half-mile, but there are also many who are only getting warmed up at 10 and 12 furlongs.

One stallion who might surprise people as a sire of stayers is Giant’s Causeway, a son of Storm Cat out of a Rahy mare and a top-class horse from eight to 10 furlongs.

From the racing results over the last 10 months, Giant’s Causeway is the sire of Man of Iron, winner of the BC Marathon (not a real marathon but better than a poke in the eye), and Rite of Passage, winner of the recent Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. And overall, Giant’s Causeway produces a significant number of progeny who race better over 10 furlongs or farther than the norm of the breed.

This is only important as an indication that much of what we think of as “stamina” is actually a fairly wide set of traits working together harmoniously.

Even horses who show one set of traits as racehorses, such as Danehill or Distorted Humor (both sprinters or sprinter-milers), can sire a significant number of offspring who show differing aptitudes as racehorses.

In addition to the classic successes by some of Danehill’s offspring, the stallion also sired Westerner, winner of consecutive runnings of the Prix du Cadran over 4,000 meters at Longchamp in 2003-04. Westerner is out of the Troy mare Walensee, but she didn’t produce the G1 winner by herself.

So we will have the stock to race the distance if only they have the opportunity.

the lust for stamina

Tags

interest in distance racing, noholme, racing business, stamina in thoroughbreds, writing a blog

One of the exciting things about writing a blog is that I get to hear what readers think, and I also can infer what interests readers by the volume of activity on the site, as well.

So, I have to admit I almost missed the boat on Noholme. After deciding to write about the old boy, I almost canned the story and did another one.

After all, who would remember an Aussie-bred who spent his early years at stud in Arkansas and whose male line tanked a couple of decades ago?

As it turns out, just about everyone. The volume of interest in Noholme, both in public and private emails, has been staggering. And in addition to the interest in the grand old rascal and his splendid son Nodouble, my remarks about stamina and lack of any reasonable opportunities for racehorses who naturally need to race longer distances to show their form really hit a chord with readers and breeders.

The unexpected resonance of an issue with people in racing and breeding is another of the joys of writing a blog.

And quite frankly, I would not have dreamt of the passion that lurks among racing people — both professional and those who just come to the races a couple times a year — to have more distance racing.

This is not something our “friends” in most racing offices want to hear. Most people in the business offices of racing want to put on 47 heats of six furlong sprints and seem to prefer the idea that horses just be given numbers, rather than names. Am I being unfair?

But there is a lack of perspective on the part of the people who put on the show when it comes to what the show is about. They just do not seem to understand that a serious number of people really love to see staying horses slugging it out at the end of a two-mile race.

It is time for them to wake up and smell the coffee.

noholme and inheritance

Tags

biomechanics, hyperion, milers as sires, nodouble, noholme

As Brent Fernung remarked in a response yesterday, Noholme looked quite a lot like his male-line ancestor Hyperion, a beautifully shaped and surprisingly muscular horse and one of the two or three greatest English sires of the 20th century.

Hyperion was the sire of many high-quality classic horses, but he also got a good many very fast animals like Stardust, the sire of Star Kingdom and grandsire of Noholme.

While Hyperion was absolutely top class at a mile and a half, Noholme was really more of a miler, which is a good thing for most stallions. That’s so because most horses breed to one side or the other of their own racing aptitude. A miler tends to be in the middle, tends to get fast sprinters from sprint mares, milers from miler mares, horses that stay a little farther from more classic mares.

The things that make a miler work better as a sire include most notably the ability to race the mile in top company. To do that, he has to have speed, he has to be maneuverable, he has to have guts, he has to have a decent or better cardio system, and he has to have enough physical (biomechanical) finesse to race beyond sprint distances.

In contrast, a horse who is a superior sprinter or stayer has to reproduce himself to be a success, and mostly that won’t happen.

And I believe one of the keys to the Hyperion/Noholme success story in siring lots of fast horses is that they tended to sire medium-sized (OK, small) horses with plenty of muscle for their size. That sort of chiseled block hindquarter is the engine, and on a small to medium-sized horse, it puts a lot of speed in them.

That is something close to an ideal for a really good sire, and after a couple generations of breeding a somewhat more classic type, such as Nodouble and his sons, there isn’t that granite block anymore. The result is more of a classic type, and that is the end of the speed, unless there is constant addition of very high quality.

And that is my conclusion about Nodouble. He was a more classic, scopier type of Noholme, and Nodouble was a really good sire but not a speed sire. Not really. One observer mentioned that his colts tended to look like fillies. Well, that is the tendency among the sires that tend to breed in a more classic direction. And their only hope is to generate absolutely top class because there is no racing in this country for horses who need 10 furlongs and further in this country unless they are stakes horses.