the green monkey was a striking animal, as well as a sales icon

During the first week of July, the activity and interest in the two 2018 sales at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky obscured the reporting that The Green Monkey had been euthanized earlier in the spring. The record-priced Thoroughbred sold at auction, The Green Monkey has become a footnote in racing history due to his price, and his death was noted because of his status as a marker in sales history.

The bay son of the Storm Cat stallion Forestry will remain in record price lists and sales story leads but eventually will be replaced by another extraordinary sales horse. Yet The Green Monkey was remarkable for two things.

First, The Green Monkey was an uncommonly handsome animal, a striking bay son of Forestry, who in 2006 was a notably promising young stallion by super sire Storm Cat. Not only was Storm Cat then riding the crest of his enormous success and popular sales demand, but his son Forestry appeared to be a major stallion on the horizon. The Green Monkey had the length of body and mass of muscle so frequently seen among the Storm Cat tribe, and he used his talents effectively as a sales horse.

As the evidence of the racetrack proved over time, however, Forestry was only a fairish stallion, more frequently a factor for fragility than sturdiness, despite the large books of excellent broodmares sent to the horse at his base on Taylor Made Farm.

On the racetrack, the best offspring by Forestry was 2011 Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford. The latter was a highly talented athlete who campaigned three seasons for earnings of slightly more than $3 million, plus two additional Grade 1 victories: the Metropolitan Handicap and Clark Handicap.

Interestingly, Shackleford probably exists because of The Green Monkey. The latter is out of a good-looking mare by leading sire Unbridled (by Fappiano), and The Green Monkey sold as Fasig-Tipton’s February auction of 2-year-olds in training in 2006. The Green Monkey, bred on the cross of Forestry mated to an Unbridled mare, made owners of Unbridled mares believe that great things might lie in store for those bred in similar fashion. Shackelford’s dam, the Unbridled mare Oatsee, was sent to Forestry in 2007 and foaled the future classic winner in 2008.

In addition to The Green Monkey’s good looks and effect on contemporary matings, he was also the first sales horse to work a furlong in :09 4/5.

That is much less of a distinction today when literally dozens of young horses breeze that quickly each sales season. Just this spring in Ocala, 16 juveniles at the OBS March sale and 17 juveniles at the OBS April sale each breezed a furlong in :09 4/5.

None of those sold for $16 million; so what made The Green Monkey so special? Partly, it was looks and pedigree, combined with being first on the block with a furlong faster than :10. Also, 2006 was a different time in the world economy, with seven 2-year-olds at the Fasig-Tipton sale alone that brought $1 million or more, and Godolphin, for instance, spent $2 million to purchase a juvenile son of the A.P. Indy stallion Golden Missile. Named Mercantile, he won three races and $83,160.

Godolphin, moreover, was part of the reason that The Green Monkey brought $16 million. The other part of the reason was Coolmore. With Demi O’Byrne bidding for the Irish entity, the two major international operations staged a sumo wrestling match in the sales ring, and it became a contest to see which would push the other out of the ring. Coolmore won the battle of the bucks and sent the colt they named The Green Monkey to Todd Pletcher for training.

In terms of physical looks, work time, and international competition, the purchase of The Green Monkey, and even his record price, made sense of a sort.

But to those of us on the technological side of evaluating 2-year-olds and racehorses, the sale result was dumbfounding because The Green Monkey was what my associate Jay Kilgore calls a “false positive.” The colt certainly ran fast and had a long enough stride length, but he did it all wrong.

All the way down the stretch for his work, The Green Monkey was in a rotary gallop, also known as cross-cantering or cross-firing, rather than the proper alternating gallop sequence of footfalls. As we stood in the racetrack box capturing video of the works, one knowledgeable horseman said, “He’s cross-cantering all the way” and marked him off his list of horses to inspect.

That was the immediate reaction of the people using stride and video analysis of works to select prospects.

The Green Monkey – working a furlong in :09 4/5 that helped to propel him to a record price of $16 million at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton sale of juveniles in training at Calder.

Well I remember, however, standing in the walking ring outside the temporary bidding ring at Calder racecourse, where Fasig-Tipton held its sale at the time, holding a list of a couple dozen of the top performers. About half-way through the sale, a prominent agent that I know came up to chat with me, and he asked whether I was waiting for the sales topper?

He then proceeded to tell me about the Forestry colt, who he contended was going to outsell the two well-fancied Storm Cat colts. I didn’t believe him because I knew that the numbers were all wrong. Nobody told the major players, it seems, and they proceeded to knock each other around with enthusiasm while driving the price through the roof.

The competition and the price made good copy for the equine publications, and The Green Monkey has continued to provide people with something to talk about throughout his life, especially concerning his price. After all, it’s only money.

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first yearlings by triple crown winner american pharoah continue the sire’s contribution to the commercial marketplace

Heeee’s back! The first crop of colts and fillies by 2015 Horse of the Year American Pharoah are already yearlings of 2018, and a wee sampling of them were cataloged for the Fasig-Tipton July sale on July 10.

During the horse’s first breeding season in 2016, the 2015 Triple Crown winner covered 208 mares, got 178 in foal, and has 163 yearlings, according to statistics from the Jockey Club online database. In addition, the bay son of Pioneerof the Nile (by Empire Maker) is expected to be the year’s leading sire of yearlings by average and gross, just as he was the leading sire of weanlings when his first foals went through the ring last season.

In 2017, 10 weanlings by American Pharoah sold for an average price of $445,500 and a median price of $387,500. The most expensive of those was a half-sister to Kentucky Derby second Bodemeister (Empire Maker) and thus more desirable for being bred on that same male line. She brought $1 million from Narvick International, agent, at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale.

Nine months farther along, there were a pair of fillies cataloged for the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale, although one was scratched from the offering. The filly set to sell was Hip 131, a Kentucky-bred born on Feb. 3 out of the Yonaguska mare Yong Musician.

This filly is a half-sister to a pair of stakes horses, G1-placed Kingdom Road (Bellamy Road) and G3-placed Co Cola (Candy Ride). The dam is a half-sister to Canadian champion Kimchi (Langfuhr), two stakes-placed performers, and to the dam of multiple G1 winner Mind Your Biscuits.

Like American Pharoah, 2015 champion older horse Honor Code (A.P. Indy) went to stud in 2016, was the second-leading sire of first-crop weanlings in 2017, and has a strong representation of first-crop offspring that are now yearlings. And like the son of Pioneerof the Nile, Honor Code had a single yearling, Hip 264, in the July sale at Fasig-Tipton.

This filly is an Arizona-bred is out of the Buddha mare Hisse, a multiple stakes winner of seven races and  $435,681. Hisse is one of three stakes horses out of her dam, including stakes winner Ahead of Her Time (Leestown), winner in seven of nine starts.

Both Honor Code and American Pharoah earned and received large books of high-quality mares. They are apparently siring stock that has considerable appeal to buyers of racehorses, as well as to their agents and advisers. And we can look forward to seeing many more of the yearlings by these young sires in the upcoming sales at Saratoga and at the Keeneland September auction.

As an indicator of the volume of young stock by these first-crop yearling sires, American Pharoah was bred to 214 mares during the 2017 breeding season, and the results of those matings will be known in coming months. The Triple Crown champ covered another large book of mares at Ashford this season and is in quarantine for transport to Coolmore Australia for the 2018 breeding season in the Southern Hemisphere.

Note: Hip 131 sold for $200,000 to JJ Crupi, agent, and Hip 264 sold for $100,000 to Quarter Pole Enterprises.

insurance to offset the risk of first-year infertility in stallion prospects may be getting more expensive outside kentucky

Stallion farms based outside of Kentucky will no longer easily be able to purchase first-year infertility insurance on stallion prospects that are “lesser-priced horses,” according to well-placed sources with connections to the insurance agencies and stallion operations.

Although not something that’s obvious to the general public, insurance against infertility is one of the nearly invisible layers of business that allows the great bloodstock machine to work smoothly year after year by protecting the investment and confidence of stallion operations and their syndicate members.

First-year infertility insurance is a policy written to protect a farm or buyer “in case you’ve syndicated a horse for major money that somehow has a congenital problem,” said Lynn Jones of Equus / Standardbred Station insurance. “These policies are written so that if a stallion isn’t able to get 60 percent of his mares in foal, then the farm or syndicate isn’t left holding the bag.”

Instead, by going through an insurance agent and underwriter, stallion buyers spread the risk of loss from that inevitability: the subfertile or infertile stallion. To arrange for a policy, Jones said, “You want a qualified vet to do the initial examination. They will measure the testicles, run a blood test, and the result is a huge protection device. But you can’t collect him or have a semen evaluation. Everyone goes in blindfolded, so to speak. It’s so commonplace that it’s now a built-in cost of the acquisition.”

The principal underwriters of insurance policies for horses, whether for accidental death (AD&D) or first-year infertility, are Lloyd’s of London, Great American, and NAS Swiss Re. These are giant international risk underwriters that back the insurance policies that local and national agents sell to farms or individuals.

One agent in Central Kentucky who preferred not to be named said that “Horse insurance, as a percentage of their equity underwriting, doesn’t amount to a rounding error to these major underwriters. But they perceive an elevated risk in regional markets relative to Kentucky and are being more selective.”

None of the selectivity applies to stallion operations in Kentucky because “we can be a little bit spoiled by the horse market and general environment here in the Bluegrass,” one agent said. “This is the epicenter of the stallion market. In regional markets, you can find variation in horsemanship – both in stallion and mare management, as well as in the availability of world-class veterinary facilities and specialists.”

As a result of this change of availability for first-year stallion fertility insurance, some regional breeders will have to make hard decisions about adding stallions to their rosters.

One regional breeder already has collided with this unexpected situation. He said, “Late last year, I bought a stallion prospect off the racetrack, called my Kentucky agent to get a quote for infertility insurance, and was told – eventually – that they had found an underwriter to cover it, but the rate was more than double what I would have paid the previous year.”

A well-known Kentucky agent said “it is likely to be more difficult for farms to insure stallions in the regional programs, but we can still get deals done. They might be more expensive, however, but if underwriters get a run of several years that do not generate claims, then they might change their views.”

One option for farms is to self insure, which essentially means to play the odds that your horse will have normal fertility. And Mark Toothaker of Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky said, “Spendthrift doesn’t insure any of its stallions against fertility loss. We don’t have a single horse on the farm insured. So far, we haven’t had a loss.”

And, despite the reluctance among some underwriters, there will be other underwriters available to service those who want to insure for first-year infertility, according to Jones.

He said, “We’ve been doing this since 1980, and, no matter the individual situation, there are underwriters you’ve been working with will take the time to write a policy for that animal.”

The policy just may cost something more.

This is one more dampening effect on the overall stallion market, which is none too robust outside the Bluegrass. Now, it has one more inefficiency to deal with.

 

sire lists and stallion earnings

“I don’t need to know nothing ‘bout no stinking stallion stats” is the too-frequent response of horse folk to comments about statistics attempting to evaluate stallion performance.

There are, however, a serious cadre of breeders and racing fans, even handicappers, who do appreciate the insights that can be derived from stallion stats, and racing has a long and interesting history of trying to do something with statistics.

At the most basic level, early observers of the sport compiled lists of winners and their victories, and then at the end of a racing season, they had in hand cumulative stats for the sires with the most winners and the most wins. These were some of the most popular lists in the 19^th century and into the early 20^th century.

Listings ranked by sires of winners make a lot of sense because if a stallion doesn’t get winners, who cares?

The next step in listing was the fundamental development of what we now call the general sire list: the rankings of stallions by earnings. At first, gross earnings proved too high a hurdle and most listings were for winners only and first money only; the Daily Racing Form, however, expanded its statistical reach to include earnings of all placings and all runners. That proved a significant improvement in the overall assessment of how horses were performing for their sires.

Greater subtlety came with the advent of the average earnings index and the standard starts index, which helped to assess how well a sire was doing in terms of progeny volume and in contrast to all other stallions with racers. Nifty stuff if you enjoy a good roll in data charts and statistical ink.

Interestingly, the most popular list to this day is the general sire list. Who the big dog is.

Of course, there are some serious caveats to using raw earnings to judge stallion value or success. One of the more laughable leading sires was Buckaroo, a handsome bay son of Horse of the Year Buckpasser. Although Buckpasser was a landmark racehorse and a most important stallion, his son Buckaroo was notable for only a couple of things and a couple of horses.

The most important thing about Buckaroo was his son Spend a Buck, winner of the 1985 Kentucky Derby, and the most important historical footnote about Spend a Buck was that he single-handedly (single-hoofedly?) caused the Triple Crown bonus to come into being.

The fleet frontrunning son of Buckaroo did this by not racing in either the Preakness or the Belmont Stakes. What, you say? Why didn’t he try for the Triple Crown?

Instead of following the great lure of history and tradition, the owners of Spend a Buck sent their classic winner to the Jersey Derby after the Kentucky Derby because, by winning that race, Spend a Buck would earn a big bonus.

It was the $1 million Garden State Bonus sponsored by Garden State Park for a horse to win their two Kentucky Derby preps, the classic, and then return to Garden State to win the Jersey Derby.

Nor did the timing of the races allow a horse to participate in the Preakness, then jump up the pike for the Jersey Derby. Nyet, comrade, the choice was tradition or bucks.

Spend a Buck was sent to Jersey for the money, and he got it. But he won the Jersey Derby narrowly in a hard-fought finish against a little-regarded bay gelding named Crème Fraiche.

In his next race, Crème Fraiche won the Belmont Stakes as the first great success of a distinguished career that included victories in the G1 Super Derby and two runnings of the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Spend a Buck subsequently won the Monmouth Handicap and retired with seasonal earnings of $3,552,704, a record at the time.

Not coincidentally, that pushed his sire to gross progeny earnings of $4,145,272, which was the second-highest gross progeny earnings ever to 1985. Yet Spend a Buck’s egregious portion of that haul, 85.7 percent, made certain that breeders approached Buckaroo with a shade of skepticism.

The son of Buckpasser proved a useful horse, siring the important sprinters Lite the Fuse and Montbrook, as well as 1986 Suburban Handicap winner Roo Art.

The result of the furor about Spend a Buck slipping out of town for the Jersey Derby and the big bonus was the development of the $5 million Triple Crown bonus, which was never awarded.

Today, we have a similar purse winnings irregularity. The Pegasus last year propelled 2016 champion 3-year-old Arrogate to leading North American money earner, then completely to the top of the international heap of money winners with his victory in the Dubai World Cup. As a result, Arrogate’s sire, the deceased Unbridled’s Song, led the general sire list for nearly the entire year and was leading sire by gross earnings.

Had Arrogate retired after the World Cup, he might well have been named Horse of the Year, but instead, the gray was returned to racing and suffered three consecutive losses, the last being behind subsequent 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

In January, Gun Runner bade adieu to racing with victory in the 2018 Pegasus, and his sire Candy Ride still sits atop the leading sires list of 2018 with $10,830,558. That is not likely to be enough to get the general sires title this year because Scat Daddy, with Triple Crown winner Justify at the fore, is in second with $9,609,599 and surely a good deal more to come.