FOOLS & HORSES

This is very interesting. Perhaps Garrick should compare who signed for the horses and who actually raced them. Certain stud farms are quick to loudly trumpet their stallions achievements when a sale concludes, and in many cases, have bought their own produce back to race.

Fard has numerous elements in his pedigree that have nicked well with the horses mentioned.
Importantly his female line is Dalmary - so the indications are that he will be good with Sadler's Wells and lines of Thatch. Any Fard mare sent to Futura would be pretty "Special"

Captain Al is loaded with La Troienne and has consistently performed with mares having La Troienne in their pedigree.
His bottom line is loaded with the family 9c and that's where Fard probably fits in. He is linebred to Grey Sovereign 4 x 5 and has multiple lines of the 9c family. Mummy's Pet is linebred 4 x 5 to Lady Juror and it's consistently building up this family.
Captain of All's dam has a line of Grey Sovereign as does Poppy's dam Blushing Bloom - both these female lines loaded with the 9c family.

I seem to remember that The Sporting Post published a list of horses that cost R1million plus
and only one horse Cape Town Noir recovered his purchase price
Just before the Cape Sale

chrisb wrote: "The top twelve lots sold for a combined total of R 33,55 million excluding vat, insurance and whatever other charges might have been added.

To date they have performed as follows :

1x horse has yet to run.
3x horses have run without finding a place
2x horses have run and found places
4x horses have won 1 race each
2x horses have won 2 races each"


Just out of interest I was wondering how the bottom 12 did?

You got me wondering too so I obtained these statistics for you:

I used the bottom 13 as these horses all sold for R100,000 or less. Cumulatively they cost R 1,125 million.

2x horses have yet to run
1x horse has run without finding a place
5x horses have run and found places
3x horses have won 1 race each
1x horse has won 2 races
1x horse has won 3 races

They have, therefore, contested 58 races for 8 wins and 22 places. Some of these horses reflect earnings but no places. I assume this is where fourth or fifth paid stake money.

Notice the scary similarities in performance between the two groups!

Yesterday's Val De Vie sale can politely be described as 'disappointing' although I have heard mention of the words 'bloodbath' and 'disastrous'.

I looked at the catalogue before the sale and was inclined to use the word 'thin' to describe it. So I was not particularly surprised by the results. Maybe it simply confirmed my now worn out theory that the so called 'middle market' which used to mop up these animals has largely disappeared or alternatively is only prepared to speculate the same number of rands that it would have a couple of years ago.

Probably the only good news for producers was that the top lot sold for R 1,5 million as opposed to R1,2 million last year. The rest makes for uncomfortable reading :

118 lots were consigned as opposed to 109 in 2015. Yet only 71 sold compared to 82 in 2015.

Horses withdrawn or not sold totalled 44. That's 37% of the total and way up on the 24 that failed to find homes a year ago off an admittedly slightly smaller base.

R9,92 million was spent; down a whacking 40% on last year's R15,78 million. The average price paid declined by 27%.

There are still a number of notables absent from the 'acquired by' column so far this year. I wonder if they are keeping their powder dry for the National Yearling Sales in a few weeks' time? Perhaps.

I also wonder whether many traditional supporters are now also finding the yawning and ever growing chasm between earnings and keep just a little bit too unpalatable.

Nevertheless we can probably expect the Gods Of Racing to have the last laugh and for this sale to produce a couple of top performers for what will be considered retrospectively as relatively small change.

In addition to the good points made, not a great idea to have a sale on the same day as the cricket match- not to mention Valentines day.
I couldn't attend the sale, so can't comment personally on the physical quality on offer, but it was no real surprise to see a number of those with very thin pedigrees attract no interest.
I did end up taking up shares in two fillies bought by Glen Kotzen- lot 90, a nice looking Elusive Fort, and lot 21, a Rebel King filly with a strong dam- line. At R100k and R80k decent value.
The timing of this sale is awkward for me as a breeder- it's quite a rush to get them ready by mid Feb ( the CTS Premier is even more of a challenge 3 weeks earlier but can be very rewarding if you have the right type of horse by a top sire). In addition to the two at the Premier sale, my top 5 lots will go to the NYS in April, and I have 7 on the CTS March sale. The extra 5 weeks to the latter is really helpful, and the NYS is ideally timed.

In my view, we as breeders ( together with the trainers) need to develop the syndicate/ larger partnership market to attract and retain owners in the "middle market" segment. 10 people can have a lot of fun for R1k per month each for 10% of a horse, whereas there is a very small upper market willing to spend R10k per month. Leasing fillies to save less affluent clients the upfront cost is also a good way to get people into the game.
The live streaming of the sales by both BSA and CTS is first class- I followed both sales online this year with no hiccups.

Wow, I have lost touch with the prices of having a horse in training. 10k a month? That is ludicrous and I am not surprised that the so called less affluent owners are nowhere to be seen. How can anyone justify paying 10k a month for a horse? I am truly shocked that there are so many horses in training at that price.

As an aside does a middle of the road trainer charge 10k or is this just the chemical agents where the vets fees are a similar amount to the training fees?

Over the Air wrote: Wow, I have lost touch with the prices of having a horse in training. 10k a month? That is ludicrous and I am not surprised that the so called less affluent owners are nowhere to be seen. How can anyone justify paying 10k a month for a horse? I am truly shocked that there are so many horses in training at that price.

As an aside does a middle of the road trainer charge 10k or is this just the chemical agents where the vets fees are a similar amount to the training fees?

Owning a racehorse is a truly hazardous financial exercise.

Most long term owners need to quickly accept the sad reality that the chances of 'paying your way' whilst having some fun pursuing this hobby are poor to negligible. That's why the exceptions are newsworthy!

I have owned horses sporadically since 1978 with a phase of full on ownership during the 1990's. Looking back I prefer not to confront the size of the losses I absorbed owning horses and rather focus on the rare highlights. I now own a handful of photos which rival the prices of 'old masters' in terms of what they cost to acquire.

Comparing the cost of ownership to when I started out is a truly alarming exercise. My first horse was a horse in training which ran second in a 'B' division sprint at its first outing. The gross stake earned of R800 kept him in training for the best part of 6 months @ R140 pm. Today you would need about two wins and half a dozen places to pay for a years' keep. Given that a two time winner would be cause for celebration amongst most of the horse population you are on a hiding to nothing.

However - the elephant in the room for me is SARS. I had a truly frightening run in with the tax collector over my legitimate and squeaky clean horse accounts where they attempted with some energy to disqualify ALL of my claims. After a protracted engagement (another cost!) sanity prevailed and the matter was resolved in my favour. But I came very close to incurring an unwarranted R500k tax bill for which I had made no provision.

I notice that many owners have formed companies and other legal entities to address this issue. But this adds yet more expense to what is touted as a 'fun' activity. I imagine that some small owners simply treat their horse ownership as an after tax expense which makes it even more expensive.

I also note that in recent years we have swung back towards getting horses into racing as quickly as possible via races focused on youthful horses. Contrarily I try and avoid racing a horse as a two year old as the additional time invested letting the animal mature tends to pay a difficult to quantify dividend in the form of lower vets bills and a healthier horse which has not been put under premature pressure.

One of the hazards of luring novice owners into racing on a fractional basis is that you attract people with little or no understanding of how the system should work in its ideal form. The ensuing impatience tends to turn the exercise into a once off event as the newbie owner is reluctant to repeat after waiting what seems to be an inordinate period of time for very little action.

There are certainly trainers who charge less than R10k per month but budgeting at least R120k per annum to keep a horse in training is sensible.

Basic training fees range from a low of R4k- 5k per month in minor centres, to R8k per month for top trainers in major centres. Then you have to factor in farrier; vets; nomination fees. If you are not registered for VAT to reclaim it, then you must add that. You must expect inflation of at least 6% pa. Insurance is optional, but is around 4% of the insured value pa.
So yes, R10k pm is a nice round number to use for budgeting over the next couple of years.
The basic deduction from stakes is 7% each for jockey and trainer, and 1% for groom. Most of the senior jockeys are on 10%, and quite a few trainers also charge an extra 3%. A bigger % is often specified for graded stakes races.

The two biggest costs are wages and feed. You can't feed properly under R2k per month. Some stables have 3 horses per groom, the top ones just 2. So- each horse owner must cover 1/2 a person's living wage.

By comparison, in the big cities, it is common to pay R5k- R7k per month livery for a riding horse- and the owner of the livery yard doesn't train your horse.

In the UK, you need to budget at least 1500 sterling per month!