First Year stallions of 2010

[Sysonby]

There is NO INCENTIVE for an owner to KEEP A HORSE IN TRAINING! People whine and kvetch about horses being whisked off to stud and THEY CONTINUE to patronize them which just JUSTIFIES to the farm owner that THEIR BUSINESS MODEL is working! Everyone else can sputter and fail but they will NOT Because they have GUARANTEED INCOME, year after year after year. I further illustrated that by providing numbers, but apparently that seems to have gone over people's heads. I even went further and showed that the majority of the breeders who went to THOSE stallions will or have already lost money. The one who does not lose the money is the stallion farm. Even better, these farms know that they can always sell to South Korea, Japan, India, Turkey and other countries any time they want.

And this just happened? This has been the model for the last 30 years and it has always been worse in Europe Goldikova notwithstanding. Some horses, like Bernardini, were never going to be kept in training past three because they were too bloody valuable. Others were "whisked" off because they had real physical issues whether they were reported or not. Keep a horse in training long enough and they will have physical issues.

The irony of this whole thread is that your position is less true now than 5 years ago because of the economy and the general contraction of breeding. No one is flocking to the unprovens anymore especially once you get past the top handful of new retirees. I'm old enough to remember the 80s when all a horse had to be was an expensive yearling to be guaranteed a stud career. Now some of those same types are gelded and running for $12500. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Sysonby]

You make no sense at all. You have shown 1000 mares going to freshman sires, out of over 40,000. You show 8 stallions out of how many hundreds (maybe thousands) at stud. Its been proven over and over again, from people who actually breed mares, that they much prefer going to proven horses, and the proven horses are booked up much quicker than the new horses. Some people have bred to unproven horses, because theres no good proven horses left. I can tell you that for a fact, because I know that has happened to people I know. I know of over a dozen (maybe more) proven horses that are full right now; I dont know of any unprovens that are full.

There's a corollary to this that almost never gets reported. If you want to go to the really smoking hot stallions, you may need more than money and a good mare. You may need to support the farm's other stallions as well especially their unprovens that they are having trouble selling seasons in. IOW if you want to go to X, you may have to come up with 2 mares for Y as well.

I personally don't swim in those waters but I know people who do and it can be eyeopening.

[Tappiano]

There is NO INCENTIVE for an owner to KEEP A HORSE IN TRAINING! People whine and kvetch about horses being whisked off to stud and THEY CONTINUE to patronize them which just JUSTIFIES to the farm owner that THEIR BUSINESS MODEL is working! Everyone else can sputter and fail but they will NOT Because they have GUARANTEED INCOME, year after year after year. I further illustrated that by providing numbers, but apparently that seems to have gone over people's heads. I even went further and showed that the majority of the breeders who went to THOSE stallions will or have already lost money. The one who does not lose the money is the stallion farm. Even better, these farms know that they can always sell to South Korea, Japan, India, Turkey and other countries any time they want.

And this just happened? This has been the model for the last 30 years and it has always been worse in Europe Goldikova notwithstanding. Some horses, like Bernardini, were never going to be kept in training past three because they were too bloody valuable. Others were "whisked" off because they had real physical issues whether they were reported or not. Keep a horse in training long enough and they will have physical issues.

The irony of this whole thread is that your position is less true now than 5 years ago because of the economy and the general contraction of breeding. No one is flocking to the unprovens anymore especially once you get past the top handful of new retirees. I'm old enough to remember the 80s when all a horse had to be was an expensive yearling to be guaranteed a stud career. Now some of those same types are gelded and running for $12500. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not going to debate what I recall from the early 80's, when horse's in Europe were retired after winning a single group one or what happened a few years ago. Back then the industry was not in danger of imploding and if you think things are bright and rosy in Kentucky I'd love to borrow your glasses.

Fireslam, why on earth would I waste my time picking out all the freshman sires and updating calculations when all that happens is that people like you jump right in with your "you are wrong" attitude. I don't respond to you or anyone else in here with that attitude, even though it's quite tempting to tell them that they are coming across as the dullest knife in the drawer.