Somewhere in a conversation about Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's fall yearling sale, sales consignor Becky Davis lamented the shrinking conditions in the commercial market and the breeding/racing industry.
She talked about yearling buyers not wanting to purchase horses from older mares, no matter the history; about buyers steering clear of any horse not bred on an "A" nick; about the disinterest in regional sires; about people staring intently at tablets and printouts instead of horses.
"I think society as a whole is not really conducive right now to this game because it's become more of a game instead of an art," she said. "It requires patience and development and there aren't enough people around that have that anymore. Everybody wants things faster and nature doesn't necessarily play that way, because . . ."
This is where I jumped in and blurted, "It's an animal, not a boat."
I might put it on a T-shirt.
It's flippant, a generalization, obvious and everything else but it's not wrong. Too many people treat racehorses and future racehorses -- past racehorses too -- like boats, muscle cars, real estate, mutual funds or some other blend of investment and recreation. There's no step-by-step perfect plan to produce a successful racehorse. Nothing is one-size-fits-all or plug and play. That "A" nick generated by your favorite pedigree software might have been a "C" five years ago, and therefore the "C" you see today might be an "A" someday. That yearling from an older mare or by a local senior stallion could become a great one. Somethingroyal was 18 when she foaled Secretariat. Great Notion will turn 25 in January and is still shining with graded stakes winner Future Is Now, Maryland Million Classic winner Brilliant Ice and seven juvenile winners this year.
Think about it. You can't guarantee a winner or a big return on an investment in racing with an algorithm or some sort of rule you live by. That's not how this works. If it were possible to guarantee success, all the horses would belong to one person -- or, more than likely, one racing club with thousands of investors -- and the whole game would collapse. A good horse can come from anywhere and belong to anybody. People need to remember that.
Davis topped the sale for the fifth time in nine years and sold three six-figure yearlings. But a Divining Rod filly in the consignment received no bid and a Street Magician filly from the family of Maryland-bred star Post Time brought $5,000.
Both could (should?) have been $10,000 to $15,000 yearlings and might have been a decade ago.
"The fact of the matter is I don't know who's looking for that anymore," Davis said. "The horses are still there. The people aren't there."
Where are they? I don't know, exactly, but at least some are doing other things, getting discouraged by a fractured/frayed sport, buying shares with try-to-hit-a-home-run racing syndicates, teaming up with others to purchase more expensive horses or spending considerably more money individually because someone told them that's the way to make it big.
Somehow, all eight stakes winners on the Maryland Million card at Laurel Park Oct. 12 raced for their breeders -- shout it from the rooftops -- but I fear that's an outlier or partially a product of the depressed sales climate.
The game needs more people to race their homebreds, but it also needs a stronger commercial market. Both things can be true, and something will have to give somewhere.
The Mid-Atlantic racing program is saturated with too many tracks trying to run too many days for the size of the foal crops in the Mid-Atlantic and throughout the country. Regional stallions struggle to make impacts while leading stallions in Kentucky cover 200 mares a year and Kentucky-sired horses dominate Mid-Atlantic sales results. As much as the region touts its various state incentives, I've heard of would-be buyers shying away -- in favor of the purse incentives for Kentucky-breds at that state's tracks.
At the end of the sale in Timonium, Fasig-Tipton's Boyd Browning Jr. talked about the Mid-Atlantic states working together to raise the value of horses bred and/or certified -- and eventually sold and raced -- in the region. It should happen, tomorrow, as step one in trying to secure the future.
We're all in the same boat after all, even if it's not a boat.
No December Sale
The smaller yearling sale at Timonium provided the writing on the wall, so it came as no surprise that Fasig-Tipton Midlantic canceled this year's December mixed sale. There simply weren't enough horses, what with smaller foal crops, competition from digital sales and lower demand from buyers. Last year, the sale -- mainly weanlings and broodmares -- produced a $1.5 million gross from 187 horses offered.
