Tip of the week: DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!! So in my latest enabling of a sale I saw people make the statement “This horse made $140k and the owner needs to recoup losses?” This is where we delve into the world of reading race records on Equibase. There are many parts of information held within the horse’s race history. You can see: • What level the horse ran at (Graded stakes, local stakes, Handicap stakes, Maiden Special Weight, Allowance, Claiming or Starter) • Who owned the horse • Who trained the horse • Who rode the horse and how much weight did they carry • What the time fractions were during the race • What distance was the race • What type of surface was the race • Who else was in the race • What equipment and medication* was used in a race (Of the ones recorded) Now I know that teaching everyone how to read a race record would be a bit redundant to do here as there are so many other sites that have put up excellent tutorials. Here’s the best I have seen: horseplayerinteractive/HPI/Cnt/Docs/How%20to%20read%20a%20SB%20program.pdf Now going back, here’s how the comment about recouping losses plays in. Claiming horses get claimed sometimes in their races. That means that another person pays $XX,000 for them (depending on the value of the race) and after the race if they’re the only interested party, they get the horse. In the event there are 2 or more parties who want the horse, they “Shake” for it. Which is essentially drawing a name out of a bottle for which person gets the horse. They don’t get to touch, vet, or in any way have any impartial examinations done on the horse. Two things happen because of this that I will delve into. The first is that the horse’s ownership changes and with it the perception that while one horse makes a career amount of earnings not dependent on the owners, the owners only make money on the horse while they own it. Thus when you look at a horse’s career earnings, it doesn’t mean that the current owners have netted that entire amount. You must dig deeper and read the race records to confirm that the horse didn’t change hands during the course of its career. In the case mentioned above, that mare had changed hands more than 3-4 times. The owner who was selling her and trying to recoup losses had put $2200 a month into her while she made $6,000+ in a years’ time. Anyone who knows math can see that there were a lot of losses there. The second thing that happens is that there is a small divide in the thinking of how show people acquire horses versus race trainers/owners. As mentioned above…. they can’t vet any horse they want to purchase via claiming. They plunk down their money and hope for the best. No vet records are ever transferred over to the new owners of a horse. This is actually a current topic of hot debate and some trainers are calling for a change to this. So when you claim a horse on the track you get the horse and all its problems. With that mindset, some trainers on the backsides would prefer that show riders do the same kind of leaps of faith. Given that this isnt considered the norm in the sport horse side of things I understand why there can be a disconnect and potential sales deals can fall apart when a vetting becomes an issues. What complicates this further is that some tracks are closed off to outside vets without special permission from the management, and the vets that do practice there are not fans of the sport horse crowd’s desire for pre-purchase exams. It takes on average a couple hours to do a truly comprehensive exam. In those few hours some race track vets would prefer to be serving their regular clients’ needs and can likely make more money by giving 20 horses Lasix in the same time. Mountaineer specifically is a difficult track to get a PPE done. I personally advise folks against buying from there as I think it pushes people into taking risks that they shouldnt have to take. If there is a horse that’s local but not on the backside you can get it done. But ones on the track itself, it’s next to impossible. Now there are places where tracks have seen this coming and local vets have a very easy time with doing PPE’s for buyers. I know that one of the vet clinics at Charlestown had a great PPE package years ago that was one price and including all elements up to and including a set number of x-rays. I took full advantage of that when I bought Lad. The bottom line of this post is that you must be prepared to do some research when buying OTTB’s. Whether it’s deciphering their race record and the timing of races or doing any type of pre purchase exam, then you should do your homework and be more educated than you think. Knowledge is power and will help you to see what horse is actually best for you. ~Emily
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 14:48:19 +0000
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