Hey everyone,
I'm pretty new to this, but since you folks do a terrific job giving advice,(I've been skimming lots of other posts and figured that out fast enough, haha) I was wondering if I could ask for some myself.
My family owns a horse called Lunar Beach (Malibu Moon out of a Storm Cat mare) and though she's shown some signs of talent on the grass I'm pretty sure we'll be retiring her after her three year old season. I am trying to assess possibilities both for commercial and racing breedings. We are looking for stud fees in the 10-30k range and probably in the KY area.
It seems at the current sale in KY that Afleet Alex/Eurosilver/Purge have been selling pretty well beyond their stud fees, so commercial options will probably be more about newer sires and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle (with those 3 sires as possible examples). For racing, I'm definitely open to any and all suggestions. Oh, and the mare is a little on the small side...I don't have measurements but if that helps with narrowing things down at all I just wanted to mention it.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,
Justin
malibu moon filly
Moderators: Roguelet, WaveMaster, madelyn, Diane
I like Crafty Shaw. His stud fee is only $5K. He had a yearling sell for $62K yesterday. He is a Graded SW with 44 sts and 15 wins and over $1M in earnings. He is at Buck Pond Farm in Versailles. www.buckpond.com
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SemparQuel
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In my opinion, the main problem of your mare is the racing record, really small.
The same is true of the racing record of some of her near ancestors and of some of her half brothers, but Site Alarm.
This consideration makes me think that she needs an injection of robustness.
So my advice is for a stallion totally outbred and with a great and long racing record.
In my opinion, the intersection of all these requirements, plus a reasonable fee, plus that stays in KY may be SKIP AWAY.
Good luck!
The same is true of the racing record of some of her near ancestors and of some of her half brothers, but Site Alarm.
This consideration makes me think that she needs an injection of robustness.
So my advice is for a stallion totally outbred and with a great and long racing record.
In my opinion, the intersection of all these requirements, plus a reasonable fee, plus that stays in KY may be SKIP AWAY.
Good luck!
Altanbarr wrote:You've got a well-bred but fairly inbred broodmare prospect. I'd go for an outcross like Pleasant Tap rather than piling on more Mr. Prospector, Northern Dancer or AP Indy/Seattle Slew.
Northern Dancer appears once in the mare's 4th generation (would be 5th generation in the foal); and Mr. Prospector and Seattle Slew each appear once in the 3rd generation (4th for the prospective foal.) It's hard for me to see how adding another strain of any of those influences would be "piling on".
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justinnich
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First of all, thank you very much for your responses! I've started looking through the information I can find on each potential cross.
Secondly, if we are going to go commercial with it, is there a particular young sire you think would cross well? I've been looking at Purim, Jazil, Limehouse etc. just to try to get a feel. Our plan is likely first to try to sell, and if we don't get the right price, we'll race (so I guess we're trying to find the middle ground between "brand name" and actual ability). Since the mare's a little small (I would imagine in the low-mid 15 range), is there a sire you would go to to pass on some size?
Thanks again for your help!
Justin
Secondly, if we are going to go commercial with it, is there a particular young sire you think would cross well? I've been looking at Purim, Jazil, Limehouse etc. just to try to get a feel. Our plan is likely first to try to sell, and if we don't get the right price, we'll race (so I guess we're trying to find the middle ground between "brand name" and actual ability). Since the mare's a little small (I would imagine in the low-mid 15 range), is there a sire you would go to to pass on some size?
Thanks again for your help!
Justin
If you are looking for commercial value, beware of new stallions--ie stallions whose offspring haven't raced yet. Their commercial value varies wildly depending on what year they are when you breed to them. First year is the most commercially viable and you've missed that on all 3 of the stallions you've mentioned.
With Limehouse (whom I happen to like alot) for example, his first offspring are yearlings, second year are weanlings, third year in utero. If you breed to him in 2009, he will have 4YOs, 3YOs, and 2YOs running by the time you go to sell your yearling. By that point, the industry will have already decided whether he's a success and a failure, and if his offspring aren't burning up the track you may be left with a yearling whose commercial appeal has declined precipitously.
The point of breeding to new unproven stallions is to breed early and then sell before the first offspring ever race. At that point, the horse is all future potential, and that's why buyers flock to them. Miss that very narrow window of opportunity and you'd better be sure to guess right (or get a deeply discounted stud fee) when choosing a new stallion to breed to.
With Limehouse (whom I happen to like alot) for example, his first offspring are yearlings, second year are weanlings, third year in utero. If you breed to him in 2009, he will have 4YOs, 3YOs, and 2YOs running by the time you go to sell your yearling. By that point, the industry will have already decided whether he's a success and a failure, and if his offspring aren't burning up the track you may be left with a yearling whose commercial appeal has declined precipitously.
The point of breeding to new unproven stallions is to breed early and then sell before the first offspring ever race. At that point, the horse is all future potential, and that's why buyers flock to them. Miss that very narrow window of opportunity and you'd better be sure to guess right (or get a deeply discounted stud fee) when choosing a new stallion to breed to.
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justinnich
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justinnich wrote:You make a very good point, and actually I have had trouble finding a list of horses heading to stud for 2009. Is there a place that has a list compiled for next year's prospects?
Not, so far. Most of the new stallion prospects haven't been retired or announced yet. Early exceptions include Heatseeker and Spring At Last, and I'm sure others will add to the list
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kimberley mine
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Without wanting to rain on your parade too much, Lunar Beach is not likely to be a good Kentucky commercial prospect at this time.
The middle market started falling apart last year and is continuing its decay this year. The F-T July sale that just ended was bad. Going back to last year's Keeneland September, the top five buyers purchased 132 horses. The total purchase price for those horses, who made up less than 3% of all horses entered in the sale, made up about 15% of the total money that changed hands during the sale. Take out those 132 horses and the average selling price drops $15,000. If you were in session 5 or later, chances are you lost money, and if you were in after hip 3500, chances are you lost serious money. And that's for the premier yearling sale in the nation. I expect that this year it will be worse.
As of right now, Lunar Beach has the following working against her:
1. She's not a winner.
2. Her unraced dam has (as of the last page I found, October 2007) 2 winners out of 8 foals of racing age.
3. A foal out of Lunar Beach won't have any black type until the 3rd dam.
4. Her dam was sold to Louisiana, where her 2007 Doneraile Court yearling sold for $7500. They bought the mare for about $11,000, so unless the breeder's awards come in big time, chances are the owners lost money on that one. (ETA: She's gone regional, which means she's being bred to cheaper studs, which means that you won't be getting much help from her later on down the line.)
With that in mind, I think that if you're looking at spending between $10k and $30k in a stud fee, you can buy a decent yearling for that amount cheaper than you can breed one.
Is there any particular reason you want to retire her at the end of the year? If she's sound and happy running, you're better off trying to keep her racing until she gets a few in the win column. I note that she was running at Belmont--might she be better off running at a lower-tier track? If she likes the lawn, there's Delaware right now and Laurel coming up. If you're looking at retiring her because she's just too slow and not making money, well, see the point about being able to buy a good horse cheaper than you can breed one.
The middle market started falling apart last year and is continuing its decay this year. The F-T July sale that just ended was bad. Going back to last year's Keeneland September, the top five buyers purchased 132 horses. The total purchase price for those horses, who made up less than 3% of all horses entered in the sale, made up about 15% of the total money that changed hands during the sale. Take out those 132 horses and the average selling price drops $15,000. If you were in session 5 or later, chances are you lost money, and if you were in after hip 3500, chances are you lost serious money. And that's for the premier yearling sale in the nation. I expect that this year it will be worse.
As of right now, Lunar Beach has the following working against her:
1. She's not a winner.
2. Her unraced dam has (as of the last page I found, October 2007) 2 winners out of 8 foals of racing age.
3. A foal out of Lunar Beach won't have any black type until the 3rd dam.
4. Her dam was sold to Louisiana, where her 2007 Doneraile Court yearling sold for $7500. They bought the mare for about $11,000, so unless the breeder's awards come in big time, chances are the owners lost money on that one. (ETA: She's gone regional, which means she's being bred to cheaper studs, which means that you won't be getting much help from her later on down the line.)
With that in mind, I think that if you're looking at spending between $10k and $30k in a stud fee, you can buy a decent yearling for that amount cheaper than you can breed one.
Is there any particular reason you want to retire her at the end of the year? If she's sound and happy running, you're better off trying to keep her racing until she gets a few in the win column. I note that she was running at Belmont--might she be better off running at a lower-tier track? If she likes the lawn, there's Delaware right now and Laurel coming up. If you're looking at retiring her because she's just too slow and not making money, well, see the point about being able to buy a good horse cheaper than you can breed one.
Divine Park
LB wrote:justinnich wrote:You make a very good point, and actually I have had trouble finding a list of horses heading to stud for 2009. Is there a place that has a list compiled for next year's prospects?
Not, so far. Most of the new stallion prospects haven't been retired or announced yet. Early exceptions include Heatseeker and Spring At Last, and I'm sure others will add to the list
Add Divine Park to the new stallions 2009 list. (Airdrie) Nobiz Like Shobiz heads to Darby Dan.
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justinnich
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Kimberley, thank you first of all for the thoughtful response. I actually tend to agree with you on what you've written. The issue has been the family dynamic on this one (my father who puts up the cash for our little operation is 80 years old, and a little more impatient than he probably could be), so there were some irrational factors involved in discussing her retirement.
As far as her race record, though, she looked after her switch to grass like she might come back out and win at belmont msw level (she was hard fought second by a head on turf first time at md 45), and she was training great, but got loose and fell a few days before the race. She scraped herself up pretty badly, but we've given her time and she's back in training and had a solid work a few days ago. We are going to try her once more in NY, and if not she's going to NJ to break her maiden (she should have a good shot there).
I thank you very much for your reply though, as it has added some support for me to suggest that we wait a little bit and see if we can establish her more, which I agree is the better way to go. If we do retire her though, I'm pushing him to breed to race with something in the lower end of the fee range we were looking at. We have a strong foundation mare, we think, in Masseuse, who will probably go to El Prado next year and hopefully produce a really nice foal for the sales ring anyway. Hopefully, that will help me convince the old man we don't need to rush this one, haha.
Thanks again,
Justin
As far as her race record, though, she looked after her switch to grass like she might come back out and win at belmont msw level (she was hard fought second by a head on turf first time at md 45), and she was training great, but got loose and fell a few days before the race. She scraped herself up pretty badly, but we've given her time and she's back in training and had a solid work a few days ago. We are going to try her once more in NY, and if not she's going to NJ to break her maiden (she should have a good shot there).
I thank you very much for your reply though, as it has added some support for me to suggest that we wait a little bit and see if we can establish her more, which I agree is the better way to go. If we do retire her though, I'm pushing him to breed to race with something in the lower end of the fee range we were looking at. We have a strong foundation mare, we think, in Masseuse, who will probably go to El Prado next year and hopefully produce a really nice foal for the sales ring anyway. Hopefully, that will help me convince the old man we don't need to rush this one, haha.
Thanks again,
Justin