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The Friday Show Presented By Monmouth Park: Talking Thoroughbred Makeover

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Just as there are “baby” races at the track, off-track Thoroughbreds have their own kind of competition restricted to newcomers — the Thoroughbred Makeover, scheduled for Oct. 12-17 at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington, Ky.

The event, offering $100,000 in prize money and consisting of 10 different disciplines, brings together Thoroughbreds that are in their first year transitioning from the racetrack to a second career.

Jonathan Horowitz, who calls the races at Colorado’s Arapahoe Park, has been the announcer at the Thoroughbred Makeover since 2015. Since January 2020, he’s been documenting  his new avocation in a series of articles at the Paulick Report, “Horowitz On OTTBs,” highlighting the challenges and triumphs that come with working with off-track Thoroughbreds.

“I appreciate that it’s not easy to do,” said Horowitz, who joins publisher Ray Paulick and editor in chief Natalie Voss on this week’s Friday Show. “I appreciate that when you get it, it’s one of the most rewarding feelings. It’s a sport where … imagine if you’re a basketball player and the basketball had a mind of its own.”

While Horowitz will not be competing at this year’s Thoroughbred Makeover, Voss will be in the dressage ring at the Horse Park with her off-track Thoroughbred, Underscore (fondly known as Blueberry around the barn). She’s a tireless advocate for giving ex-racehorses the best chance possible for a second career that can be just as rewarding for the horse as a trip to the winner’s circle.

Watch this week’s Friday Show, presented by Monmouth Park, below:

The post The Friday Show Presented By Monmouth Park: Talking Thoroughbred Makeover appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Buying From The Back Ring: High-Stakes Snap Judgments At Thoroughbred Auctions

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A Book 1 purchase at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale can entail months of careful shopping, from farm visits ahead of the auction to countless inspections, phone calls, and veterinary visits when the horses are on the sales grounds. When Book 5 comes around, and buyers are laying eyes on prospects for the first time in the back walking ring, that process is condensed down to about 20 minutes.

With so many horses going through the ring, and limited time and travel budgets to roam the barns inspecting horses at each consignment, many horsemen in the later books of the marathon sale will elect to find a spot in the back walking ring and inspect the horses as they come through, often standing shoulder-to-shoulder with several others doing the same thing. If they find one that meets their criteria, they’ll follow the horse up to the ring to place a bid. Then, once the paperwork is complete, they’ll often go back to the same spot and start the process over again.

It’s a pressure cooker for buyers and sellers alike, as they weave between nervous horses and each other in a crowded, enclosed area, trying to get the best sightline for a yearling on the walk or hunting down the consignor to glance at the vet report.

The horses purchased in these books are crucial to filling the ranks for pinhookers and trainers around the country, and while the prices might not turn heads the way a seven-figure star might earlier in the sale, the buyers still shoulder a significant risk relative to their initial capital. To succeed in the long-term, their quick-twitch judgement with back ring horses has to be right more often than not.

So, what do keen judges lean on during the bloodstock realm’s version of speed dating? For most, it comes down to the walk, the mind, and the budget.

“You can pick apart the book by pedigree at this point as much as you want, but honestly, we just look at individuals, and if we see something that catches our eye, we kind of go from there,” said Delaware Park-based trainer Chelsey Moysey. “You see the horse, see the page, and go on to vet reports and all of that. At this stage in the game, it moves fast, and that’s what works for us.

“The biggest thing for me is the walk,” Moysey continued. “I want a good walker, a good shoulder, and a good hip. I can work with anything from the knees down, give or take, but I want to see a horse with a good shoulder and a good hip.”

In addition to how the young horses move, buyers often judged prospects on how they handled their surroundings. A yearling that could handle the sensory overload of the auction process was more likely to warrant a longer look than one hanging on to its composure by a thread.

“They’ve got to be smart-looking to me,” said Eric Foster, a trainer based in Kentucky and Indiana. “I haven’t had a lot of luck with horses that weren’t smart. I want to hang around with smart people and smart horses. And never back in the knee. A lot of my rules I make, I wind up having to break them a little bit, so it’s hard for me to say, ‘I’ll never do this,’ because then I’ll be right there doing it.”

Foster said he comes to the sale with a number in his head in terms of setting a budget, but he allows some wiggle room if he feels he’d be getting adequate value at a higher price.

Moysey also said the horse will dictate the price in her eyes, but her goal was to come back with as many prospects within her overall budget as she could.

“We’re still on the lower end of racing, so for us to spend $50,000 on an individual is a lot, but for us to spend $50,000 on two is great,” she said We try to look between the $20,000 to $30,000 range, and if we get something cheaper, great. That isn’t happening right now, but we’re trying.”

The intent of the buyer can also swing the type of horse they’re looking for in the back ring. As buyers looking to race, Foster and Moysey said they were able to forgive certain conditions found on a vet report. Pinhook buyers, on the other hand, will need their horses to stand up to veterinary scrutiny when they’re offered again in the spring, and it’s hard to have a clean vet report as a 2-year-old if they didn’t start with one as a yearling.

Crystal Ryan of South Carolina-based pinhook operation Mason Springs said she prefers to do her homework back at the barns, but the volume of horses in the catalog sometimes makes back ring buying a necessity. When it does, due diligence has to be done quickly, and juggling prospects can be a challenge.

“It all happens so fast, and it’s so easy to lose track of one, when you get on one and you have to check on all those things,” she said. “It can be really hard, because one you like might not pass the vet, and then you look and the next horse you like is already going to the ring, and there’s not enough time to call it in to the vet.”

Whereas Moysey was willing to forgive anything below the legs on a horse, Ryan’s checklist was the exact opposite.

“First off, I try to look from the legs up, because if I look from the side, I will tend to like something that I probably shouldn’t, so I really try to watch that walk, and see how correct they are,” she said. “Of course, there’s no perfect horse, so they’ll have a little deviation and you have to be a little forgiving.”

Buying to pinhook also means Ryan was not necessarily shopping for the horses she’d like, but the ones she expects potential buyers will like during the 2-year-old sales, both from a physical and pedigree standpoint. She admitted this has taken some fine-tuning of her critical eye.

“It does knock a lot of horses out that I would otherwise really like,” Ryan said. “I have an affinity for a turf horse and that doesn’t really fit the bill, so I have to be really careful about that.”

What a back ring buyer does when they fall on a potential purchase can differ wildly, as well. Querying the consignor for the vet report is standard procedure, but how much conversation they have with the agent about the horse and the economics around it depends on the buyer.

“I really kind of keep myself to myself and just do my own thing,” said Midwest trainer John Ennis. “I just paddle my own canoe, really.

“It’s a big investment that you’re buying, so you want to make sure you’re buying something with no soundness issues,” he continued. “Starting out on the right foot is the main thing.”

Book 5 of this year’s Keeneland September sale has been unusually robust, and that has given the traditional back ring buyers more competition than they might have expected. Because buyers in the higher books have gotten pushed down into the later sessions, prices have been driven up, and buyers on a tighter budget have had to be even more shrewd than before about picking their spots.

Just because it’s later in the sale and the average price has gone down, that doesn’t mean it’s gotten any easier to buy a horse than it was on the auction’s opening day.

“It’s hard to have a stone plan for it,” Foster said. “You need to be a little bit lucky.”

The post Buying From The Back Ring: High-Stakes Snap Judgments At Thoroughbred Auctions appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Increases at 2021 CTHS Alberta Yearling Sale

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Results tabulated from the Sept. 17 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (CTHS) Alberta Thoroughbred Yearling Sale showed hefty increases over the 2020 edition. Gross sales for the 37 yearlings sold totaled C$405,600, up from the C$327,400 for 39 yearlings last year.

The median price for the sale was C$9,500, up from C$4,500 in 2020, and the average price was C$10,962, up from the C$8,394.87 reached last year. The CTHS Alberta sale topper was an Alberta-bred gelding by Value Plus out of Holiday Maker (Harlan’s Holiday), bought for C$32,000 by Don Knight and Don Danard from the consignment of C.W. Matier.

The 2022 race season in Alberta will feature both an Alberta-bred program and an Alberta-sired program. Further information and full sales results are available at the CTHS Alberta website.

The post Increases at 2021 CTHS Alberta Yearling Sale appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Strong Trade Continues in Penultimate KEESEP Session

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Strong trade continued at Keeneland Thursday in the 10th of 11 sessions of the Keeneland September Sale and the second of three Book 5 sessions. The day’s top seller was a Tapiture colt (Hip 3173) from the Paramount Sales consignment, who brought $145,000 from John Greathouse, agent for Glencrest Farm.

A total of 303 yearlings summoned $9.194 million Thursday. The average was $30,343 and the median was $23,000. In the pre-vaccine pandemic era last year, 244 horses brought $4.764 million during the 10th day of selling with an average of $19,528 and a median of $13,000. Those statistics include post-sale transactions. The RNA rate is down 33.33% from the equivalent session last term.

“It is one of the strongest markets I have ever seen, especially at the back end of the sale,” said Spider Duignan of Paramount Sales, the session’s leading consignor. “Racing is healthy and I guess that is showing up. People are looking for horses.”

The horseman continued, “It’s usually hard work in Books 5 and 6. I remember years when there was nobody left by now. It is just lovely to see. There is such a diverse amount of buyers. Honestly, there are a lot of people I don’t recognize. It is a very strong market.”

Through the first 10 days of selling, 2,428 horses grossed $348,885,500 with an average of $143,693 and a median of $75,000. During the first 10 sessions of 2020, 2,010 horses brought $2335,224,700 with an average of $117,027 and a median of $50,000. The total number of RNAs is down 32.71% from last year.

The final session of Book 5 and the Keeneland September Sale kicks off Friday at 10 a.m.

Strong Day for Paramount Sales

Pat Costello and Gabriel Duignan’s Paramount Sales was the leading consignor Thursday by gross with 24 yearlings bringing $1.169 million. They were responsible for the day’s top two sellers, a $145,000 Tapiture colt (Hip 3173) and a $120,000 Bolt d’Oro filly (Hip 3182).

“We thought we had a decent bunch, but they definitely exceeded expectations,” said Duignan. “The market was very, very brisk. There was so much trade in the back ring, probably the most I’ve ever seen. You could leave the barn with no vet work and they jump on it in the back ring and you could get $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 for it. There is just a huge demand for horses.”

Bred by Davant Latham, the Tapiture colt was purchased by John Greathouse, acting as agent for Glencrest Farm. Out of Informative Style (Dayjur), the bay is a half to stakes winners Watch This Cat (Eskendereya) and Stylish Citizen (Proud Citizen) and stakes-placed Point Blake (Quiet American). He got a nice update when his 3-year-old full-sister Li’l Tootsie finished third in Saratoga’s GII Prioress S. earlier this month. She is entered in Saturday’s GIII Dogwood S. at Churchill Downs.

“He was a very nice colt, very racy,” Duignan said. “He had a good update on the female side. Again, there was multiple bidders on him.”

The Bolt d’Oro filly RNA’d for $24,000 at the Keeneland January Sale and was purchased by Paramount employees post-sale. She is out of the SP Distorted Humor mare Julie’s Jewelry, who is a half-sister to MSW Saucey Evening (More Than Ready) and SW Petition the Lady (Petionville). This is also the family of dual-surface Grade I winner Evening Jewel (Northern Afleet).

“The filly was bought by two of our Mexican guys that work for us,” Duignan said. “They bought her as an RNA for, I think, $17,500, and sold her for $120,000, so that made their day today. They bought a Connect colt (Hip 3292) for $8,000 and got $65,000 for him, so some magic happened today.”

The bay filly is from the first crop of MGISW Bolt d’Oro, who has been in demand at all the yearling sales this season.

“Bolt d’Oro has been popular the whole way through,” Duignan said. “He has been well received by the market. She was a nice filly.”

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