Chuck, it's like asking someone what they would do if they won the lottery, and asking them what they are going to do after they won the lottery.

Want to know? Check back with them in a year, two, three. The statistics would make your hair fall out (or mine considering I have not much more than you, LOL).

Eric

If I owned Street Sense, I'd be happy with the money he makes me from just racing on the track.:)

Which is not that much lately...

I know what I'm gonna do....

every sport has rules to follow, from the owners thru the coaches and down to the players. why horse racing is different i don't know. why owners think that because they run horses, rather than owning a team, that they can do whatever they please, is beyond me. to not speak out imo is wrong. how else do you have change unless the problems are pointed out? so, some big shot owns horses--if he wants to hire a cheater as a trainer, we should all just shrug our shoulders? oh well...his right...is that how we're supposed to view it?

since some owners are not willing to hire a clean trainer, the sport must do what it takes to make sure that only those who are above board are in the sport. they need rules with real punishments, with limits set, and with lifetime bans when necessary. the sport must make sure the playing field remains level. the powers that be in racing are the ones who have to do this. after all, if a trainer cheats, he isn't just ensuring a win for himself--bettors are being ripped off, the very people who keep this sport going.
you see stories days and weeks after a race where a horse is taken down--intercontinental for example, with her lasix given too close to race time. purse is redistributed--but what about the bettors who lost money on a horse who suddenly got moved into a board finish??

Cannon, thanks for the explanation on how limiting a horse's number of covers would reduce the stallion's value- now I understand what you're saying (sometimes it takes me a second explanation to get it. :) ). Though again, I don't see it having any effect on staving off the retirements of top runners- as you said, it would motivate owners of 2nd-tier horses to keep their horses running longer, but I think 1st-tier runners would still be rushed off to breed, so again, no superstars.

And I do understand your point on Funny Cide, but again, the figures you're estimating are what his value would have been as a stallion prospect, had he been intact- not his value as a runner. So while I agree FC would have been retired as a 3-year-old had he been a stallion, because he would have been at his peak value, again, what I was hypothesizing was ways to keep the superstars racing, and I don't see any way around that than making them wait to start standing at stud. Some owners, to be sure, will pull them from the track to wait it out, but that's not any different to the fan than pulling them to start breeding right away, so for the fan it wouldn't be a detriment, and might, in some cases, keep a horse running.

And yeah, it'll never happen. (No sign of Clive and my unicorn yesterday, either.)

You are correct. I am of the opinion Funny Cide never races past 3 if he wasn't a gelding. He was still legit at age 4 usually on the board in grade 1s with an occasional win thrown in...but after that...not so much. So in all actuality, I think he would have maintained most of his value if retired after his 4 year old year...it was age 5-6-7 where his decline was obviously apparent. But yeah, you look at results...speed figures through the Belmont Stakes of their career there is virtually nothing separating, Funny Cide, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Curlin, Street Sense, Hard Spun etc. So yeah, why run any of them...when as you said we have our poster boy of what happens...and through spring of their 3 yr old years...FC was as good as any of those mentioned above and if not as good...certainly in their ball park. They are all individuals so there are a few here or there that may continue to get better and become megastars, but I think the majority would track like FC and become nothing extraordinary and with the money out there...why chance it at all when the guarantee is right in front of you not running??

really?

well, they say believe half of what you see, none of what you hear. maybe that fits in this case.

I have a horse to sell. Someone wants to buy it. I sell. The next day the horse sells for multiple times what I sold it for. Who made money?

Not me.
Not the person who paid for the horse the next day.

Though it is easy for us to throw numbers around the amounts of money being paid for stallion prospects is staggering. 25 to 50 million dollars is real money even to rich people. Dont forget that alot of these rich owners believe that the sport is who makes the most money like in their other businesses. I am not saying it is wrong or right but it is how they think.

well, there's another scenario that could happen...
let's say you have a buyer. he contacts an agent to do his buying for him. let's say the agent id's a horse. let's say he knows his buyer will pay X for a horse. let's say that maybe he finds someone to buy said horse privately (perhaps he provides the money to buy it?), and then he will bid up the next day, in the neighborhood of X. then could he and the private buyer (who no one knew about at the time) possibly benefit??

wonder if that has ever happened? goodness knows that all kinds of funny business could go on. just like the cases where someone bid and then a commission was split between the agent and the seller. who is taking care of the buyer? how many naive owners get taken? how many leave a game they would love to be in because they get taken by an unscrupulous agent?

i think the competition has veered from who can breed the best horse to who can get the best bottom line. a shame too.

I pulled this quote out of your post because I thought it was an extremely good point. Cannon Shell's response that the market sets the value, not the insurance company, is 100% correct, but it doesn't change your conclusion. Namely, that the preceived risk proves that stallions are overvalued to begin with.

There's no other rational conclusion that could be drawn. If the average value of a stallion prospect would drop markedly after a 4-yr-old campaign, then people are paying too much for 3-yr-old stallions. (yes, there should naturally be a small drop attributed to the loss of one breeding season, but we're not talking about that kind of price difference.)

The initial market price for breeding is based on a combination of the stallion's lineage and what it accomplished on the track. If the average market price would suffer from another year of racing, then clearly people have been over-paying for what a horse accomplishes on the track up to the point of its 3-yr-old year.

Maybe it already seemed obvious to some that breeding prices are inflated. But the argument could always be made that the market establishes a fair price. However, that argument would be negated by the fact, if it's true, that on average, a horse's value would go down decidedly by simply racing another year.

--Dunbar