I'll Have Another from the horse's mouth: Reddam's Bloodhorse guest blog
 

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/horse...uest-blog.aspx

Reddam lays out his thought process and the sale numbers for us. He wasn't kidding when he said the Japanese offered a lot more. I agree with his assessment of the stud fee and book quality. Part of that logic goes back to having access to Flower Alley and his sire so it just wasn't going to go a lot higher. Hopefully if IHA does take off with his better book of Japanese mares, Reddam will have gotten those in utero CA bred IHA foals early on so he won't have to pay as much.

That was pretty well written. I'd never have guessed that a loan shark type would be such a good writer.

He was a philosophy professor at UCLA before he put money out on the street.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Paul_Reddam

Bodemeister's rights sold for $13 million in America. I'll Have Another's best offer in America was less than $5 million.

The consensus on message boards and with a few other media types who weighed in before the Preakness was that IHA was the more valuable stallion prospect and would be a lot more so if he completed the triple crown sweep. I was shocked about that.

You were shocked that people on message boards could get something completely backwards? Really?

i only thought he would command more if he won the tc because of the novelty of the situation. he's certainly not as well bred as bodemeister, his sale price indicated issues, and he wasn't sound.

IHA's biggest issues are that his sire is still so young and so cheap.

On the first part, his sire is still young available and diminishes the value of IHA's blood here.

The second part is while we all wish horses would come back as a 4 yo, Flower Alley would have been worth 3x at stud had he retired as a 3yo after being second in the BCC.

Shame as IHA could be any kind of stallion, but I don't blame Reddam for the decision.

That was really fantastic.

Cal State LA actually. Pretty surprising nonetheless.

Said with tongue in cheek I hope.

Why? Good read IMO.

Not at all.

Well, I do respect him for putting all of this “out there.” He certainly didn’t have to. I would think that it must be difficult as an owner to separate emotion from business, for some owners anyway, but at least he is honest about the business side -- the only side, really -- of sending IHA to Japan. Besides, if Reddam misses IHA the extra $M’s will buy a lot of airplane tickets. One would think, though, that there might have been an agreement for IHA to return stateside when/if he is pensioned.

Has Clyde, or whatever his name is, taken over your brain lately?

I read the interview pretty quickly so I may have misread but I thought he said he planned to buy him back if IHA was ever put up for sale. He may not have set up an arrangement for when he's pensioned because, assuming a 15-20 year career at stud, it's quite possible Reddam won't be around when that time comes. The retirement orgs here seem to do a really good job of keeping tabs on our big horses who go overseas; I'm sure they'll take IHA if he doesn't work out as a sire over there.

I agree that they do a fine job. It would be nice, however, if someone like Michael Blowen didn't have to ask donors for funds to repatriate IHA, if instead the conditions were put into the contract up front. Those costs would be an insignificant figure in a $10M contract. Just sayin.

Ummm.. No, but I see scat has taken over yours :)

Perhaps, but I've never been involved in any sort of relationship with Scat.

Though I'd rather do him than Morty.

Sorry Charlie...too late, I have been sold to a Japanese breeding shed.

Scat

I think I'd rather fly to Japan and do you then be in the same room as Morty.

Did Morty get banned?

:D
:tro:

I wasn't referring to Scat Daddy :)

I know.

Hey Santa. :p

Okay now I'm totally confused!

I'm glad you posted this. :)

Sometimes you decide you like or dislike people for ridiculous reasons... you know? Or you read something about them that makes you feel like well this person is decent or a pig or whatever.

Hendrix was my favorite horse.

I couldn't wait to see him in the Arcadia back in 2007.

I had a running thread for him on another forum titled Xcuse Me While I Kiss the Sky and for once my kids were going to be with their dad on a good racing day so I was excited cause it meant I could watch the race and post simultaneously which was something I really never did.

No reason to mention that thread except for nice memories of well a lot of disappointments but hey they aren't all Citation are they?

The thing I remember most about that day was watching him run on after he'd broken his leg. He kept on running. He knew where that finish line was. Watching and literally sobbing on the floor and my hands shaking so hard as people, friends and others, were posting stuff about it, about him, about Icy Atlantic who won the race.

This is an awful thing to say but I cried more that day then any other day in my life.

Some of you know what I mean and some of you will now think me even more nuts as it's a horse, a horse I had no connection to, etc.

I honestly don't care. Just being honest.

Anyway some time later I met someone who was there that day and there as in right there and who could see and hear Corey - who was very shaken - and Mr. Reddam.

Of course I don't know if this is true or not but the word she used was "inconsolable". He was inconsolable.

And so true or not this one word has stayed with me and continues to make me give the benefit of the doubt to this man who people, at times, accuse of being a loan shark, a parasite, that kinda thing.

He seems decent.

Any time I hear about or read about him he just seems like a gentleman and that word appears somewhere in my head. Happens every time.

I had no reason for saying all of that, any of that, but for the connection one has to the other and so I can't see his name without a twinge of that despair, of that feeling of wondering if I'd ever stop crying again and that sounds moronic, I know, but it's the truth.

I like Ill Have Another so much and hope that he's the new Sunday Silence but I'll also hope that he comes home relatively soon.

As far as Reddam this piece made me like him kinda in the way I like Repole... it's their enthusiasm and very public love for the game. That is what I find irrisistible.

Some people hate one or both and I'm starting to think that maybe some people just hate everything. That that is the one thing they enjoy. Being hateful.

People who bring so much to the game shoujld be embraced.

It seems like for some reason if they're very rich some assume they are I don't know... evil or at least disingenuous.

I wish Mr. Reddam continued good fortune.

Thank you Merlinsky cause I've been away and would have completely missed this.