SHAME ON YOU Anstu Stable
 

These people deserve to be called out and chastised for this disgrace today

Ibboyee, the multiple graded stakes placed, multiple stakes winner of over $700,000 is now 5 years old. He hadn't started since last summer (2011) and today, as Hip Number 3615 was run through the sale at Keeneland and sold for $ 2,000 as a "stallion prospect"

What's the matter ? They couldn't make the effort and just have found him a home ? Pletcher was quoted last year as saying what a cool horse to be around he is. The owner I believe was on the board of NYRA, another fine example set by a supposedly upstanding citizen of the game. Shame on them.

Who took him Scooter Davis?

Wasn't Anstu stallion Kettle Won saved from a killer auction?

"A New Career Stables" bought Stormy's Majesty.
Amelia Jean Proto bought Ibboyee.

I'll give you another one. Stormy's Majesty, winner of the G3 Discovery and a very good NY-Bred who won a bunch of nice races was sold for $1,000.

Stormy's Majesty was advertised on a CANTER (or similar site) recently. A friend of a friend contacted me about him because she was interested in his as a riding prospect and wanted to know if I knew anything about his history.

Robert Vukovich.. Absolutely no excuse for him.

And certainly none for the Subotnicks (Anstu) either.

They are losing money on the sale at those prices when you consider shipping, consignor %, Keeneland I believe has a $500 min commission, etc.

by the way what did happen to scooter davis?

Suspended again...only about the 48th time.

He's even running some of his horses under Doug Shanyfelt's name this time.

yeah i noticed that i think at CT--thanks for the info

I usually defend "end users" who claim these types for $5k in the hope that they can keep them togther or maybe help them find some of that back class. Those horsemen don't make much (if anything) and work hard.

I do think it sad that a man like the owner of Ibboyee, a member of the NYRA board and a man of significant means, when unable to arrange a stud deal would simply unload such a horse. He's not an end user, he is the man that this horse earned that money for. Clearly the horse has no (or a very low) reserve. A better option might have been to geld him and arrange for retraining, if he was fit. Surely a man in his position could have made such arrangements? If he was too sore (or unsuited by temperament) to be used for riding how about arranging for retirement at one of any number of places that house retirees. To be honest, if the horse was a real mess I'd prefer humane destruction over sending a horse off to an unknown fate.

Fwiw, I saw on another board the horse was purchased by someone who looks to retrain him for hunt/jump.

One thing you forget, they did nothing illegal. It is their horse and they can do what they want with it. Some people care only about the almighty dollar.

Glad Ibboyee appears to have gone to a good home, but it seems it could have been accomplished without sending hin through the auction. That sort of thing gains attention and if he'd been a no sale for $1k, the seller would look all the worse.
No, nothing illegal here, I know but appearances do matter. The NYRA stepped up a couple of years ago and said that they'd take steps against horses going from their barn to killer auctions. They backed off when the first horse that turned up in such a state came from PJ Campo's brother's barn. They have been supportive of "aftercare initiatives" which I applaud. All that can fast go out the window when a board member sends a SW of over $700k to a sale with so low a reserve as to have him sell for $2k. I know that this isn't a "killer auction" but had a sale been done privately, none of us would be thinking of it.

Ibboyee
 

There are obviously quite a few misconceptions regarding the purchase of Ibboyee at KEENOV12. I'm here to clear those up. My name is Amelia Jean Proto, and I am the buyer.
First: If you had done a little digging into who I am, you would have found out that I was born and raised in upstate New York, exactly like Ibboyee. Coincidence? No. Not at all. His breeders and I have a very close relationship which has spanned more than a decade. They are like family. I was present on April 18, 2007, and helped pull Ibboyee from the womb.
From day one, we all recognized that his horse was special. When he won NY 2yo of the Year, we were not surprised. I followed his career extremely closely, and have had the intention to purchase him "back" since his 2yo season.

Second: How dare YOU slam Todd Pletcher. You clearly have no way of knowing this, but I was bidding against Todd and his agents in the ring on November 15th. He WAS trying to find Ibboyee a good home, WITH HIS OWN MONEY. Don't you DARE assume that he simply stopped caring about the horse. After I signed the ticket, I introduced myself, shook hands, and made sure they knew that he had gone (back) to a loving home.

Third: How many horses do YOU own? Anstu dispersed no less than 6 horses at KEENOV12, because they have too many mouths to feed. Kentucky is hard up for hay right now; cutting back on stock through a legal venue is nothing to be ashamed of. If Ibboyee meant oh so much to you, and you are so very disgusted, why didn't you throw up your hand and buy him? This post was made less than an hour after I signed the ticket, so you were clearly keeping tabs on the auction.

Fourth: I am not gelding Ibboyee. He will remain a Horse for as long as he maintains his level personality. I have every intention of breeding him in the future. Considering he can be handled without a chain, and was recently paddocked with mares on 3 sides, I have no reason to believe he will change. He will be trained to be ridden, because horses must have jobs. I'm not sure where it is being written that he is becoming a hunter/jumper, because I have not publicly stated anything of the kind. If, once groundwork and flatwork have been completed, he enjoys jumping, he will jump. If he enjoys dressage, that's fine too. For all I care he can be a trail horse, but he will be used as a horse is meant to be. He will not be a pasture ornament.

If you wish to follow his progress, find us on Facebook; page name Cannonbrook Farms. If his upkeep and well being are something you're truly concerned about, I will gladly accept donations to assist with the cost of his care.

Questions? Message me. Uneducated opinions without any fact checking are most of the reason why there are rampant rumors throughout the Thoroughbred industry. Stop adding to the problem.

Amelia Jean Proto
Owner: Cannonbrook Farms
Lexington, Kentucky & Slaterville Springs, New York

This thread doesn't interest me at all ... but Ibboyee has no chance as a stallion.

Obviously we can no longer joke about Turkey because they've bought a few real nice stallions lately ... but perhaps Ibboyee might be able to make it as a top 20 sire in Iraq or Sudan?

Kazakhstan could be stretching it.

Nice to know he's in a good place. :)

Best of luck to you and to him.

Yes, he's with a crazy lady who paid $2,000 to try and make him a stallion prospect... when he otherwise would have been bought by Pletcher and retired to a good home.

I'm not fighting with you and I think you know that.

He was a nice horse, had fans, and I respect and appreciate anyone who comes on and takes the time to update. It's very decent thing to do.

I am not giving any opinion, I have never owned horses and would never be so presumpteous. I'm just wishing them both well.

If you want to fight I'd imagine someone will oblige.

I hardly ever post in the paddock these days so really, that's all I have to say DrugS.

I don't see anything here where anyone slammed Pletcher. The only slam was on the owners for running him through a sale with no reserve, regardless of the prestige of the sale. For a horse that did so much for them - that's a shame and saying they have too many mouths to feed isn't an excuse. This fellow has been feeding all those mouths for a while.

I'm sure no one will argue that it's a good thing he had a soft landing with your involvement. You obviously are passionate about him and concerned for his welfare. Since you have deep involvement in the industry, you can no doubt appreciate that people would be concerned for this horse and the circumstances surrounding his auction and subsequent low price. Too many horses like this end up in less than desirable conditions.

I apologize for repeating a "nice" possible outcome of him being hunt/jump trained. That info came from reading on another board that someone supposedly familiar with the buyer had said the horse would be retrained for those purposes. Didn't realize that was such a horrible thing to share...

No one slammed Pletcher and you have nothing to apologize for.

Don't come here and lecture people because you decided to buy a horse. The reason why there are rampant rumors in the thoroughbred industry is because so many people fail to do the right thing with their horses. The idea that because someone has "too many mouths to feed" it is fine to dump them into a sale and let them bring what they bring is a far greater problem then people on a message board questioning a successful horse selling for a ham sandwich.

Well said.

ditto.

I think it's great that he's gone back to someone who has a connection to him and that (it sounds like) will take good care of him.

Did you think it was great that she came here and lectured people for no reason and made little to no sense in her rambling?

That was just an added bonus. Kind of like finding a second prize in your Cracker Jacks.

:tro:

That was a pretty tame lecture, and one that I could easily look past in light of her involvement in the situation. It's tough imagining anyone feeling significantly slighted by what she said, but maybe they were. This

is the essential point.

you are out of line.

I thought the hay in Ky. is hard to find comment was particularly entertaining.. It was raining the other night in NYC and it was harder to find a vacant cab then if it hadnt been raining.... If we can just the Moonshine boys to stock making Mash and start growing hay all will be well.

There's no way to know if Todd was planning to retire him or race him. Remember, Todd doesn't train for Anstu anymore. Maybe he was looking for a horse for a client to race? I don't know and Todd isn't saying.

I'm glad the horse will have a nice home though I'm not crazy about the idea of not gelding him. Entire horses generally lead frustrated and lonely lives as herd animals who are kept isolated. If he's to be a cometitive horse it can be a challenge and unless he turns out to be better at his chosen (given?) field than he was at racing, he probably won't be used as a breeding animal.


To Amelia: Bettors/fans of racing get a bad reputation for not caring about horses yet everyone on here echoed concern for this popular horse. Far too often animals like Ibeboyee end up back on the track, at Beulah or Fairmont. Since the sale price was modest, I can't help but wonder why as prominent an owner wouldn't have found a less public way to place his former stakes runner?

I know how expensive it is to keep horses, I've done it most of my life. Most of them former racehorses in fact. I understand that even big outfits owned by people most of us would call "wealthy" have to cut back and sell off non productive animals, especially when the ones in training are not exactly winning in bunches. There are plenty of programs out there willing to take in nice retraining projects to ready them for sale into non-racing home. You could have contacted them when he was sidelined and offered to take him, should he need a home. (Maybe you did.) Clearly they had tried to sell him as a stallion but nothing worked out and they dropped him in the sale and found out what his true market value was, less that what they hoped would have been his stud fee!

If he wasn't willing to bid past $2,000 ... I am going to go out on a limb and say he wasn't planning on racing him.

I thought the point was the owners were readily sending off a horse that made them a lot of money because "they have a lot of mouths to feed," and people were understandably not exactly thrilled about it.

I bet he wasn't planning on breeding him either. Gelding would've likely been in Ibboyee's future. I'm guessing Todd did that to make sure he wasn't completely bottom of the barrel as a sort of reserve where he'd end up with the horse if nobody else stepped up. Once he saw someone else was bidding and wanted Ibboyee, he let them have him.

The chance of Todd Pletcher actually being there at the end of the 10th session of Keeneland November is roughly the same as Elvis being there. Perhaps he had someone make 1 bid to ensure he was well above killer prices. Regardless while it is nice that this particular horse wound up in a good place far more needs to be done and calling people out is unfortunately about the best way to spur action.

Looking back through the results how did Moro Tap bring $350k?

Statements like this are exactly what Steve talks about daily on his show about the negativity about horse racing posted daily. I'm kind of surprised he did not reply to your comments. This lady put up her money and can do what wants, plus she really cares for this horse!

And lectures like this is, is what makes these boards unreadable most of the time.

Actually, you're dead wrong.