Can Retirement REALLY be Far Behind?
 

From Friday's DRF.....


The Green Monkey turned out
By DAVID GRENING

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The Green Monkey, who sold for a world-record $16 million at the Fasig-Tipton 2-year-old-in-training auction earlier this year, has been sent to his owner’s farm in Kentucky and won’t make it to the races until next year.

Gee now there's a surprise. :rolleyes:

I think retirement might be in the best interest of the horse at this point.
Besides, he really doesn't have anything else to prove.
He obviously looked like one of the best we've seen in a long long time.

If they want to save embarrassment, it's the best option...

So hilarious...the sick thing is that they would probably still make money off him in the shed, eventually

How about starting with justification for his $16 million price?

The true punch line in all of this is if TGM is sterile or "not interested."

There is no way to justify that.

this is funny.
but its not like he has to run to be given a chance to succeed at stud.
Tiger Ridge never won a race and he is an excellent sire.
although I dont think its really a good thing that a horse that cant even make it to the starting gate should be making more like himself.


Repent

For some reason this struck me as hilariously funny. I literally had to try to explain it to my wife, who's not a horseplayer, and for some reason she couldn't understand the humor in the statement "looked like one of the best we've seen in a long long time." Thanks, you seriously made my T-giving.

Great, I'm glad someone got it! Just carrying to the extreme some of the stuff that has been going on lately. :)

i heard about the pissing contest behind this one..he basicley ruined juddmont.....let them giants causways rot like pumpkins..

There are plenty of horses that don't make their first start until half-way through their 3 year old year, so I wouldn't write the horse off yet. Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't pay several million dollars for a horse if you knew that he wouldn't be able to start until half-way through his 3 year old year. This is certainly not a positive development. But I still wouldn't write the horse off yet.

By the way, if this horse never makes it to the races, he is pretty much worthless. His pedigree is not that great. His first dam is nothing special. She made $45,000 racing and this is her second foal. Her first foal was still unraced as of February this year according to the catalog at the sale.

It is possible for an unraced horse to have value as a stallion if they have great breeding, but I don't think this horse's breeding is good enough. It would be one thing if you buy a yearling for $5 million who is by Storm Cat out of a grade I winning mare. A horse like that may have some value as a stallion even if he couldn't run. Tiger Ridge is a good example. He only made $11,000 racing but he was by Storm Cat out of Weekend Surprise.

They overpaid for the horse by a million times. I'm not denying that. This horse should have sold for $500,000 or so. And as you said, they were obviously expecting him to run as a 2 year old. I totally agree with you on both of those points.

However, I don't know how you can you say that he will never run in a stakes race. There have been hundreds of horses over the last 10 years that didn't run until they were 3 years old and ended up being stakes horses. It's way too early to say that The Green Monkey won't win a stakes race. It's not too early to say that they paid way too much for him. But it is too early to say that he won't win a stakes race.

Tiznow and Bernardini are two that come to mind right away.

On another forum, I was wondering about something like this. Not particularly with this horse but since he's the subject now, what kind of stud fee do u all think he would be able to bring if he doesn't race? Also, what kind of fee do u think Bernardini could have brought had he went to stud unraced?

I think Bernardini would get $5,000 tops unraced.

Silver Charm has won 2 huge races (Kentucky Derby and Dubai World Cup) with almost $7 mil in earnings. I tink his stud fee started at $25k was dropped to $10k and now he has been shipped over to Japan.

Why does anyone care so much?
The Sheikhs and Coolmore both have bought unmitigated disasters in the last 20 years. Both of em.
The fact that this one at 8 million, ooops I meant 16 million, looks to be a bust shouldn't shock anyone.
No matter how much talent they show as young horses just getting them to the races is about an even money prop, getting them to win a race less than that, getting them to be a stakes horse incredibly hard, and getting them to win a grade one just about impossible statistically.
I haven't understood the Green Monkey watch at all.
I mean, the horse that Sekiguchi has with Baffert who won a slow maiden race earlier this year and then disappeared cost just as much(in actuality) and would be considered a bust as well.
I guess I just have a hard time worrying about a bad buy made by either guys who own oil wells, or a guy who owns the British soccer pools.

by AP Indy out of a G1 mare?
I don't know how much exactly....but prolly more than 5K

I think your numbers are way off. At the 2 year old sales, if you only buy horses with good comformation, that pass the vet, appear very sound, and have a good way of moving, the chances of the horse making it to the races is probably about 95%. If they were one of the best horses at the sale, the chances of them winning a race are probably about 75% and the chances of them being a stakes horse are probably about 25%. When you see a horse like What a Song working a quarter of a mile in :20 3/5 at a sale, there is an excellent chance that he will be a stakes horse. If a horse works that fast and has a good way of moving, there's at least a 25% chance that the horse will be a stakes horse. That's why the horse went for $1.8 million, even with a mediocre pedigree.

Yearling sales are a totally different story. The chances of picking out a good horse are much smaller there. At a yerling sale, if you pick out the best looking horse with the best breeding, there still is probably only about a 5-10% chance of getting a stakes horse.

With all these percenatges that I'm throwing out here, I'm making the assumption that the person picking the horses is extremely good at it. If you don't have a good eye, your percenatges would be much lower.

Take a guy like Bob Baffert. He has a very good eye. When he buys a horse for $1 million at a 2 year olds in training sale, you can bet that the horse will be a very good horse. At the Barrett's sale last year, he bought two expensive horses. He paid $1.8 million for What a Song and around $800,000 for Point Determined. Both horses turned out to be stakes horses. This year at Barretts, he only bought one expensive horse. He bought an Exploit colt for $1.2 million. I can't think of the horse's name but that horse is 2 for 2 and is a stakes winner.

Anyway, the point is that if you know what you are doing and are willing to pay top dollar at the 2 year old sales, you will get very good horses. At the yearling sales, it is much more difficult because you have far less to go on.

I don't think so. If the horse was unraced, he would be lucky to get $5,000. I doubt he could even get that much.

With The green Monkey, they'd be lucky to get $1,000-$2,000.

Is E Z Warrior the colt you are thinking of?

I agree completely, Dees; ArlJim's is the funniest post I've read this year! (Aside to Travis Stone--it was a JOKE!)

--Dunbar

Yes. That is the horse.

It's obvious the GM is a fast horse because of that one work. If he can be sound there is no reason to think he can't compete as a 3 yr. old.

Irony and sarcasm are especially hard to convey with the typed word. Have seen people reply indignantly to totally tongue-in-cheek letters to the editor in the local paper. Missed the point entirely. Reason I put <grin> behind some of my posts. I thought your post was amusing and so right on.

Ann, i agree on your point about irony and sarcasm being hard to detect. I have found out the hard way several times. I usually use the grins if I think there might be a chance that someone could take it the wrong way and get offended. Sometimes though, its fun to just be as sober and dry as possible and see how its received. Sadly, these are the things that amuse me.

sounds like my kind of guy.

Now that sounds tongue-in-cheek.

nope. i enjoy dry humor and sarcasm!

In fairness, I should admit that I read "best interest of the horse" as if you were serious. But the "doesn't have anything else to prove" smacked so clearly of Bernardini that I was already laughing by time I got to the excellent last line.

Keep 'em coming!

--Dunbar

I think it was pretty obvious that you were being sarcastic. I was laughing about it. How could a horse that's never run before, have already proved himself? LOL. That was a good one.

Well it seems that it was a successful post then, because while it apparently brought laughs to those that got the sarcasm, i'm guessing that there were also some that thought "This guy is nuts, saying the TGM has nothing to prove and that he's one of the best we've seen".

My other ideas were too over the top and no one would have bit on them. One was to make a post comparing TGM to a great horse like Seattle Slew.
The other idea was to try to make the case that he should be considered the leading contender for 2007 HOY.

certainly one could make a case for him to be champ. Juv. of 2006...after all he worked really fast @ the sale...and his picture graced the cover of MANY MANY publications both when he was sold...again when he was sent to a trainer...then again when he worked...he has been a media darling from day one and is clearly heads above the rest of the 2YO crop.

Oh I thought that was already a done deal so I didn't even think it had to be mentioned. He stands head and shoulders above this crop for sure.

Funny, I typed out exactly that Seattle Slew comparison as a response to your first post, but thought, nah, it wasn't nearly as funny as what you'd already written.

--Dunbar

A little inside info for those that enjoy that kind of thing.

Tentative plans call for him to be on the cover of Time Magazine ala Secretariat in early 2007.

They're undecided on which caption to use. It's between "How a racehorse made a nation feel good about themselves again" and "You can't put a pricetag on what this horse means to society."

Keep the sarcasm coming Jim. I got a great chuckle out of it!!!

That's good Mike, real good. i got a good laugh on that.