Pinhooking is still the place to be in this game.
 

I searched the few hips that I liked best in the sale from....to see what they sold for as yearlings.
Of course, the market was in a really bad spot last year but still these pinhookers are making some serious cash.

Hip 16. Sold for 150k last Sept at Kee....he fetched 800k today.

Hip 60. Sold for 60k last July...sold for 250k today.

Hip 163 Sold for 182k last Oct. at Timonium...she brought 335k today.

Hip 166. Sold for 170k at Kee Sept.....He brought 700k today.

Hip 184. Sold well at the Saratoga select sale in Aug for 250k....today he
brought 515k.

Hip 190. Sold really well at the most select yearling sale FT AUG for 250k.
Today M. Tabor paid 825k for him.

Hip 221. He sold for 117k as a yearling in July..Today he sold
for 360k.

Hip 218. This is the horse that everyone knew would be the sale topper. He sold for 200k at Kee Septemper. Being by Distorted Humor out of the great race mare and producer Tomisue's Delight, you would think he would have sold for at least a half million. Especially since his half brother Mr. Sidney won G1 just a few months before. Today the white Jessie Jackson shelled out 2.3 million. Not a bad profit turn in 5.5 months for a couple start up pinhookers.

The expenses on thse horses isn't cheap and for every hit there are alot of misses.many of the RNA's today were bought to pinhook. Many of the OUTs were bought to pinhook. Many others bought for the same purpose have been seriously hurt, or are dead or will never be able to sell for some reason.

I still think most of the pinhookers are doing rather well.

It wasn't a good day to be pinhooking Street Cry offspring I guess ...

Hip #71 By Street Cry out of Glimmering sold for 260K as a weanling - was RNA'd for 300K as a yearling - and today was RNA'd for just $22,000

Hip #157 By Street Cry out of Plata sold for 550K as a yearling last year - today he RNA'd for 295K.

An aquantance of mine bought about $1.5m worth of yearlings about 10 years ago to pinhook. This was the 2yo sales were becomming big and the market was at that time pretty stable. He bought 10-11 babies, not "superstars" but decent solid "get to the races" breeding with athletic looks and no medical issues.
Two died by January after incurring thousands in medical expenses. A filly ran off on a rider in Fla and charged through a fence and is now a pleasure horse with a chronic limp. The best colt got colic right before the sale and was an "out." (He sold later for a reduced price because the colic ended with surgery.) A couple RNA'd and he had to sell them privately or keep them to race, which he didn't want to do.
One of the colts who he paid about $100k for sold for almost a million and everyone was wowed by how well he'd done. The fact is that after expenses for shipping, breaking, training, board, shoes, vets, sales prep etc. He made about $150k for the entire lot.
He had alot go wrong, but the fact is that alot can go wrong and the big successes have to cover alot of disasters.

The general expense figure for care and training of pinhooked Yearling to 2yo Sale prospects is $30k.

i'd be incredibly happy with that!

the market being what it is, buyers are the ones in the catbird seat. i've read some recent articles in the BH and elsewhere-pinhooking is a down business right now. most of them are taking a hit. sure, you have the occasional big horse, but it may not cover the busts. then, factor in the tightening credit on top of the volatile market...hard to make money pinhooking right now.

I would too, but it's nice making anyone a millionaire. The point is that alot of folks figure that if a pinhooker buys a horse for $100k and re-sells for 850k, that they made a fortune. The "fudge factor" of horses that never make it to the 2yo sales, the injuries that keep them from training and sicknesses that cost a ton of money mean you can make a nice living but you are not as rich as folks think you are.
For the amount of risk and the money (or credit) you have to have up front, it's not an easy way to make $150k. Decent middle management jobs with a weekly salary and no risk and good benefits can be had for $150k.

It's easy to demonstrate 10 or 20 horses a year that were huge scores and make it look like pinhooking is easy money.

I'm sure the consigner also expects a certain percentage of profits, I'm guessing 5%..

Isn't alot of those pinhookers the consigner also though?

They only sold about 35% of the horses how can pinhooking be good? What about all the people who paid 200k spent 35k getting the horse ready have 235k into the horse and the horse RNA at 175k? Unless more are selling you just cant look at the HR's without at least repping the K's..

That 1/2 to Mr Sidney must have looked like a frog to only bring 200k so they lucked out congrats.. Sometimes the frog becomes a prince

Isn't the entire game of horse racing a gamble for the most part?

Cannon Shell basically said it all earlier in the thread. Most of the horses didnt meet their reserve. In the past the RNA levels weren't as steep. Plus would imagine people lowered there RNA's to adjust to market conditions and even that didn't help..

Yes its a gamble the machine is just paying off less dollars to fewer players so the gamble isn't as lucrative.

But as Chuck has said the prices are cheaper so racing is starting to become more approachable..I guess

Now you have all the pro pinhookers concentrating on fewer horses, though (need the pinhook prospect triad of ped, clean rads, conformation). The ability to pick sale potential is still what pro pinhooking is all about, isn't it? Hanging your profit on the ability to pick a future athlete is different, but where people like Chuck shine (take a chance on future race ability)

That figure may be a little low as insurance drives the price up quite a bit. Since many if not most pinhooks are bought with borrowed money, insurance is a must. Pinhooking looks much easier than actually is. You have to have a great opinion at the yearling sales, get really lucky and have no conscience when you are sticking someone with a ticking time bomb for $800k. Not to mention that most of the high dollar purchases net less than advertised due to the fact that a lot of palms are greased along the way. And that is for actual sales not paper bs.

The vast majority of horses cataloged for that sale were money losers.

There just arent that many new people to replace the owners lost that play at the high levels. I was referring to yearlings which are close to 50% cheaper as a whole than they were 2 years ago.

The market now stinks, but it's still a very high risk game even in a steady market. Unless you got lucky and bought one or two cheap but correct babies that developed fast and look lie they can run, you might be out alot of money.

I can only imagine what the sales topper looked like 6 months ago.. 200k for a DH with a 1/2 to Mr Sydney.. They rolled the dice and one all in all I would rather be buying to race. Pinhooking sounds great till you buy one for 200k and it stays the frog you bought it as..

A friend of mine bought him.....and he's pretty smart. Smarter, I dare say, than even you.