Quote:
Originally Posted by Coup Verville
Hey Doug, on the second colt, what makes you think that about him? I'm not judging, I just need to know what people who are more seasoned in this sort of thing see what I don't see. Just trying to learn.
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My approach to 2yo sales is to study them and look for debut winners and debut bet againsts.
How fast they go is obviously the most important of the half dozen or so factors I emphasize.
Keep this in mind, 1/5th of a second is HUGE at this very short distance and very high rate of speed. It's more than a length and a half. If seven different horses ran a furlong in 10 flat over this track... than a horse who runs 10 3/5ths just got beat by almost 5 full lengths in a one-furlong race.
For a 10.60 to interest me at all ... I want to see a lot of excuses. I didn't see any with that horse. The horse had blinkers, the horse had an appropriate amount of run-up, the horse didn't lug into the rail, the horse didn't duck out sharply.
The only positive thing I can see is the horse was a Bernardini, and a lot of Bernardini's typically don't light it up and post bullets in these drills. However, the dam was a cheap speed horse by Exploit. She won her only race sprinting. She raced at River Downs, Hooiser, and Beulah Park and pressed the pace for a quarter and typically faded. The pedigree isn't too much of an excuse imo.
Why did the horse sell for $900,000?
* Bernardini's are very expensive and still popular. He gets a lot of top broodmare prospects.
* This horse is obviously very well made and put together. Even though the dam is way below avg for what Bernardini gets ... this horse RNA'd for 525K as a yearling. Not only is it a Bernardini, it's probably one of the very best looking ones.
* The fallacy that drives all 2-year-old sales ... people think any horse that can run an 1/8th of a mile in 10.60 has all kind of speed.
That simply isn't true. These horses get several hundred feet of run-up and they are accelerating to near top speed by the time they hit the pole. Where as in a race, they break from a gate at a stand still start and aren't near top speed until well after they hit the pole.
That is why a horse can run 10 flat for an 1/8th under sales conditions, but can't break 22 for a quarter in an actual race at many tracks unless he's absolutely gunned and the track is very fast.
Summing up the second colt. I think he is going to be very vulnerable in his debut. I don't think he's going to show much gate speed, I don't think he's going to show a lot of early speed, if he proves me wrong, he'll do it as a mid-pack miler or stalking router with races under his belt.
Basically ... he's a 525K yearling who parlayed a very mediocre 1f preview into a 900K tag.
If you're going to buy that type of horse ... buy it as a yearling for the discount. These type of expensive 2yo in training buys that perform mediocre in the preview almost never pan out. For every one that does , a great, great, great many are total busts.