SPINOFF: Sales chat

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by sumitas

I truly hope the horse looked good. He was the sales topper after all

You'd be surprised at some of the horses that sell really well who don't look like they can run a lick. There was a Speighstown colt at Fasig Tipton Calder that sold for around $1.7 million. I didn't like the horse at all. I wouldn't have paid $100,000 for that horse.

By the way, you can't take the sales results at face value because there are so many secret deals and scams going on. You have trainers working as agents for their owners and buying $300,000 horses for $800,000 and then splitting the extra $500,000 with the consignor.

You have guys buying horses for $400,000 that they already owned before the sale. Let's say it was a horse that they bought for $70,000 as a yearling. They buy the horse back for $400,000 as a two year old and then they syndicate the horse with investors valuing the horse at $400,000. The investors don't know that the guy really bought the horse for $70,000 as a yearling.

There are so many deals going on at those sales that it is ridiculous. Many of the sales prices are phony.