Circular Quay

[jpops757]

Rupert, when you evaluate a sale . Do you make a list of the top ones and rate it best to worst or is it a process of puttig a dollar value on a hip and advise to buy as long as the hip is under your evaluation? Your evaluations are very astute and would love to here more when posible. Im just an old retired firefigher but i envy someone like you that can see more that time and distance. Keep the good post comming.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by jpops757

Rupert, when you evaluate a sale . Do you make a list of the top ones and rate it best to worst or is it a process of puttig a dollar value on a hip and advise to buy as long as the hip is under your evaluation? Your evaluations are very astute and would love to here more when posible. Im just an old retired firefigher but i envy someone like you that can see more that time and distance. Keep the good post comming.

I don't really make a list of best to worst. I just make a list of the horses I like. At the great sales like FT Feb, Bar Mar, Ocala Feb and March, somewhere around 10-15% of the horses will make my list. At a lesser sale like Ocala April, only about 5% will make my list.

My trainer makes his own list and then we compare our lists. If I have 30 horses on my list and he has about 30 on his list, I would expect that about 20 of them will match. We usually like a lot of the same horses. If we agree on 20 of them, then he will go over these 20 in person with a fine-tooth comb. He will actually kneel down like a catcher and feel their tendons. You would think that most trainers would do this but I hardly see any trainers do this at the sales. anyway, after he's done examing them, the list is usually cut by half and maybe even more for either soundness issues or poor conformation. Let's say our final list is down to 9 horses. At that point, we call our vet and have him go over the horses with a fine-tooth comb. he will scope each horse and go over the x-rays of each horse. The vet will often times not like the x-rays or he may not like the way the horse scopes. After he's done, our list will probably be down to 4 or 5 horses. At that point, we decide how high we want to go on each horse. We may end up buying one or two horses or we may end up getting outbid for every horse. I think Point Ashley was the only horse we ended up bidding on at the Keeneland Sale. We stopped at about $400,000 and she ended up selling for about $725,000.

We only bid on one horse at the Barrett's May Sale. He was a Tribal Rule gelding so we weren't going to go too high. We went up to $100,00 and he sold for $110,000. After watching his training video a few more times the next day, I called my trainer and told him that we made a mistake and that we should have gone higher. Sure enough, the horse won easily when he made his debut at Del Mar. His name is Indian Ashton. He was a real bargain for $110,000.

[paisjpq]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I don't really make a list of best to worst. I just make a list of the horses I like. At the great sales like FT Feb, Bar Mar, Ocala Feb and March, somewhere around 10-15% of the horses will make my list. At a lesser sale like Ocala April, only about 5% will make my list.

My trainer makes his own list and then we compare our lists. If I have 30 horses on my list and he has about 30 on his list, I would expect that about 20 of them will match. We usually like a lot of the same horses. If we agree on 20 of them, then he will go over these 20 in person with a fine-tooth comb. He will actually kneel down like a catcher and feel their tendons. You would think that most trainers would do this but I hardly see any trainers do this at the sales. anyway, after he's done examing them, the list is usually cut by half and maybe even more for either soundness issues or poor conformation. Let's say our final list is down to 9 horses. At that point, we call our vet and have him go over the horses with a fine-tooth comb. he will scope each horse and go over the x-rays of each horse. The vet will often times not like the x-rays or he may not like the way the horse scopes. After he's done, our list will probably be down to 4 or 5 horses. At that point, we decide how high we want to go on each horse. We may end up buying one or two horses or we may end up getting outbid for every horse. I think Point Ashley was the only horse we ended up bidding on at the Keeneland Sale. We stopped at about $400,000 and she ended up selling for about $725,000.

We only bid on one horse at the Barrett's May Sale. He was a Tribal Rule gelding so we weren't going to go too high. We went up to $100,00 and he sold for $110,000. After watching his training video a few more times the next day, I called my trainer and told him that we made a mistake and that we should have gone higher. Sure enough, the horse won easily when he made his debut at Del Mar. His name is Indian Ashton. He was a real bargain for $110,000.

rupert..you strictly a 2YO guy or do you shop yearlings as well? Just curious.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by paisjpq

rupert..you strictly a 2YO guy or do you shop yearlings as well? Just curious.

We buy some yearlings but I am not involved in picking the yearlings. I have no expertise in picking yearlings