Havre De Grace Retired

[King Glorious]

Sports were so much better before athletes had blogs and especially before people started creating blogs for horses. We don't need photos of Kobe Bryant taking a bath so why should we need them of a horse taking one?

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Sports were so much better before athletes had blogs and especially before people started creating blogs for horses. We don't need photos of Kobe Bryant taking a bath so why should we need them of a horse taking one?

...because it's fun.

It adds another dimension, makes racing more user-friendly.

Racing needs bettors but it also needs fans and the people in between.

Enthusiasm.

I think it's a good thing, Kingie.

I know you know what some people here don't and that is that the fans DO play, that they DO bet, that they're the ones trying to bring more people in and get people excited... not the guys who - when they do actually go to the track - claim their spot inside, spread out the form, their laptop, whatever else and spend the day by themselves in a crowded place.

[Riot]

That's a shame. I'll miss her running. The vet report shows how one tiny, little ligament can end a career. Considering the mare wasn't lame, glad they caught it right away.

Wonder what he'll take for her?

[trackrat59]

Originally Posted by Riot

That's a shame. I'll miss her running. The vet report shows how one tiny, little ligament can end a career. Considering the mare wasn't lame, glad they caught it right away.

Wonder what he'll take for her?

I can't imagine selling her.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by trackrat59

I can't imagine selling her.

i can imagine it...very well actually! she'd buy several good ones.

[Riot]

Wish Americain was at stud.

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by Riot

Wish Americain was at stud.

Will he be soon though?

I know he's entered at Randwick this weekend but then David Hayes said he won't be going to Singapore for the SIA Cup next month...

Not sure why.

[trackrat59]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i can imagine it...very well actually! she'd buy several good ones.

"several good ones" - If you have money you can buy "several good ones" all you want. Once you put them on the track in a race, try and keep them happy and healthy, well, that takes "several good ones" to another place.

I think it was the owner of Lava Man that said something about why he would not take any of the offers he was getting for LM. Something like, what was he going to do with the money? Try and purchase "several good ones" and come up with another Lava Man?

Same concept with HDG. Just saying, If that were my filly I would hold on to her.

[freddymo]

I know Dr Riot is a Vet it just seems Rollo is a better one and he is an internet nobody.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by trackrat59

"several good ones" - If you have money you can buy "several good ones" all you want. Once you put them on the track in a race, try and keep them happy and healthy, well, that takes "several good ones" to another place.

I think it was the owner of Lava Man that said something about why he would not take any of the offers he was getting for LM. Something like, what was he going to do with the money? Try and purchase "several good ones" and come up with another Lava Man?

Same concept with HDG. Just saying, If that were my filly I would hold on to her.

as rick porter explained, it's part of his business plan to sell his horses when they're done racing. that money he gets out of them at sales makes up for money he spends at sales. that he can't afford a large broodmare band. he named two horses that he kept because he became attached to them. yeah, hdg gets a lot of press, but rick has other horses that maybe don't do so well at the track-but still cost him money. he's not the only one who does this, and i can understand why. as chuck said a few years ago, whether a horse is fast or slow, it costs tens of thousands to keep just one in training-and that's just for basic upkeep. i doubt most of porters buys get what HDG potentially can earn when he sells them.
he's in racing, not breeding. HDG is no longer a racer...he'll sell her to enable him to remain in the racing game. makes perfect sense.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by trackrat59

"several good ones" - If you have money you can buy "several good ones" all you want. Once you put them on the track in a race, try and keep them happy and healthy, well, that takes "several good ones" to another place.

I think it was the owner of Lava Man that said something about why he would not take any of the offers he was getting for LM. Something like, what was he going to do with the money? Try and purchase "several good ones" and come up with another Lava Man?

Same concept with HDG. Just saying, If that were my filly I would hold on to her.

She is a maiden mare in her new career and we don't really need to list the number of really good racemares that were hardly stellar broodmares do we? The odds are that Porter will find the money spent from her purchase far more effective in terms of finding new runners than the money he would have to sink into her as a mare. Between board/farm expenses, stud fee and insurance alone it might cost him close to 1/2 a million a year to keep her.

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Riot

That's a shame. I'll miss her running. The vet report shows how one tiny, little ligament can end a career. Considering the mare wasn't lame, glad they caught it right away.

The vet report noted she was lame.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

The vet report noted she was lame.

1 out of 5 isn't visibly lame, is it?

[RolloTomasi]

Originally Posted by Riot

1 out of 5 isn't visibly lame, is it?

Please, just admit you overlooked the first part of the report and let's move on.

If you're too proud to put it in writing, a consistently observable head nod will be taken as a "yes" instead.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

Please, just admit you overlooked the first part of the report and let's move on.

If you're too proud to put it in writing, a consistently observable head nod will be taken as a "yes" instead.

What nonsense. 1/5 isn't visibly lame. If you didn't know it before, you do now. You learned something. Possibly.

Kudos to a good barn for putting their hands on the horses daily and finding this. Some lower barns miss this type of thing.

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

Please, just admit you overlooked the first part of the report and let's move on.

If you're too proud to put it in writing, a consistently observable head nod will be taken as a "yes" instead.

I dont know about this one.. 1 / 5 isnt really lame.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

...because it's fun.

It adds another dimension, makes racing more user-friendly.

Racing needs bettors but it also needs fans and the people in between.

Enthusiasm.

I think it's a good thing, Kingie.

I know you know what some people here don't and that is that the fans DO play, that they DO bet, that they're the ones trying to bring more people in and get people excited... not the guys who - when they do actually go to the track - claim their spot inside, spread out the form, their laptop, whatever else and spend the day by themselves in a crowded place.

Yeah but they bet so little that it doesn't even register. Personally, I think it's a bad thing because it tends to get fans more intimately involved with the horses and creates a very unrational relationship between the horse and the fan. Look at the stuff those weirdos were saying on the Zenyatta website. Those people were crazy. People start looking at the horses as their friends and there becomes this emotional attachment that's unhealthy because then they forget that these are fragile properties and when one gets injured, as will always happen in this game, they start going to extremes with wanting to change rules and adopting measures, etc, that aren't realistic to what the sport is. This is a violent sport. Injuries happen. Horses break down and die. It happens. Havre de Grace isn't anyone's personal friend on here. If she's sold to a sheikh from Dubai or to some Japanese interests, so what. She is Porter's property, not ours. And she's replaceable. All of them are. Havre de Grace will be forgotten by year's end. If not sooner.

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Yeah but they bet so little that it doesn't even register.

Kingie I have learned more from you than from any other person on any forum period and you know it BUT I'm not used to seeing you make assumptions like this and if it were anyone else would ask (with pissy tone and all ) when is the last time you were even at the track?

I do understand what your saying as far as the rest of it but all in all I see it (the fan friendly thing) as more positive than negative.

Respectfully, of course.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

Kingie I have learned more from you than from any other person on any forum period and you know it BUT I'm not used to seeing you make assumptions like this and if it were anyone else would ask (with pissy tone and all ) when is the last time you were even at the track?

I do understand what your saying as far as the rest of it but all in all I see it (the fan friendly thing) as more positive than negative.

Respectfully, of course.

I don't think it's an assumption. I'm sure that 95% of the fans that Zenyatta attracted weren't bettors, mostly because they weren't old enough to bet. Even the ones that did, I doubt they were adding serious money to the pools.

As for the last time I've been to the track, it's been awhile. These days, you don't have to go to the track to gamble. Now, ask me how much I've wagered over the past year and I'll tell you that it's much lower than it used to be but still what I consider a significant amount.

[Riot]

People have been fans of race horses since Man O' War and Seabiscuit. Good grief, they used to send Seabiscuit beer I don't see anything wrong with it at all.

Good grief, people get sappy and somewhat ridiculous about the Decorah eagles nest came, and kitties on the internet. Yes, some people anthropomorphize. If "the realities" of animal husbandry intrudes, so much the better for them to become educated and learn the realities around race horses. The open medical details published about Barbaro, I'm sure, kept alot of heat off the racing industry by the ignorant and PETA types. The average person learned how sophisticated and caring treatment of the race horse can be. I want "the average person" who is only superficially aware of horse racing to be on the industry's side, and not listening to PETA tell them what racing is.

So if they have a Facebook page with a famous horse snarfing the bubbles in it's bath and looking disgustingly cute, I don't care.