Value of a mare..

[brockguy]

this is a great read from the racingpost in light of what many were chatting about last week..

IT was pure emotion as the two massive chestnut frames battled through the Belmont's achingly long final furlong on Saturday, Curlin's narrow-striped face straining to get past Rags To Riches' determined broad blaze.

Reputations, history, and the hopes of females everywhere were on the line – and the filly, Rags To Riches, crossed it first.

One hundred and two years of history were defeated along with Curlin, as Todd Pletcher's charge became the first filly to win the Belmont Stakes since Tanya in 1905. It was also the first victory in a Triple Crown race for Pletcher, on the leading trainer's 29th try.

Shortly after – or perhaps, during – the tears, hugs and congratulations, the more pecuniary minds among us began ticking away. Despite her name, this filly hardly came from the wrong side of the railroad tracks, as they say in New York. At least half of her name is right, though – she's found riches galore, and the inquiring mind can't help but wonder, just what is her net worth?

It is a natural question in the extraordinary context of this season's Classic races and, were things a bit different, we might have expected to see Sheikh Mohammed opening the chequebook again to secure the breeding rights to his fourth Classic performer in as many weeks. But this is no Street Sense, Hard Spun or Authorized, for even if Rags To Riches were not a filly, her Coolmore-affiliated owners Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith would hardly be entertaining offers from their arch-rival for one of the most valuable genetic troves in the thoroughbred world.

There is a fine irony here, as Sheikh Mohammed has been among the most enthusiastic buyers of stock by A.P. Indy, the 1992 Belmont Stakes winner and Horse of the Year, and the sire of Rags To Riches. Since 2002 the Sheikh's agent JohnFerguson has spent $14,475,000 for ten A.P. Indy yearlings at the Keeneland September Sale. But Ferguson was buying mainly colts, with their Triple Crown and stud value potential. Tough luck that the filly bought by Coolmore should win the Belmont Stakes, leaving future Darley stallion Hard Spun unplaced behind her.

The financial line of thought is difficult to avoid in a year in which every Classic win is followed by a hard cash deal for stud rights. With the news that Cockney Rebel's owner Phil Cunningham is pondering a bid of £10 million for his dual Guineas winner, the picture is nearly complete: win a Classic, hit the jackpot. Cockney Rebel's value as a yearling was just 30,000gns.

Rags To Riches was no bargain yearling, although at $1.9m she was only the fifth most expensive of A.P. Indy's progeny at the 2005 Keeneland September Sale, costing less than two colts bought by Ferguson, one by Eugene Melnyk, and one by Demi O'Byrne (who also signed for Rags To Riches). Her value has since soared, but what exactly is it based on?

A potential broodmare's worth is trickier to evaluate than that of a stallion. While a stallion's earnings potential can be calculated fairly easily, multiplying his nomination fee by the number of live foals he sires in a year, with a mare it is a less straightforward matter. She will produce only one foal a year, if that, and any breeder knows how many things can go wrong with one foal. Moreover, the time frame with a mare is long; it will be a year and a half before her foal makes it to the yearling sales, and far longer before it hits the racetrack.

From the shrewd view of the insurer, a good stallion is worth a lot more money than even the best broodmare. “I'd value the mare on about five times the sale price ofher potential offspring,” explains David Ashby of Amlin Plus, one of the leading bloodstock underwriters at Lloyds. “Take a good mare going to Montjeu, and let's say she was going to have a $1m foal – I'd value the mare at $5m.”

A successful broodmare of middle age whose progeny to date have been worth several million dollars could be valued at up to $10m, Ashby adds. That is in line with the top prices for mares sold at auction – Magical Romance's 4,600,000gns last year and Ashado's $9m in 2005.

However, the calculations for a high-priced stallion add up to a comparatively astronomical value. As a rule of thumb, Ashby explains, he would take the number of covers in a stallion's book, multiply it by his live foal percentage, multiply that by the stallion's covering fee and then multiply the resulting figure by four – a reasonable number of years in which the same scenario might continue.

So take a stallion who covers 150 mares in a season and has a 75 per cent live foal rate – fairly conservative numbers – to produce 112 foals. Say that stallion is Galileo and has a fee of €150,000 – he would be worth €67,200,000 to the insurers. On the other hand, his dam would be worth no more than €7,500,000.

It doesn't seem fair. Urban Sea, Galileo's dam, is after all one of the best mares around, having produced five Group winners, two of them of Group 1s, and six stakes scorers to date, with her eighth foal, Cherry Hinton, looking likely to add a black-type winsoon. Moreover, she has produced one of Coolmore's best young sires.

Urban Sea has something in common with Rags To Riches: she beat the boys in one of the most prestigious middle-distance events, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. There has always been afeeling that a filly who can beat the colts is something out of the ordinary. In the past, the feeling was in part suspicion regarding the filly's femininity, and hence her breeding ability. However, there is now abundant evidence that fillies who win top-class races against the colts are more often superior in the breeding shed than not.

Take the Arc, for instance. Urban Sea in 1993 was the last female winner of the race, but there was a heady time, coinciding with feminism's heyday, when seven fillies landed the Arc, beginning with San San in 1972 and ending with All Along in 1983. Including Urban Sea, all but one have produced Group or Graded winners.

Although Urban Sea is the best of the lot, they also include Detroit, who produced 1994 Arc winner Carnegie, and Gold River, who produced not only Group 1 heroine Riviere d'Or but Poule d'Essai des Poulains runner-up and useful sire Goldneyev, the grandsire of Alexander Goldrun – who notched her own Group 1 victory against the males in the 2004 Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Cup.

Compare this to the recent stud record of male Arc winners. Montjeu aside, it is nothing to boast about. From a less tangible calculation than that used by the insurers, a female Arc winner may have more potential value than a colt.

There are two reasons behind this thinking. First, a broodmare can rake in a lot of money, if nowhere near as much as a successful stallion. Serena's Song, who beat colts to win the 1995 Haskell Invitational, has produced yearlings worth $12,200,000 at auction through 2006. That does not include their considerable racecourse earnings and subsequent breeding value, which leads us to the second reason that a broodmare can be worth at least as much to a breeder as a stallion prospect.

All the top breeding operations can trace to at least one tap-root mare whose family consistently produces not only superior athletes, but superior breeding stock. Meon Valley Stud's Reprocolor, the late Gerald Leigh's Brocade and Moyglare Stud's Easy To Copy all proved what an independent breeder can do with the right family when well cultivated. But those studs were not in the business of producing stallions, where the serious money lies.

For stallion-makers such as Coolmore and Juddmonte a mare who can generate stallions as well as runners and producers is the most valuable commodity of all. A Hasili or a Tussaud, a Mariah's Storm or an Urban Sea, produces over time what money can't buy, or more accurately, what can only be bought with the multi-millions used to purchase Authorized et al or scores of ultimately moderate yearlings.

Tussaud, a Grade 1 winner and Kentucky Broodmare of the Year in 2002, was named for the famous waxwork museum as a nod to the name of her dam, Image Of Reality. Alluding to this arty history, Juddmonte used to describe her son Chester House as “a genetic masterpiece”.

Rags To Riches' dam Better Than Honour, whose own dam, Blush With Pride, won the Kentucky Oaks, has produced five foals sold at auction to date for a sum of $6,000,000. They already include two Belmont winners, Jazil having won the title last year. A genetic masterpiece – Rags To Riches may in time prove priceless.