This sale still has three more days...

The fact that there are three more days to go in this sale is almost painful to admit. Today's results were saved by a late flurry of mid-priced horses that left the gross ONLY off 35% from last years record breaking session. The average was off 26% and the median was down 25%. Friday's book six was also way down from last year. At this point there are several things that are obvious coming out of the sale. Number one is that there are simply too many people producing too many inferior horses. Books 7 and 8 are full of horses that simply have no demand in the market. If you are breeding these type to race yourself, fine. But to produce horses like this for the commercial market is simply throwing away money. Naturally there will be some good horses to emerge from these final days but the vast majority wont make the races or will wish they hadn't after a few drubbings. Another point is stud fees simply have to comedown as the market flattens out as the vast majority of horses in the last 4 books are not bringing what the listed stud fee is. I also believe that this is a great time to own race horses with more slot money coming into play over the next few years, yearling prices coming down and the market for established racehorses booming. You can pick through a sale like this, get a nice horse for a good price and have the ability to make a big score if your horse runs well early in his career.

BEC did wind up purchasing one more horse in a deal that was finished yesterday. We wound up buying hip number 4212 , a Powerscourt colt who was an RNA on Thursday. The colt, who is a beautiful horse, was not shown on Wednesday because he popped an abscess out one of his front feet and was sore on it. That most likely led to him being passed over by a number of buyers who simply move on at this point of the sale. We loved him and played it as though he wasn't going to reach his reserve, which he didn't. We offered what we thought was a fair price and after some hand wringing by the colts owner, they accepted our offer. The colt who is a California bred is owned 100% by BEC and any and all portions of him are for sale.