When you have a horse that’s a bust on the racetrack it’s a disappointment plain and simple, however much or little you paid. Many people find it hard to believe that most horses just don’t make it as racehorses; even those with amazing pedigrees who worked like lightning bolts at the sales and people paid literally millions of dollars for frequently never get to the winner’s circle. This is how performance athletics works, human and equine. How many young men dream of earning millions on the national stage in the NBA or NFL and how many actually make it?While obviously only a small sample, the race records year to date for the sales toppers at all five of the major two year old sales this year demonstrate yet again how hard it is to win races, no matter how much you are willing to spend. Take a look;

Fasig-Tipton January Gulfstream Park; Cezanne, purchase price $3,650,000, results to date; unraced

OBS March; Chestertown, purchase price $2,000,000, results to date, 1 start, 3^rd 10/24/19 Belmont Park, earnings $7440.00

OBS April; Milano, purchase price $1,300,000, results to date; unraced

Fasig-Tipton Maryland, May; Gamine, purchase price $1,800,000, results to date; unraced

OBS June; Clivetty, purchase price $900,000, results to date; unraced.

Total purchase price for these five sales toppers collectively was $9,650,000. Thus far, four of the five have yet to run. The 5^th one was 3^rd at Belmont Park in his debut on October 24^th, earning $7,440.00 (a fraction of the training costs to date, let alone any return on his $2,000,000 purchase price).

In fairness, it’s still early in the game for these horses, Especially when you are paying these kind of prices, people are going to take their time and gave the horse every shot to make it. It’s likely most of these horses will eventually run, several will win, and just maybe one of them will end up winning graded stakes (although at these prices it’s a virtual certainly that all of them will end up costing their owners a ton of money!). We selected the top priced horse at the leading two year old sales, if you went through the top ten or top twenty horses at each sale you’d find a few that have done a lot better than this group (and many more that have done just as poorly thus far).

Sales companies and syndicates with a product to sell are happy to showcase top horses winning grade 1 stakes. They aren’t lying, every year a handful of horses end up being superstars, but they certainly aren’t giving you the entire picture either. If they said “less than 3% of all horses will win a stake at some point in their career, less than 1% will win a graded stake and about 10% will be profitable” it would be truth in marketing. No matter how much you pay and no matter how promising a horse appears before they run, you are going to find that 20-25% will end up unraced, another 20-25% will race but never win, and most of the rest will be modest priced claiming horses. Almost all of the horses that end up to be profitable runners will be horses purchased for $150,000 or less, simply because the economics of the business (purses vs. training expenses) with very few exceptions don’t support paying more than that for any horse (let alone paying millions for a sales topper).

None of the above means you can’t come up with a really good, profitable horse at a reasonable price that actually makes you money on the track. It’s a numbers game; if you work with good people, don’t overpay, and stick with the program you have a shot to end up with positive results, but this business requires a ton of patience and perseverance.