Saturday’s $200,000, Grade 2 Mrs. Revere Stakes at Churchill Downs features a group of seven fillies, all 3-year-olds.
Month: November 2020
Silvano Colt Leads National 2YO Sale Opener
A colt by recently pensioned South African champion sire Silvano (Ger) took top billing during the first of two sessions of the Bloodstock South Africa National 2-Year-Old Sale on Thursday. Offered by Wilgerbosdrift Stud as lot 100, the fourth foal out of the dual Group 1 winner Europa Point (Ire) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) was bought by Form Bloodstock for R1.1 million ($70,494/£53,710/€59,723) and was the only seven-figure transaction of the day. The colt’s third dam, Sheroog (Shareef Dancer), is a full-sister to Colorado Dancer (Ire), the dam of Dubai Millennium, and thus it is also the family of leading South African sire Fort Wood.
Silvano also supplied the session’s top-priced filly, lot 54, who was bought by John Freeman for R360,000 ($23,070/£17,581/€19,545). The Ridgemont Highlands-consigned filly is the fourth foal out of the Group 1-placed Careful Hiker (SAf) (Spectrum {Ire}), herself a daughter of the South African champion broodmare Our Table Mountain (Fusaichi Pegasus), a half-sister to American turf champion Artie Schiller.
On the first day of trade, 162 of the 184 2-year-olds offered were sold for an aggregate of R18,680,000 ($1,196,113/£911,770/€1,014,215). The average and median both ticked up 11.7% at R115,309 ($7,383/£5,628/€6,255) and R67,500 ($4,322/£3,294/€3,661), respectively.
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Godolphin and TCA Launch Mobile App for Industry Workers
Godolphin and Thoroughbred Charities of America (TCA) have launched a mobile application for backstretch and farm workers. The app, called Cómo, connects Thoroughbred industry employees to the vital services they need through a network of chaplains and Thoroughbred industry organizations.
Designed by The Jockey Club Information Systems, sponsored by Godolphin, and managed by TCA, Cómo offers the ability for chaplains and industry organizations to be content creators or “contributors” on the app. Contributors can upload information about their services and resources offered, or can provide recommendations for service providers in their local areas. Service provider categories include healthcare, dental services, immigration assistance, religious services, mental health counseling, ESL classes, and much more. There are currently 22 categories in which contributors can provide a resource for industry workers.
“Cómo is the result of extensive industry research, including a survey of farm and backstretch workers, which began when Godolphin took a hard look at the needs of our industry’s workers,” said Katie LaMonica, Godolphin USA’s Charities Manager. “What we found is that our industry provides vital resources and services through various organizations, but what was crucially missing was the workers’ knowledge of and ability to connect to those resources. Cómo exists to bridge that gap, and in doing so be a tool for those critical service providers in our industry. Godolphin is fortunate to have a partner in TCA, who has been diligently developing the app with us and will continue to successfully manage Cómo going forward. Given the depth of the research and the time it has therefore taken to develop this app, we are excited to finally release it to the industry.”
Erin Crady executive director of TCA added, “Cómo is a tool that can connect chaplains and industry nonprofits with the industry personnel they serve. Among Cómo’s many features, it allows for the transfer of important information quickly. Whether it be weather alerts, notification of a health fair, or, as we saw this year, notice of track closures, Cómo provides a way for our industry’s employees to both seek and receive information they may need.”
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Letter To The Editor: Yearling Sale Profitability
After reading John Boyce’s excellent article in the TDN (Nov. 12), I have the following observation.
Unlike John, my statistical training goes back to the days of the slide rule. Yet precious little arithmetical skill is required to understand the lesson he has parsed on the state of the bloodstock industry in his article on the 2020 yearling sales.
Taking up pen, paper, and employing some old long division skills, it is clear, when one approaches the subject from a slightly different angle, that his conclusion that the present situation “will surely hasten a fundamental review of the supply and demand of commercial young stock” is reaffirmed.
The Racing Post’s excellent ‘Sires Averages and Medians’ table of Nov. 2 captures results from all the major yearling sales of 2021 to date. In this table 109 stallions have 10 or more yearlings sold against their name. Yet, of that number, only 15 stallions returned a median price in excess of the 2018 advertised stallion fee plus a conservative (at least for my farm) £20,000 cost of production.
The average loss at the median across all stallions showing negative returns is £15,000, ranging from £57,000 in the case of the worst-performing stallion (by this measure) to around £1,000 in the best case among the negative group.
Some of the individual stallion numbers are especially informative as the season for choosing 2021 covers gets underway and stallion fees are reset. Interested parties will be able to do their own sums!
Of course, not all of a stallion’s crop sells at a yearling sale—some are retained, some sold as foals and,in addition, discounts on published fees are often obtained. So the complete picture is a tad more complicated.
Clearly though, returns overall do not come close to justifying the cost of service and production across the canvas as a whole and this lack of demonstrable ‘commerciality’ must be of real concern, as much from a fiscal perspective, as from the personal sense of striving for the satisfaction of success in one’s endeavours. Arguably, unless the days of the ‘Corinithian’ attitude to Thoroughbred animal husbandry can be consigned to the pages of history, we will be responsible for the commercial decline of a fine industry employing many people and enjoyed by equally as many.
While the diagnosis is rather easily found, the trick will be to come up with the cure in an environment where the funding model of the racing business is broken.
The statistical evidence does clearly show, however, the extent to which the breeding business is increasingly, for many, like balancing on a water biscuit in a torrent!
Colin Bryce
Laundry Cottage Stud
Hertfordshire
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