Tom McCrocklin | Horse Racing Free Tips

Action Remains Fast and Furious During OBSMAR Under-Tack Show

The third of four under-tack previews ahead of next week's Ocala Breeders Sales Company's March Sale of 2-Year-Olds In Training took place Friday, a session that produced the overall bullet times for both one-furlong and quarter-mile breezes.

Wednesday's opening breeze-ups were topped by a trio of horses that stopped clock in :9 4/5 for an eighth of a mile, a time that was matched by no fewer than 15 juveniles on Thursday. Those numbers were lowered Friday by a pair of horses, a Wavertree Stables Inc.-consigned filly (hip 448) from the first crop of Vekoma (Candy Ride {Arg}) and a colt (hip 529) by fellow freshman sire Tiz the Law (Constitution) consigned by Hartley/DeRenzo Thoroughbreds. Each covered an eighth of a mile in :9 3/5.

Laying Down the 'Law'

Randy Hartley went to $375,000 for the Tiz the Law colt from the Woods Edge Farm draft at Keeneland September, but only after a not-so-subtle push from his client Rich Mendez.

“At $350,000, honestly, I was done, but Rich goes, 'one more time,' because Tiz the Law was like his favorite horse,” Hartley explained. “So I did and we got him. $350,000 was kind of our number, but we loved him so much we stretched a little more because we were trying to find the best one there.”

The approach to the September sale was fairly straight-forward.

“We went to that sale to try to find the best Tiz the Law at the sale and we found him in Book 1,” Hartley said. “Peter O'Callaghan had him and he might have had other horses sell for more in Book 1, but I thought this colt was the best physical he had in that book. We stretched on him because we thought that Tiz the Law was such a great racehorse, we love Constitution too, but they're harder to buy. But we felt like we if had one of the best Tiz the Laws in the 2-year-old market that the people that respected Tiz the Law would be trying to buy something that they like.”

Just a May 9 foal, the colt is a son of the Grade III-placed Our Majesty (Majesticpefection), herself a half-sister to a pair of black-type winners. Sun Bloodstock purchased Our Majesty for $375,000 in foal to Tapit at Keeneland November in 2019 and sold the Tiz the Law colt to Vanny Investments for $140,000 at Keeneland January in 2023.

Hartley was duly please with what he saw on the track Friday.

“He's quick and he kept going, some people had him in :19 and change galloping out,” he said. “He's a May baby. I don't push mine hard, he's even still a little chunky. I try to get my horses here sound and I feel like if I train them good, they'll give me everything they've got. Once they show me that they can take off and go, from there it's about fitness. We're super proud of him. He's only 22 months old, but he looks like a 3-year-old.”

The noted reseller believes there is a good buzz about the first crop of the 2020 GI Belmont S. hero.

“We only had this one and he's been our man the whole time. I would definitely buy some more,” he said. “When I see Tiz the Laws bringing $200,000 in January, that tells me that people are liking the way they're training. People are not going to buy them if they're not hearing that buzz. We thought a lot of this colt all season.”

Kight High On Justify Colt

If the Tiz the Law colt didn't exactly represent a 'bargain' price, Hoby Kight felt like the $100,000 that he gave at Keeneland September for a Justify colt from the consignment of Joe Pickerell's Pick View LLC certainly was. The Jan. 23 foal (hip 539) was bred in New York by Chester and Mary Broman.

“He was big and beautiful and he's got some pedigree,” Kight explained. “And Dr. Broman raises a really good horse, [Sequel Bloodstock's] Becky [Thomas] does a phenomenal job. He had a cut on his back leg on his pastern and his leg was still swollen from the cut. A lot of short-listers, they cut that horse and never get to see him and that's the sort of stuff I prey on. It's stuff that won't bother them and gets better, it was an old scar and was still kind of fresh. But everything else was there–beautiful horse, all the right angles. And Justify really heated up too, so everything went my way.”

Bred in New York by Chester and Mary Broman, the bay is a son of two-time stakes winner and Grade III-placed Pauseforthecause (Giant's Causeway)

Hip 539 was one of two to breeze a quarter in :20.2 Friday.

“I thought he worked lights out,” Kight said of the colt, who already stands 16.2 in his estimation. “Joe has done a remarkable job with him. Joe thought he was going to be sub-:21 the way he'd been training, so he was pretty optimistic.”

Hip 539 | Photos By Z

McCrocklin At Both Ends of the Speed Spectrum

Tom McCrocklin consigns the afternoon's other :20.2 breezer, a filly by Munnings–Miss Majestic (Majestic Warrior) (hip 453), which he is offering on behalf of Florida breeder Peter Mirabelli.

“She's a beautiful filly, a great mover and she just does everything so smoothly,” he said. “I generally work my horses a quarter-mile just because I think makes for a more composed breed. I am not trying to disparage anyone else, but I find sometimes that the furlong breezes can end up being pretty frenetic. When people see me breeze one that isn't a quarter mile, they tend to raise an eyebrow.”

McCrocklin is also consigning a handful of the 40 2-year-olds in training that are being sold as part of the dispersal from the late Bob Lothenbach, who are just galloping through the stretch.

“I don't think it will be looked upon with skepticism or negatively,” McCrocklin said of the strategy to not ask the horses for any serious effort. “Mr, Lothenbach built and ran a high-class stable. The estate requested that none of the horses breeze, so we are just honoring their wishes, but I don't think it will negatively impact the horses or the way they sell.”

The final under-tack preview is set for Saturday morning beginning at 8 a.m. The March Sale begins Tuesday, Mar. 12 and runs for three days, with bidding beginning each day at 11 a.m. ET. For more, visit www.obssales.com.

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Fasig-Tipton Midlantic June Sale Makes its Debut in Timonium Wednesday

TIMONIUM, MD – The juvenile sales season will add one more stop this year with the inaugural Fasig-Tipton Midlantic June 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale which will be held Wednesday afternoon at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. Bidding is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.

With a svelte catalogue of 99 head, the auction's under-tack show was held Tuesday morning. After a night of heavy rain and thunder storms, the first of five sets began at 8 a.m. under a light drizzle, but skies cleared throughout the show, which concluded under muggy and sunny conditions shortly before noon.

Clovis Crane, who will consign 16 horses to the one-session auction, got the under-tack show off to a fast start when the first horse over the track, a filly by Frosted (hip 79), worked her furlong in :10 flat.

Crane Thoroughbred Services ultimately sent out three of the day's five :10 flat bullet workers, with a filly by Social Inclusion (hip 69, video) working in the first set and a filly by Flatter (hip 86, video) working in the day's third set.

Crane also sent out the day's fastest quarter-mile worker, a filly by Kantharos (hip 47) who covered the distance in :20 4/5.

“I have been telling a lot of people all along that I had an unbelievable group and obviously, today, with the way they went, it showed,” Crane said. “We have had 21 graded stakes horses come off of our farm and I would suspect that there are a couple in this group that will add to that number.”

Asked to pick some highlights from his day, Crane said, “I put the Social Inclusion filly [out of Royal Aspen {Congrats}] in the first set because I thought she would be a star and she showed up today. The Flatter filly [out of stakes-winner Valued Strike {Smart Strike}] is crazy fast. And I have a Palace Malice filly [hip 73, :10 1/5] who appears to me like she can really run.”

The bullet worker by Kantharos, who was one of seven juveniles to work a quarter-mile Tuesday in Timonium, is out of La Titina (Distorted Humor), a daughter of multiple Grade I winner Ask the Moon (Malibu Moon).

A $125,000 Keeneland September purchase, she will be making her second trip through the sales ring this spring after RNA'ing for $110,000 following a :10 1/5 work at the OBS April sale. In addition to her work at OBS, the filly has a pair of published works at Penn National, most recently going four furlongs in :47.20 (1/21) June 9.

“I was telling everyone how awesome my Kantharos filly was,” Crane said. “She breezed in :47 1/5 in hand at the racetrack June 9. And she came out of it good then. We trained her lightly for the last two weeks and then we prepped her easy over here. We prepped her easy and she went in :21 4/5 and :35 1/5, so we knew she was sitting on go.”

Of the filly's trip south to Ocala, Crane said, “She just didn't like that track. I gallop everything myself the first couple of days when we go anywhere and I could feel it the first day. I said, 'Oh, boy, she doesn't like this.' She still breezed :10 1/5 and :21 1/5 and she went good, but didn't make anyone's short list. I literally only showed her eight times down there. She had done nothing wrong. She X-rayed clean, she came back out of it good. So I just went back to training her at home and, over the dirt, she moves great. She just didn't move good over the synthetic. She came to what I was thinking she was today.”

Also sharing the bullet furlong Tuesday was a filly by Enticed (hip 35, video) consigned by James Layden and a filly by Practical Joke (hip 56, video) consigned by Wes Carter on behalf of Crossed Sabres Farm.

Crane comes into the inaugural Midlantic June sale with the catalogue's largest consignment.

“[Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sales Director] Paget [Bennett] has always been wonderful to me and she asked me if I would save a couple of nice horses for here,” Crane said of his decision to target the auction. “So the Social Inclusion, we saved her for here on purpose and there are a couple of other horses we saved for here. The Kantharos filly, I didn't want to go back to OBS June because she didn't like the surface and I knew it. I am sure there are several horses here that would rather have the dirt surface. And I think buyers will like the dirt surface better. It's a truer representation of what you're going to get.”

While the June sale is slim on numbers, Crane sees potential for the auction's growth, but agreed this year's first sale might not have enough horses to attract a large buying bench.

“I don't see why it shouldn't gain momentum [in the future],” he said. “But if I were a buyer, I would be at this sale [this year] because I think there are bargains to be had. I have reached out to several top buyers and they aren't coming. So I think it will be a buyer's market and that's unfortunate because I've got a great group and I won't get rewarded in some spots. But at the end of the day, I am going to be in this business for a long time, so it will be all right. Hopefully they will buy runners from us now and then they'll buy from us again in the future.”

While many of the major Ocala operations have skipped this year's Midlantic June sale, the Central Florida horsemen were represented by a handful of consignments, including those of Tom McCrocklin and Raul Reyes's King's Equine.

“Fasig-Tipton, in a nutshell,” McCrocklin said when asked why he decided on a return trip to Timonium this year. “I know they wanted to try it. It's kind of walking the highwire the first time and maybe it's an opportunity to sell some horses. We will see how it goes.”

McCrocklin, who sold a $700,000 colt by Awesome Slew at last month's Midlantic May sale, brought 11 horses to the June sale. The auction comes some two weeks after the traditional end to the juvenile sales season in the OBS June sale, but McCrocklin thinks this later date shouldn't intimidate buyers.

“If you are trying to buy a nice racehorse, what's the big deal if you buy them a month ago or two weeks ago or right now,” McCrocklin said. “It's not like we have gone into the Twilight Zone because it's two or four weeks later. And there are some nice horses here. I have personally seen nice horses train here all week. I would invite people to take a look at them.”

Asked if he was concerned about a lack of buyers at the sale, McCrocklin said, “Yes. Absolutely. But look, so many of these horses are bought remotely now, you can get photos, walking videos, gallop-out times, breeze videos, bid online, bid on the phone. So if you don't want to come, I get it, but it's not a reason not to go through the process and buy a horse.”

Reyes brings six horses for his second trip to Timonium this year. The consignor, who was perennially a leading presence at the slimmed down–and now defunct–Barretts May sale, wasn't worried about the smaller catalogue.

“I always like the small sales,” Reyes said. “I used to go to California when they had those smaller sales and I did very well there.”

As always, Timonium's location at the crossroads of several racing venues will prove advantageous in attracting buyers, according to Reyes.

“There are so many racetracks that are so close and people need horses,” Reyes said. “They will be here tomorrow afternoon.”

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‘The Good Ones Are Expensive’ – Fahey Snags $475k Into Mischief Colt At OBS

OCALA, FL – A flurry of late activity carried the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training to its conclusion Thursday in Ocala, with final numbers slightly off the auction's robust 2022 renewal.

“Coming off of a record gross of last year, I think we kind of held our own,” said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski. “It seemed like the market held up through the entire season. There were no big surprises–the market is what the market is. There is money for the perceived higher quality horses and sometimes it can get a little tough in the middle.”

Over three days, 630 head sold for $23,777,900–down from a year ago when 666 horses sold for a sale record gross of $27,052,000. The sale average of $37,743 dropped 7.1% from a year ago, while the median dropped 10.6% to $21,000. With 136 horses reported not sold, the buy-back rate was 17.8%. That figure is almost par with the 2022 figure of 17.4%, which includes post-sale transactions.

Three of the auction's top six prices came from its supplemental section late in Thursday's final session. John Fahey made the day's highest bid, going to $475,000 for a colt by Into Mischief who was consigned by Tom McCrocklin.

A total of 11 juveniles sold for $200,000 or more during the sale, compared to 21 who hit that mark last year.

The June sale was described throughout the week as polarized and spotty. Many of these same consignors who were selling 2-year-olds in Ocala this week will now be looking ahead to purchasing yearlings beginning next month in Lexington.

“We are putting together a plan on what we are going to do,” Randy Hartley said of expectations for Hartley/DeRenzo's strategy for the upcoming yearling sales.

Asked if he expected any perceived softening in the 2-year-old market this year would translate to the yearling sales, he said, “You don't know because horse people have amnesia. They will go right back there and we will be fighting over them in July.”

Playing at the top of the pinhooking market, Hartley/DeRenzo enjoyed a strong year in the sales ring.

“The market we play in is the most riskiest market but it's the safest market,” he said. “Because people with a lot of money want the best horses. It's what we do and it's the kind of horses we try to buy.”

The Gladwells' Top Line Sales topped the OBS March sale with a $2-million colt by Good Magic. Jimbo Gladwell admitted the operation will be more selective in its yearling purchases, but ultimately will maintain the same approach.

“I don't think we are going to change anything, but we are probably just going to be a little more particular about what we are buying,” Gladwell said. “The market seems really polarized towards perceived quality, but we are still going to shop every sale and just try to pick up quality horses where we find them.

“These last couple of sales have been tough, but it's mainly been tough on the ones that don't make the cut or reach the bar of what people set for what they think is acceptable. If you don't reach the bar, it's very difficult to get them sold. But as long as you jump through all of the hoops and they vet good, and are fast enough, you can do very well. You just have to be very particular when you are buying them because there is not much room for error.”

While the top end of the market inevitably takes care of itself, middle-market pinhookers have been more affected by the increased polarization in the juvenile market this spring.

“I am going to have to be very selective,” Bryan Rice of Woodside Ranch said of his yearling buying plans. “The horses that I was right on, I was able to succeed with. Any horse that I missed the mark at all on, it was pretty unforgiving. So, as I move forward, it has to be really a horse that strikes me in all aspects and that I really believe in.”

Asked if he expected a less competitive yearling market this fall, Rice said, “It probably will be. At least in the middle. I don't think there will be [any softening] in the top. I think it will stay strong, but those of us who make a living moving the intermediate horses, we are going to have to be really selective and really careful with our money.”

Into Mischief Colt Leads the Way Thursday

Bloodstock agent John Fahey made a pair of high-priced purchases on behalf of undisclosed clients from the supplemental section of the OBS June sale, ultimately paying a session-topping $475,000 for a colt by Into Mischief (hip 1074) just 10 hips from the auction's end. Consigned by Tom McCrocklin, the bay colt is out of Canadian champion Delightful Mary (Limehouse).

“He's a big, beautiful Into Mischief colt,” Fahey said of the juvenile who worked a quarter-mile in :21 flat. “He could be a stallion. We will go to the races and find out.”

Fahey said the colt's final price tag was not a surprise.

“Into Mischief is the best stallion in the world and he stands for $250,000,” Fahey said. “And they put all this work into him to get to this point and we get him for basically double the stud fee.”

A few hips earlier, Fahey went to $370,000 to acquire a filly by Flameaway (hip 1066).

“I bought her for a client of Justin Casse's,” Fahey said. “She did everything, jumped through all of the hoops. The good ones are expensive.”

The gray filly is out of Tomato Bisque (Macho Uno), a full-sister to graded winner Macho Macho (Macho Uno). Consigned by Julie Davies, the juvenile worked a furlong in :9 4/5. She was purchased for $50,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale.

Fahey purchased six horses at the three-day auction; bidding on behalf of Stone Bridge Farm, he paid $52,000 for a filly by Violence (hip 703); on behalf of Lazy Creek, he paid $17,000 for a colt by Karakontie (Jpn) (hip 323); and as agent, he purchased a colt by Palace Malice (hip 601) for $20,000.

“I felt like if people didn't want to go to the races, you could buy a nice horse that vets for $150,000 easy,” Fahey said of the market at OBS this week. “But if they want to go to the races, they are going to protect them.”

Arrogate Colt to Delgado, Restrepo

Ramiro Restrepo and Gustavo Delgado, Jr., who teamed up to purchase future GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) as a 2-year-old last year, put together a new partnership to acquire a colt from the last crop of Arrogate (hip 868) for $375,000 during Thursday's final session of the OBS June sale. Consigned by Hartley/DeRenzo Thoroughbreds, the dark bay colt is out of Epic Scataway (Scat Daddy) and worked a furlong last week in :10 flat.

With time winding down on the juvenile sales season, Restrepo agreed there was a desire to acquire a colt by the late champion who was responsible for last week's GI Belmont S. winner Arcangelo.

“Obviously, when we look back at what Arrogate has done as a sire in his limited crops, it's unbelievable,” Restrepo said. “A Classic winner, graded stakes winners, it's just an incredible loss to the game. This is going to be one of the last available ones up for purchase. The colt had an extraordinary work and he is a tremendous physical. For us, we really buy in limited boutique numbers and this horse just kind fit everything we were looking for.”

Restrepo said Delgado was absolutely committed to buying the juvenile.

“Gustavo loved this horse to the moon,” Restrepo said. “He must have gone back to the barn six times and was so, so high on the horse. Arcangelo was our neighbor. Gustavo, Jr. saw Arcangelo walking the shedrow from day one, so he had a front row seat in seeing his development and seeing how these Arrogates progress. And this horse was in line with those other ones. So it just struck a chord with Jr., big time.”

The partnership also purchased a colt by Into Mischief (hip 477) for $300,000 at last month's Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May sale–the same auction where they acquired Mage last spring.

“Our mindset is that we want to buy really nice racehorses with talent and ability that can go and be whatever they are going to be–champion sprinters, champion grass horses, middle-distance horses, Derby horses, whatever. We are looking for good, talented horses and hopefully it all comes together later this fall. Our mindset has always been the same, just find talented runners that can take us places, whether it's the Kentucky Derby or the Travers next year or whatever. We are just hoping for a fantastic effort and our new partners have fun.”

Hip 868 was named Victory Avenue when he went through the sales ring at OBS Thursday, but his path to the auction was anything but paved straight. He was purchased by Dean De Renzo and Randy Hartley for $150,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale. He returned to the sales ring in Ocala sporting an impressive scar across his neck.

“We have a night watchman who lives on the farm and he checked everything around 12-12:30 a.m. right around Christmas one night and everything was fine,” Hartley explained. “I came to the barn at 4 a.m. and he had gotten cast in his stall. He rubbed his shoulder and his back and took off pretty much all the hide. So he had to spend a month at the clinic, rehabbing and getting the hyperbaric chamber and getting him to heal good.”

Hartley said the colt didn't get broke until April and he almost didn't take the handsome dark bay to the June sale.

“I didn't think after the year we had that Dean was going to make me come, but we had another colt in the sale and he said, 'Why don't you just take the black colt?' I said, 'He's never breezed before.' We started to break him in April. But he came over here and he was training like he's a little professional.”

Hartley/DeRenzo had a good spring with offspring of Arrogate. At the OBS Spring sale, the consignment sold a colt by the late sire for $1.45 million. At the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May sale, the consignment topped the sale with a $1-million daughter of the late champion.

“I know there are no more Arrogates, so I'm like what am I going to buy now?” Hartley said. “I guess I'll be buying some Good Magics and some Justifys–I love the Justifys.”

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The X-Ray Files: Tom McCrocklin

The TDN sat down with 2-year-old consignor Tom McCrocklin for this first offering in a new series presented in cooperation with the Consignors and Breeders Association (CBA). Through conversations with buyers and sellers, the series looks to contribute to the discussion on radiograph findings and their impact on racetrack success.

Tom McCrocklin, who was represented this spring by graduates in both the GI Kentucky Derby and the GI Kentucky Oaks, as well as by a pair of million-dollar juveniles in the sales ring, admitted his approach to vet work varies greatly whether he is shopping for a racehorse prospect or for a potential pinhook prospect.

“It's a very clear distinction when I buy a racehorse for myself or I buy a prospective pinhook horse,” the Ocala horseman said. “With the racehorses, I have a pretty good feel of what I can and cannot live with anymore. I feel like I've got my brain wrapped around what young horses can live with and move on with and be racehorses. And then I have the other category of pinhook horses where I know I will have to make buyers and buyers' vets on the other end happy. Then it doesn't matter what I think and what I feel like I know. It matters what they think and what they want.”

McCrocklin said veterinarian scrutiny of the horses in his 2-year-old consignments has only become more stringent in recent years.

“The diagnostics done on the sales grounds pre-purchase are off the charts,” he said. “I will give you a perfect example. The genie is out of the bottle now with ultra-sounding and ultra-sounding so many structures. These vets are all on a kick now where they want to ultrasound eight suspensory branches and four tendons and four proximal suspensories, which is a lot of soft tissue structure. The long and the short of it is this, in this age group, 2-year-olds in training, under pressure, breezing, very few are going to have pristine ultrasounds. They are almost all going to have some commentary; all ranges of everything from swelling to fiber disruption to actual tears. And they are learning as they go–just like me as a consignor–that we are going to get to where we can't sell many horses if the vets are going to expect perfection.”

McCrocklin purchased Kingsbarns (Uncle Mo) for $250,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale and sold the future GII Louisiana Derby winner and Kentucky Derby runner for $800,000 at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale. And he is co-owner of GIII Gazelle S. winner and Kentucky Oaks runner Promiseher America (American Pharoah). He said the proof of the vet report lies in the performance of horses like those on the racetrack.

“I compare the ultrasounds to their race records,” McCrocklin said. “I personally had a filly in the Oaks this year and I personally sold a horse that ran in the Derby this year and they both had soft tissue pathology at the 2-year-olds in training sale. They were both given 30-60 days after the sale and they both wound up being fine. A lot of very good, sound racehorses have significant radiographic and ultrasound pathology. They have it at the 2-year-old sale and they have it throughout their racing careers and a lot of them are very sound horses.”

He continued, “I had this conversation with Bob Baffert. 'I tell you what, you pick the 10 soundest horses in your barn–not the 10 best, but the 10 horses that you perceive to be the soundest ones. And you go through those 10 horses and you X-ray everything and you ultrasound everything and do everything these guys are doing at the 2-year-old sales and it will blow your mind what those horses have on radiographs and ultrasounds. You will not believe what you find. And the first thing you are going to say to me is the same thing I am going to say to you at my consignment. I don't know what to tell you, I've been training this horse for six months and he's never had a bad day and he's never had a gram of bute, he's never taken a bad step, he's never worn a bandage. And here you come with all of your machines and when you are done, I want to start crying.'”

Once McCrocklin buys a yearling in the fall, he will spend the rest of the year and early spring working with the youngster. That experience gives him a unique perspective on both the horse's potential and his limitations.

“So many of these horses on all ends are being bought by agents,” he said. “These guys are really bright and they are good horse buyers. I am in no way criticizing them for the decisions they make, but one distinction between us is that I am in my horse laboratory every day in my barn. I put my hands on horses and I am training horses and I am putting young horses under significant pressure to buy them in September or October and make a 2-year-old in training sale in March. They show up in September, October and August and they are on the buying end. And they come back in March, April, June and they are on the buying end again. What gets lost along the way is everything that happens on a daily basis in the six to eight months in between. And there is a significant amount of knowledge and education that comes with that process.”

Asked for specific examples of issues with yearlings that will knock them out of his pinhooking portfolio, but not necessarily his racing stable, McCrocklin said, “Subcondylar cysts in cannon bones–basically a hole in the cannon bone that you are never going to be able to sell as a 2-year-old–subcondylar cysts in a stifle, which would basically be a femur. I can live with those horses because I've trained so many of them that they are fine. But you take that horse to a 2-year-old sale and you are dead, you're absolutely dead. So I can't buy them anymore.”

McCrocklin's biggest vexation, he said, was the variance of opinions on throats.

“When we're looking in a horse's throat with a scope, everyone has a different opinion,” McCrocklin said. “Some people like this, some people like that. On these real popular horses, you can have 10 to 20 scopes and I can have 10 guys come in and say, perfect, perfect, perfect and then the 11th vet comes in, a really reputable vet, and says this horse flunks miserably. It is not black and white, it's far from it.

“But here's what I can tell you, again, as a horse trainer, not as a buyer, not as a seller, I have a lot of horses that scope fine and they can't breathe and I have horses that scope like shit and they breeze great, never made a noise, they get their air, they don't make noise when they are breezing. Again it's very mysterious because we keep those vet books at our consignment and it says Grade I, everybody loves it, and I'm thinking I've been training this horse for eight months, this horse can't breathe. The only way to identify those horses that scope great at the barn, but can't breathe is what we call a dynamic scope where we put it on them and we actually view what's happening in their throat while they gallop and or breeze. And we see a lot of crazy things happen in these throats that are good at rest and the horse can't tolerate training. And then we have horses that can't fully abduct, they can't open their arytenoids all the way to clear their airway, but they've never made a noise and they don't have exercise intolerance. And they breeze great.”

McCrocklin's advice to shoppers is to find a vet who knows what's a deal-breaker and what might not hinder a horse's performance on the track.

“The big-picture message is that there are definitely not parallel lines between racing performance and vet work,” he said. “There is a lot of gray in there. What I tell people is get yourself a very experienced–not just a good vet–but an experienced vet that has a body of work and says, 'Look, I've seen a lot of these horses and they can live with this,' and he also has a body of work and he says, 'Look, I've had a lot of these and none of them make it.'”

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