Page 5 - August/September 2008 The Game

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
Trainers offer tips for buying at auction
The Game, August/September 2008 5
Welcome
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By Harlan Abbey
too. But that keeps them eligible for some stakes races later. I look for pedigrees I can afford, such as an unproven mare with winners but no stakes winners so far. Sometimes you get lucky. You can’t be anxious. Is the horse you like selling early or late? Should you wait for the one you like the most? At the Kentucky sale, it could be snowing and there may be a lull when other buy- ers are away when one that you like comes up.
Unless you have an over owing bank account, buying yearlings at auction forces you to make numerous, mind-boggling decisions.
First you look at the pedigree page in the catalogue, Should you seek a proven sire of stakes-winners? Or a high-class racer whose rst crop has yet to enter the starting gate? Do you want the foal of an older mare who has produced winners, even stakes
“Two-year-olds-in- training sales are very
hard work, and you should be paid for the time you spend. You watch them gallop, you look at the videos and if you’re only buying one or two you have to be very careful. I like
the Adena Springs sale
in Florida because all veterinary records are open and you can void the sale as long as the horse doesn’t leave the grounds.
winners? Should the mare have been stakes-placed? Should you buy her rst foal?
Then it’s time for you or your trainer or other advisors to study the horse’s conforma- tion and look at its X-rays. Can you live with legs that are less than perfectly straight? What about feet? The throat?
Then there’s the auction schedule itself. Buy early? Wait until later? If you’re a breeder, should you buy the horse back?
Nick Gonzalez with Wholelottabourbon
“At present, the sales prices are so high I’m breeding my own. I bought Star Fax in Kentucky
Three veteran Fort Erie horsepeople recently offered some suggestions.
Nick Gonzalez has
had almost unbelievable
success recently, starting
with Wholelottabourbon, b
y Fox-
trail, a $5,000 purchase who
went on to be the Sovereign
Award Champion Two-year-
old of 2004 and has lifetime
earnings of some $430,000.
Gonzalez followed up by
picking out the $1,200 bargain lly My List, the $3,500 purchase Stillisstillmoving (resold for $95,000) and the $10,000 Stuck In Traf c, all Woodbine stakes winners.
for only $3,200 and she got hurt -- but I couldn’t bear to part with her. We named her rst foal (by D’wildcat) Hellaga, a combination of my moth- er’s name, Helga, and my partner Carl Norris’s mother’s name, Ella. She’s now three, and she keeps bucking her shins. Then
“I’m getting more fussy; the more you train, you nd that conformation aws will catch up with them,” he said. “I go through the catalogue and out of 400 entered in a two or three day sale I may fold over 40 or 50 pages. I like
new young sires because you can buy
their yearlings inexpensively. After
that rst crop hits the track and proves themselves, the prices jump too high.
Even if the weanlings and yearlings
look good, the prices are high.
another homebred, the two-year-old Cats Not Home, we wanted to run in a quarter-mile race at Woodbine early in the season. We planned to geld him but he was so well-behaved we thought we’d wait. Don’t you know he threw the rider after a workout, fell on a cement roadway and skinned himself all up? He was gelded the next day.”
Myckie Neubauer commented: “I’ve sold horses at sales in the past, and
I’ve brought them home from the sales,
Trainer Paul Loescher (left) and her daughter Ruth Colalillo with Can’t Be Pete
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“Next I look at the horses, check their X-rays in the repository and the throat scopes. Ten may be knocked out by that. Say I have 40 left, I’d prob- ably only bid on ten, that’s how critical I am, and cost is a factor. If I go to the fall Keeneland Sale in Kentucky, if there are seven or eight catalogues, I don’t go down there until the end of book ve.
“I like the Tomahawk offspring, they all seem to come out running. I have one that hasn’t started and he’s very athletic. Tomahawk might succeed the old standbys like Bold Executive.”
RPPT
Continued Page 6 - See Auction Tips
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