What if the best college basketball players went to the highest bidders and any team in the world could participate in the auction?
What if Chris Webber, Shawn Bradley, Anfernee Hardaway, Jamal Mashburn, J.R. Rider, Calbert Cheaney and Bobby Hurley all went to European teams?
And what if the same thing kept happening year after year?
Who eventually would be playing the best basketball-the NBA or the teams in Europe?
That’s sort of the situation American thoroughbred racing finds itself in, going into what trainer D. Wayne Lukas refers to as “the draft,” Keeneland’s elite summer yearling sale of 149 colts and 130 fillies July 19-20.
Yearlings are 1-year-olds who haven’t even begun training. They make it to the exclusive Keeneland summer sale on the strength of their pedigrees and confirmation. If their blood is blue and their bodies are beautiful, they are in demand.
And, for the last 10 years, the cream of this crop has been going to Europe.
No horse competing in this year’s American Triple Crown races for 3-year-olds-the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont-came out of the Keeneland auction.
“The number of domestic buyers willing and able to compete with major foreign buyers at the top of the yearling market has steadily decreased in recent years,” pointed out one of the leading market analysts, David L. Heckerman, senior editor of the trade publication Thoroughbred Times. “So, too, has the number of fashionably bred yearlings purchased for racing on this continent.
“The best chances of seeing 3-year-olds with top-of-the-market pedigrees compete in the classics rest almost entirely with America’s leading homebreeders.”
Perhaps the lack of classic pedigree credentials is the reason why this year’s American 3-year-old crop was regarded so poorly.
In line with Heckerman’s observations, it should be noted Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero is a homebred, as is Prairie Bayou, the Preakness winner and Derby runner-up who lost his life in the Belmont.
Sea Hero was bred by his billionaire 86-year-old owner, Paul Mellon, one of the longtime pillars of the racing world. Prairie Bayou was bred by his owner John Ed Anthony, an Arkansas multimillionaire who has been an impact player in the racing game for the last 16 years.
“They’re both doing it the European way,” observed Howard Tesher, the trainer of Florida Derby winner Bull Inthe Heather, who turned into a Triple Crown also-ran. “They look for a certain type of horse to go a distance of ground. Then, they take their time and develop that horse.
“Financially, most owners can’t afford to do that, so we go to auctions and look for fast horses to run in 2-year-old races.
“Then, when they’re 3-year-olds, we get them as fit as we possibly can to go as far as their pedigrees permit.
“Sure, our racing is watered down.”
That explains why so many seemingly run-of-the-mill European racehorses are brought back to America when they are 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds and suddenly become stars, particularly in major events on the turf.
The results of the 12 runnings of the Arlington Million underscore the point. American horses have won the race eight times and Europeans only four times. But four of the “Americans”-Golden Pheasant (1990), Steinlen (1989), Estrapade (1986) and Perrault (1982)-competed in Europe before moving to this country.
Another example is Star Of Cozzene, the nation’s top-rated horse midway through the year in the Thoroughbred Racing Communications poll. A year ago, he was racing in France.
In 1985, when well-bred thoroughbred yearlings were perhaps the most bullish commodity in America, Seattle Dancer, a son of English Triple Crown winner Nijinsky II and the mare My Charmer (dam of American Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew) was sold at Keeneland for a world record $13.1 million. The British Bloodstock Agency purchased Seattle Dancer for Robert Sangster and partners.
The colt never panned out as an outstanding racehorse, but the same holds true for many others who fetched megabucks. According to pedigree expert Jack Werk, the 40 highest priced yearlings of all time sold for an aggregate of $164.3 million and earned a combined $2.6 million. Only three have become above-average stallions.
But the oil-rich Arabs, who race mainly in Europe, and more recently the Japanese, trying to make their country a racing world power, can afford to gamble at this level. Taking advantage of a dollar that is relatively weak in Japan, France and England, they have been purchasing in volume, thereby almost guaranteeing they will have a corner on the thoroughbred bloodstock market in the 21st century.
They are getting results.
“The best American-bred yearlings sold 10 years ago are now in Europe,” Heckerman said. “The Epsom Derby is where the big pedigrees were this year.”
The winner, Commander In Chief, is the son of Dancing Brave, one of Europe’s finest runners in the 1980s, who now stands at stud in Japan. The runner-up, Blue Judge, is a son of Rainbow Quest, an American-bred yearling who was sold abroad, became a star and now is at stud in England. The third horse, Blues Traveler, is the homebred son of Bluebird out of an Irish-bred mare.
“American buyers are not competing at the highest levels in the world market,” emphasized Heckerman.
In the early 1970s, thanks to the exploits of Nijinsky II and Secretariat on the racetrack, syndication became the rage. When a horse is syndicated, a person who purchases a share typically is entitled to one breeding right yearly. Nijinsky II’s total syndication price was $5.4 million after his retirement in 1970. He had become England’s first Triple Crown winner in 35 years. Three years later-before the campaign that saw him become America’s first Triple Crown winner in 25 years-Secretariat became a $6,080,000 syndication commodity.
During the next 10 years prices skyrocketed. In August 1982, Kentucky’s Claiborne Farm announced Belmont winner Conquistador Cielo had been syndicated in 40 shares of $910,000 for a total of $36.4 million.
Now, however, the American yearling market has fallen, coinciding with both the enormous erosion of prime bloodstock to the other side of the Atlantic and the dramatic increase in America’s indebtedness.
Since 1980, the Maktoum brothers from the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai have invested approximately $400 million at Keeneland’s July sale-accounting for about 40 percent of the gross-and taken the horses to Europe to race.
But last year they cut back substantially. Sheik Hamdan Maktoum spent $6.9 million on 22 yearlings, Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum spent $4.4 million and Sheik Maktoum al Maktoum refrained from making a purchase.
The waves were felt by American breeders. Average prices at Keeneland tumbled 19.6 percent; gross revenue plumeted 36 percent to $47,630,000, lowest since 1979; and 82 of the 266 yearlings offered weren’t sold.
Heckerman noted the Japanese are starting to take advantage of the recession America’s thoroughbred breeders are experiencing.
“Rhythm (who raced in America) is the highest-priced first-year stallion Japan,” Heckerman explained. “His breeding fee is roughly $75,000 (for one breeding).
“A.P. Indy (the Japanese-owned winner of last year’s Belmont Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic) is the highest-priced first-year stallion in America with a fee of $50,000 (per breeding).
“Arthur Hancock wanted to stand Sunday Silence (the 1989 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner) in Kentucky and syndicate him into 40 shares of $50,000 each, but the American market wouldn’t support it. So, he was sold to Japanese interests. In Japan, they were able to syndicate him into 60 shares at $300,000 each for a total of $18 million.
“In American racing the amount of purse money available to all of the horses in training is approximately 50 percent of the cost of training all these horses. These owners used to be able to recoup when their top horses were retired for breeding.
“But now the upside in breeding stock is not enough to overcome the deficit in racing.”
In response to the diminishing demand, we are seeing a big reduction in the size of America’s annual thoroughbred foal crop. This will be reflected by a dimunition in the size of fields on the racetrack. Correspondingly, that should be accompanied by a decrease in the amount of money wagered, potentially lowering purses.
In the long run, America’s best hope for maintaining high-quality racing may be increased importation of the older second-string and third-string stakes horses running in France, England and Ireland.
