Hi TripleV123,
I like your Mum's way of thinking.
On Saturday a trainer and horse owner showed up at our door unannounced, after 2 really good coffees over 2 hours 2 yearling were sold
Just had a very quick look at the results:
170 odd lots were sold. Without counting, let assume 85 fillies and 85 colts.
I use $15000 as a breakeven on a 5-6k stallion.
How many fillies of the approx 85 made 15k or more???
14!!!!(and six were Art Majors whose service fee is much more than 5-6K)
in other words, for every 10 filies that went to the sale, at least 8 LOST money
for the vendor!!
That is simply not sustainable...
Something serious has to be done!!
Couldn't agree more.Originally Posted by mightymo
I'm sure APG will sugar-coat it with some spin on figures to say what a fantastic success all the sales were. Speak to vendors nationwide and I'm sure many would disagree.
I'm of the personal belief service fees in Australia are too high ... but it's hard to argue with them when breeders are blindly prepared to book out those at the top level (then quite possibly regret it in a few years). What about those poor buggers who paid $25k for a Cullen service not that long ago? Some will do well - most will lose their dough. That kind of fee is unsustainable in our racing environment, I reckon.
If you sit back and analysed things without taking into account the enjoyment factor, you'd say breeding to sell is a mug's game. But I'm a mug who'll keep on doing it forever - because I love it. I guess I'll also been lucky enough to race a couple of OK horses who have helped pay for those not-so-great periods.
I don't have any kind of solution, unfortunately. I think the reality of breeding standardbreds is that some people will do well out of it for a while - and everyone will do badly out of it at some stage in their life.
Hi Mightymo,
What do you think needs to be done?
I think it was TripleV123 that spoke of a lower service fee if a filly is born, a good idea if you can get the stud farm to agree.
The possibility of reduced service fees to above average stallions??? The odds of that happening would be nearer to 100/1 than 50/1. IMO
Check out the median price.
http://jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp?section=14
Last edited by justdoit; 03-01-2011 at 07:27 AM.
G'day justdoit,
Not sure if I was the one who originally raised it but nevertheless I WHOLEHEARTEDLY support the notion.
Until such time as the reasonable racing opportunities and so true earning capacity of the fillies and mares is that of the colts, entires & geldings...then there should be a discount/rebate on the service fee if the foaling results in a filly.
That being said, purely from a selling perspective, and as I was reminded at the Sales on Sunday and once again last night at the Breeders Panel meeting at Menangle, only 15% of the annual foal crop goes to the Sales or in other words 85% of the horses bred every season never see a sale ring. Add to that one of last night's most interesting stats, that nationally just a tick or two better than 75% of the horses bred every season are produced by their breeders with the intention of racing and there you have it. We can like it or lump it but the level of Sales focus is way, way out of step with the proportion of the annual foal crop to which it caters. It's the profile/glamour end of the Breeding Industry...but it only speaks for around 1.5 in every 10 foals produced each year. All of that pretty much gels with the numbers I've come up with. It's a 15/10/75 split & from what I can gather it has been that way for quite some time now. For example, if we were to take the 2009/2010 Oz foal crop of 5,197 live foals, about 780 of them will subsequently go salewards, a further 520 or so are sold privately at some point and for the bulk of them, somewhere around about 3,900 foals, they will go on to be raced by their Breeders. It puts the Sales in perspective. Don't get me wrong, I love them, it's my 2nd favourite time of year after foaling, but it is what it is...a fraction, a minority of the overall action.
Last edited by triplev123; 03-01-2011 at 11:59 AM. Reason: ...can't spell. Need coffee and toast to function.
TripleV123,
Thank you for that information.
It is never good to lose money or see it happening to someone else,
at some stage we all change our approach when this is occuring.
Looking at the prices from all of the sale's i do wonder why i breed. You send a mare to a $5,000 stallion and then just say the working fee is $1,000 and then agistment for the year say $2,000 race payments and registration say $500 prep for the sale say $500 then there are extra's such as trims, wormings, handling the foal at weaning time $300. So there's over $9,000 before you make any money and the thing is if it doesn't make $9,000 you by it back and it costs you another $900 in commission. So realistically you could save yourself all the worry and just go pick one out on sale day. But there is know fun in that so i keep breeding lol.
$500 prep for the sale. Where??
It costs somewhere between 3-4000 for a 10 week sales prep
I was just throwing prices around and 6wks should be enough unless there in poor nick which they shouldn't be if you pay agistment.
Approx $1300 will get them done in 6wks and to the sale and if you want shoes on thats extra.
Last edited by mango; 03-01-2011 at 08:11 PM.
Mightymo if your paying that much for a sales prep of 10 weeks your are being ripped off big time i suggest you look around
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