600 to Bettors Delight - 'Absolute rubbish!'

[triplev123]

As Australian Defamation Law is to the truth of many matters being publically revealed...so officially imposed Book Limits would be to the continued improvement of the Standardbred Breed in the Southern Hemisphere. In a word, stifling.
The financial constraints imposed on studs/stallion owners by restricted books would at the very least greatly curtail and in all likelyhood bring to an abrupt halt the current shuttle sire business & we would run the grave risk of a return to the bad, bad, bad old days of genetic trash and race track never were's.
Not to worry though. As the great Muhammad Ali once said to Howard Cosell "It ain't gonna happen. All you can do is wonder and imagine". I can't speak for NZ...but here in Australia the mere mention of our Restriction Of Trade Laws would serve to knock down any such move in a heartbeat.

[mango]

So throw the law out for a second, do you agree with stallions serving 500+ mare's per season or to be realistic should the mark of 300 max be agreed on. I do understand that it costs alot of money to purchase rights, insurance and travel for a stallion but surely a stud doesn't think wow we must get 500 mare's a year or we will go broke because if that was the case they wouldn't take the risk. So common sense prevails and a stud should budget on 100 mare's to cover costs at the most and then when serving 300 there making good money. I mean 100 mare's to bettor's is a touch over $1 million so if he gets 300 mare's that $3 million. This also makes the stallion commercial enough to breed and sell. I don't think it will halt the shuttle stallions at all because i don't think studs go in signing contracts and walking away thinking we need 500 mare's per year to be profitable.

[Termite]

Once again, we seem to be in howling agreement Mango. There is no doubt that the economics of shuttling stallions have altered in the last 10 years. With Australian breeders now paying $8-12 thousand to get to the top commercial stallions the prospect of shuttling from the states is super attractive - particularly with an aussie dollar which has largely prevailed above 80 us cents for past 5years and as we are well aware has recently danced around parity. In fact stallions like Bettors, Art Major, Jeremes Jet, etc would probably deliver a similar return to owners serving 200 Down Under mares, as they do serving their 160 book in the US.

Another factor which has altered the game is the ever shortening commercial life span of stallions. With breeders shunning even the most well-credentialed stallion for 1 bad crop, stallion owners in the states are well aware that they must 'make hay while the sun shines'. This often means shuttling reduces the risk of expensive stallon purchases and syndications.

Finally, the laws of supply and demand would dictate that not only will limited books enable stallion owners to command a premium price for the upper echelon of stallions, but the profitability of 2nd and 3rd tier stallions would grow, as mare owners look for options outside the full books of the top stallions. In Australia we are often seeing really good siring prospects shuttle over and serve 60-90 mares.

Anyway, good topic and interesting to hear the thoughts of others.

[triplev123]

You know something Troops?
It never ceases to amaze me how people with apparently no real understanding of nor any direct financial stake in the stallion business will nevertheless freely suggest to all those who do have their hard earned squarely in the ringer on a year in year out basis, how they can/should go about recouping their stallion investment/s. A Stud should budget on this, a Stud should do that. To be realistic...etc etc etc. Fair dinkum. Are you listening to yourselves? Do you have any concept of how hard it actually is to first find the right horse and then how hard it is to get into that horse?. Do you know how many potential pitfalls there are at every step of the way? Is it really any wonder to anyone that any Southern Hemisphere Stud who , for all intents & purposes, manages to pull a Rabbit out of a Hat by way of pin hooking a top sire, then embarks on a course of making Hay while the sun shines? If they instead picked a Dog I can tell you that nobody comes around St. Vincent de Paul style in 5 or 6 years time and books in 200 mares just so the Stud and the Shareholders can get their money back.
In response to your opening question Mango, I very passionately agree with the best stallions that are available in this part of the world getting every opportunity and I support them and their owners being free to serve as many mares as they are physically able to. I am equally as passionate about the rest of the dross serving as few mares as possible and if it were up to me, preferably none at all. In this particular marketplace I can see absolutely no reason whatsoever in an arbitrary figure imposition, be it 140, 300 or whatever. This goes directly to my next point...

You're also both making the HUGE mistake of taking the economics of State-side based syndicated stallions who's various owners are invariably involved specifically because they all have their own commercial broodmare bands to take care of and because they breed to sell the resultant yearlings at the sales...and you're trying to super-impose these US/CAN marketplace specific aspects over the largely breed to race culture that dominates the Southern Hemisphere. Up there the stud farms sell Yearlings. Down here the stud farms sell Semen. It is no more nor less complicated than that.
Add to this the fact that the only figure that matters to any degree in the equation is NOT mares served but rather the outcome of those services, as in is how many live foals are produced per crop in any given country. Back we go to the thread title honouree & original example and so then to a few facts that shoot so many holes in the basic premise of this restrict the books argument that it will look like a Cheese Grater. Here in Australia Bettor's Delight has produced just 80 live foals a season for the past two seasons. He has 80 current 2yos that will head off to the track from around Dec. 2010 onwards and he has a further 80 current yearlings, some of which will make appearances at Australian Yearling Sales in early 2011.

The rule of thumb here in Australia has always been a roughly 70/30 split that's in favour of the breed to race crew. It's so predictable that you can annually & reasonably accurately work out approximately how many yearlings are going to turn up at the Sales by the bigger name sires in the following year by applying this 70/30 split to the resultant live foal numbers of their annual foal crops. In this instance it suggests that the 9 yearling sales held at 8 different sales venues across the country will host somewhere in the general vicinity of 24 Bettor's Delight sired yearlings in early 2011. Now given his excellent results here last season, it is most certainly possible that there might even be a few more of them turn up than usual. Maybe he might even get as many as 30 to 35 out of a total of 80 foals Australia wide...but he will not be represented by numbers that come even close to supporting the whole 'sky is falling' come 'market crushing' assessment that the more ill-informed commentators have seen fit to repeatedly expound.

In closing, I'm now left to wonder where all the Alarmists were when the likes of Live Or Die, Armbro Operative, Fake Left, Falcon Seelster, Holmes Hanover and so on were merrily covering MASSIVE books of mares on their home turf and sometimes on both sides of the Tasman. I ask you, where was all the wringing of hands, the tugging of forelocks and the gnashing of teeth when that was all on the boil? As a verse of that crappy old song by Simon and Garfunkel went...
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Incidentally, if my memory serves me correctly, the whole big numbers covered thing all started up with old Vance Hanover, the horse who's Southern Hemisphere siring success shocked Vernon Dancer so much because "He was so slow he could not pace in 2:10 on the best day of his life". Ain't it just grand? :-P

[mango]

Its a forum where you discuss topics and get people's insight of there idea's. Your reply would of been good without trying to be a smart ass and to say we have no understanding is wrong. Go back and read my post as i do understand all costs involved but you can't tell me they need 400+ mare's a year to make it viable. And to say that the rest of the dross should serve less mare's or none at all is also wrong, people can't afford to spend big money on service's all the time so we do need them stallions and if studs stop bringing them stallions out here there will be half the mare's bred to each year which in turn will effect field size's and turnover down the track. And just out of interest sake would your name be the one and only J.V ?

[triplev123]

I'll ask you the simple questions - Would you allow the various Southern Hemisphere studs to tell you what to do with your mares, yearlings etc? If the answer is no then why do you and others grant yourself a say in their business model?

[justdoit]

triplev123
The problem is not just the stallions being able to breed open books of mares. It is that a lot of mare owners have unrealistic values of their broodmares, the offspring. I´m sure you have
seen many sales catalogues and it is not that hard to put prices on most lots prior to a sale.
Here is $5000 dollars for you, now tell me the truth about my mare. More than likely I would go and breed her some where that had more smoke & mirrors.

[triplev123]

G'day Justdoit,

EXACTLY. I've certainly been guilty of doing that over the years (as in breeding a mare to a top end sire that she really did not deserve to be bred to). There would be very few if any Breeders out there who have not done so at one time or another & sometimes even repeatedly so. Heart rules Head stuff. Yours is a point very well made. You think you're 'doing the right thing by the mare'... but what you're doing is essentially the same as someone over-capitalising on piece of Real Estate. Could not agree more. I think we may have been twins, seperated at Birth.

The aspects of the restrict stallion books argument that I still can't get my head around is that by capping books fees for many of the heavy hitters both current and future will go up, absolutely no question at all.
At the same time the proponents of capping books are bemoaning the fact that fees are already too high...quote ' people can't afford to spend big money on service's all the time' end quote.

If that's not an example 'Wayne Swan Economics Theory' then I'll eat my grotty old Lawn Mowing Shoes.

[mango]

Triplev123
Fair assesment and your right my answer would be no. But in know way does that change me thinking that there should be a max number of mare's served by a stallion. This would allow the smaller studs with the dross as you would call to get a few extra mare's to there stallions, as mare's would have to be spread out a bit more. It's these stallions that produce mainly bread and butter horses and these horses are what the industry rely's on to make up fields and to race at our country tracks and if lucky enough might get a start in the city.

Justdoit
I fully agree with you there are a great deal of people with know idea about breeding, you will see yearlings at sale's with 5 dams on the page, very little black print but have spent $10,000 on a service and they wonder why there yearling doesnt make service fee.

[triplev123]

1. You'd think that would be the case Mango, it's a fair and reasonable view, but it is not.

I was privy to the results of an independent study of the Australian racing product from not so long ago that was specifically aimed at discovering whether or not 2yo racing had any long term negative effects on the overall available to race horse numbers.

Two of the most notable findings were that...

a) it did not have any negative effect to their long term career prospects and

b) although we were certainly breeding fewer horses than in years past those that were produced were taking up the slack in admirable fashion, getting to the races in far greater numbers than their predecessors and not only that but they were having more starts per horse per season & also having more race starts lifetime.

Now b) was for all intents and purposes actually a spin-off finding of the study, initially they weren't looking for/expecting it....but that finding says at least two things to me, it underlines them in thick black marker pen in fact.

1- A Breeding focus on juvenile performance, something that so many have bemoaned, has in fact had absolutely no deleterious effects whatsoever on the available to race horse population in this country.

and more applicably to the general thrust of this particular thread...

2- Increasingly better quality sires have correspondingly produced increasingly better quality offspring, horses that go earlier, that not only race for longer but also more often and horses that are clearly much sounder despite them being multiple times faster than their forebears.


The second point doesn't come about that quickly, if at all, by way of top sires serving restricted books and seeing the overflow go to a series of lesser lights all down the line.

For example, it is no accident that in the space of just 5 years in order to win the NSW Breeders Challenge a 2yo now has to be able to go in least 1:55 & a piece/1.56.0. Not so long ago the 2yo NSW SS Finals were nothing short of embarrassing, being run and won in 2:03-2:04 and a piece. Aaaaargh. The bad old days. :-(