About Being A Bloodstock Agent..........

Whilst idly playing up a few pennies on the Chelmsford racing last night I was struck by something quite remarkable.

One of the later races featured a relatively large field. Because it was just about the only race on TV ( or my stream) the camera spent quite a long time at close range with the horses at the start; something we don't see all that often with UK racing during the daytime due to the volume of racing.

I was struck by how impressive looking most of the horses were. The sobering reality, however, is that all of the horses in that particular race were complete dogs from an historical achievement point of view.

Given the reality that 'judging a book by its cover' provides little or no likelihood that you will necessarily achieve success with a racehorse made me wonder how bloodstock agents continue to prosper.

As a 'sales addict' with very shallow pockets I always fall about laughing when I attend these events. There they are - with dog eared catalogues & bi-focals perched on the ends of their noses - earnestly scrutinising yearlings whilst making copious notes.......usually with a couple of fresh victims (would be owners) in tow hanging onto their incoherent ramblings.

Really?

I would l-o-v-e to see a tabulated history of every purchase ever made & its subsequent success or lack thereof. Then I would like to compare it against a buyer using a dartboard method whilst allowing both parties the freedom to at least eliminate from their selections the lots where the animal was blind or had only three legs.

I wonder what the difference in success rate would be?

I would suggest the dart method might prove more successful as bloodstock agent failures often involve multi million rand horses whereas the dart board operator usually just writes off a raft of R20k mistakes.

Earlier this year I was assisted in compiling a retrospective from an earlier sale comparing the performance of the top 10 lots against the bottom 10. Apart from the chasm in purchase prices there was only an astonishingly small differential in their earnings & performance.

So my question is - how does a bloodstock agent manage to continue to persuade buyers to use their services and, whilst doing so, often deprive the owner of one of the few joys of racehorse ownership - namely choosing your own horse.

I agree with you 100% Garrick. Im your complete example of that (never used an agent) so that makes me the luckiest owner/breeder in SA (my fair success) with my limited knowledge ?Shit I sound like Easy now.

Big owners, Big Breeders and big buyers are all the same people in SA, makes for a false economy


Never understood it tbh

My memory is not the greatest , but I remember a story of the 2 riley brothers who trained a few years back now and they where extremely successful with there " cheapies ", I was told they would sit in the bar and when the mood struck them , they would walk out to the sales ring and bid if the price was right . Makes u wonder

When I started racing over 40 years ago ,I remember reading in a racing publication(Mac's Sporting Weekly),that of the horses sold at sales (and that see the race track)the average number of wins was 2.7!
Remember that was during the Race Figure days so horses could win 5 in a row ,in "handicaps".
I also remember that the % of horses sold ,that never made the race track,was over 25%.

It would be interesting to see updated stats but I would suspect they wont be revealed as it would almost surely be a very poor advert for ownership.

I love that saying Mac, "racehorse ownership is a hobby"

1. The owner does it as a hobby
2. The breeder does it commercially for a return
3. The trainer trains to make a living & provides grooms with jobs
4. The jockey rides to make a living
5. The Vet does his job to make a living
6. The jockey club charges to provide people with a living
7. The punter punts to make a profit
8. The farrier make a living from shoeing
9. Bloodstock agents make a living
10. Jockey agents make a living

Anyone else i'm missing out?

This games favourite owners are those who put their money down, don't ask questions and pay promptly every month for the love of horse racing while everyone else makes a living.....makes sense.

Rob, my strike rate of winners based on total purchases is 18%

Neigh many moons back a few of chums and I were getting into this game and we were told to go and see "Mr so and so". We accompanied the person concerned and checked out a few on the farm owned by his "friend". Then the pushing started to buy the horse. We cut the pushing short. The end of the Mr Agent.

We went on our own visiting some other farms and we liked two horses and we bought them for a reasonable price. These were offered to a trainer but he declined to train for us.

These two were offered to another trainer (he has left this game) and they gave us joy of visiting the winners enclosure seven times. I cant describe the elation of them winning and at the same time I cant describe the trainers face that refused to train them :ohmy:

The most amazing trainer of "cheapies" was Brian Cherry IMO - particularly good with sprinters and had many multiple winners ,from modest pedigrees and low purchase prices!
Muis Roberts ,although riding mainly for Rickaby/Hurwitz ,had a special relationship with Cherry and rode a lot for the stable.

I have never bought a horse at higher than the average price at a sale.Dont believe one needs to, but then i am not the champion trainer . Better start spending more :dry:

Tigershark wrote: I love that saying Mac, "racehorse ownership is a hobby"

1. The owner does it as a hobby
2. The breeder does it commercially for a return
3. The trainer trains to make a living & provides grooms with jobs
4. The jockey rides to make a living
5. The Vet does his job to make a living
6. The jockey club charges to provide people with a living
7. The punter punts to make a profit
8. The farrier make a living from shoeing
9. Bloodstock agents make a living
10. Jockey agents make a living

Anyone else i'm missing out?

This games favourite owners are those who put their money down, don't ask questions and pay promptly every month for the love of horse racing while everyone else makes a living.....makes sense.

I think your bookmaker is missing from the list.

I read a book recently where the racehorse trainer says he just gets to play with rich men's toys. Yes Tiger, for me it is still the owner who is king. Hail the owner.

I've always wondered why owners are so passive at the sales. Why don't they get more involved? Is it just about outwitting their bidding competitors? For me, its part of the fun, just like punting.