HORSE RACING: Breeding season

It’s that wonderful time of year here where the foals are arriving daily. For anyone involved in the thoroughbred breeding industry, it’s our busy time. Now is the time where we get the first indications of what last years dream mating turned out to be. We’re carefully examining the foals of the first crop sires, hoping that there might be a new bloodline worth pursuing in town. It’s a time of hopes and dreams.

I never intended to be a breeder in the beginning. Breeding and racing are two distinctly separate businesses requiring not only different skills and resources, but different personalities. Racing is exciting, fast-paced and produces immediate results in black and white. Breeding requires patience and confidence. In racing you can claim a horse today and see the results in 3 weeks. In breeding, it takes years to see if you either have been successful or have made a blunder that will affect you for years to come.

My breeding career started innocently enough. My primary partner in racing enjoys the breeding more than the racing. He is a virtual textbook of crosses and lines, families and traits. He knows the bad habits of Nashua and confirmation faults of Bold Ruler. It all started one day at the track when we noticed that a ½ sister to one of his best mares was running in a $4000 claimer. Curious, we went to the paddock for the race and found a good looking young mare with a very bad knee. Apparently, she had been injured along the way and her best racing days were behind her. My partner’s mare had produced a stakes winner and was now getting up in years and the possibility of new, similar blood spiked his interest. To make a long story short, I ended up in the breeding business, the owner of a broodmare.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the technology of breeding. Breeding encompasses all aspects of science and mysticism. For every possible scenario, there is a theory and a theoretician. As I set about to do my homework I learned of linebreeding, the international out-cross, the coefficient of inbreeding, nicks, blue hen mares and the X-factor. I read of Frederico Tesio, the Aga Khan, Paul Mellon and Bull Hancock. I found out soon enough there was no clear answer for the question, "How do I breed a winner?".

I think of all these things at this time of year when I see the foal produced as a result of my hybrid theories and hunches. The foal personifies my dreams in flesh and blood. The allure is indescribable, to play a part in the story of life. As I look at my young foal it is hard not to imagine that ball of fuzz someday winning the Kentucky Derby.

While it seems appealing, and certainly is, I want to share with you what the road ahead looks like for me and my foal. Here are some interesting facts to consider before you join me in this field.

My young foal has an approximately 50% chance of ever running in a race, regardless of the breeding or appearance. This happens for a wide variety of reasons. Some horses develop physical problems, get sick, lack sufficient talent and some just don’t want to do it. Of the 50% chance that my thoroughbred ever gets to compete in a race, I then have less than a 50% chance after that of them ever winning any type of race. If they do win a race, I have only a 3% chance then that they will ever win a stakes race, major or minor. If I was lucky enough to have one of the 50% of the horses who did get to compete in a race, I have a 10% chance of that horse never winning any purse money of any kind.

If I am one of the lucky ones and get my foal to the races, I have a 75% chance of that horse never earning enough to cover the expenses of racing. If I am in that lucky 50% of racers, only an elite 10% us will win 90% of the purse money offered in any given year. It is simply staggering how the odds of success are stacked against me and my young foal.

So, when I look at my young foal and dream of the Kentucky Derby, I have to keep in mind the statistics. This year there will be close to 37,000 registered foals, of which roughly half will be fillies. Rarely do fillies run in the Derby, although in some years one, even two talented ones have. Right there my odds are about 1 in 17,000 to even run, 2 in a hundred of that (Genuine Risk, Winning Colors) to win, or 1 in 850,000 for my filly to win the Derby.

If I have a colt, the odds are much better. I would generally have a 20 in 17,000 or a 0.1 percent chance to run in the Derby. To win the Derby is different, it being a 1 in 20 chance of that.

My figures may not be all that accurate, but they are representative of the overall picture. It’s a hard game, maybe the hardest. You may ask why I do it, why I put so much effort, time and money into something with such little chance.