AppId is over the quota
On Wednesday, Orient Moon, his 3-year-old filly — a young female horse — was the favorite to win the third race. And for good reason. She was trained by Todd A. Pletcher, who has two horses in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, and was ridden by Johnny Velazquez, who won the Derby last year. But seconds after entering the gate, she got spooked, threw off Mr. Velazquez and was scratched from the race. “That’s only happened to me once before,” said Mr. Bolton, who paid $320,000 for the horse two years ago. “In two weeks, she’ll run again. But we would have won this race.” I’ve been looking at investment alternatives to stocks and bonds and real estate that are enjoyable, if not always lucrative. Last week, I wrote about film. I concluded after my day at the races that while putting money into moviemaking has its pitfalls, horse racing is probably the passion investment most fraught with risk and emotions. There is the joy of winning, of course, but also the sinking feeling that afflicted Mr. Bolton when his horse threw the jockey. And with the elation of a big victory come the dreams of high breeding fees, but smart owners know that the price paid for a horse has nothing to do with its fate. “We’ve sold Derby winners for less than $20,000 and a Derby winner for $4 million,” said Nick Nicholson, president and chief executive of Keeneland, the premier auction house for thoroughbreds, in Lexington, Ky., which sold all three winners in the Triple Crown races last year. Many people who get into the horse world after making money in some other field know that the sport has a high cost of entry. If they’re wise, they will realize there are many ways to make money in the sport that are aboveboard and far from the sordid schemes of racing horses to death at the lowest rungs of the sport. But if these novice investors are not careful, they can just as easily end up overextending themselves and spending more money than they ever imagined on horses, with little in return. “The toughest part of my job is to tell successful people attending their first sale that you need to go through a learning process,” Mr. Nicholson said. “All their lives, people have told them you can’t do it this way and they’ve become multimillionaires by going against the grain.” Mr. Bolton, who grew up riding horses in Maryland, knew enough to know that he needed a plan. He went to college with Bill Farish, whose family owns the top-notch Lane’s End Farm in central Kentucky. He started off slowly in 1989 by buying fillies. He said he thought that if they did not race well, he might still be able to make his money back breeding them. “I figured with fillies, if she got hurt she might be worth 50 cents on the dollar,” Mr. Bolton said. “That’s better than a colt who gets hurt and is worth nothing.” The fees to breed male horses — known as colts until they mature into stallions — are where fortunes can be made. A stakes winner could fetch $20,000 to $50,000 a breeding session and be bred with 100 to 150 mares a year. For that fee, the owners of the mares get the foals at a far cheaper price than buying them at auction, along with the hope that the horse will go on to greatness. This was what happened with Barry Irwin, owner of the racing syndicate Team Valor International. He bought a filly named Dalicia in Germany for $400,000, raced her a bit and then decided to breed her. Her first foal was Animal Kingdom, who won the Kentucky Derby last year. To establish the value of the horse for a syndicate, Mr. Irwin put Animal Kingdom up for sale at Keeneland’s auction for 1-year-olds, or yearlings, and bought him back for $100,000. He said the horse was now worth $6 million. Still, after three profitable decades in horse racing, Mr. Irwin is cautious when people talk to him about buying horses to make money. “When you write your check to me, you’ve got to kiss that money goodbye,” Mr. Irwin said. “We’re going to do our best. We’re going to try hard. But that money could completely evaporate.” How someone buys a horse matters for its investment potential. While everyone has a hunch about where and how to find the best horses — Mr. Irwin gets most of his horses from Europe — what all successful buyers share is an awareness of the risk involved with any one horse. These are animals, after all, and this Saturday one or more horses in the Derby will surely be scratched before post time.
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