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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Coolmore Hype

- Hi, and welcome to the 3,052,088th most trafficked website in the world. With your continued loyalty and word of mouth (and a few more links from Equidaily), I think I can crack the 3,052,000 mark some time in 2008.

Coolmore is making a big push on Scat Daddy; he's the cover boy of their annual advertising supplement, which is actually a whole separate magazine mailed to Bloodhorse subscribers. He'll debut for $30,000 in 2008, which seems pretty high when you see it next to other, established Coolmore America sires such as Thunder Gulch ($20,000), Grand Slam ($35,000), or Royal Academy ($15,000).

Scat is the technique perfected in American jazz of singing without words, and presumably the Daddy was rather good at it [oh man.. - ed. note] Scat Daddy boasts everything an American pedigere should offer, and a race record to match.
With all due respect to a horse who won four graded stakes (two Grade 1's), I think Scat Daddy's record looks better on paper than it really was. He's a horse who didn't leave much of an impression in my opinion. He wasn't particularly fast early; nor did he have a dynamic finishing kick. Even when he closed to win the Champagne and the Fountain of Youth, it was more a case of him grinding down tiring leaders. His two big prep wins in Florida were accomplished against fields of Triple Crown flops, and he never ran faster than a 98 Beyer.

Scat Daddy is out of a Mr. Prospector mare, making him inbred to that one 4x2; and he's inbred to Northern Dancer as well. Whether he'll succeed at stud is anyone's guess, but Coolmore will do everything they can to see that he does, especially since they also stand his sire Johannesburg (for $65,000). (Remember that they lost the latter's sire, Hennessy, to a heart attack earlier this year.)

Johannesburg is getting a huge promotional push too; his $65,000 fee is second only to Giant's Causeway at $125,000 at Coolmore's Ashford Farm in Kentucky. In addition to the ten stakes winner from his first crop (three year olds this year), he has A Serious Second Crop, their ad tells us. But the best they can do as far as U.S. runners goes is a couple of maiden winners; he has one stakes winner from crop #2, that in Ireland. Johannesburg's U.S. stakes winners in addition to Scat Daddy - Teuflesberg, La Traviata, Marcavelly, and Baroness Thacher - are sprinters to milers. With his brilliance on the race track still relatively fresh in peoples' minds, Coolmore is clearly trying to get all it can out of Johannesburg right now; he was bred to 195 mares this year; and Equiline has his current two-year crop at 221, is that even possible?? Building up his son Scat Daddy is no doubt part of the strategy. Seems to me there's a lot of hype built into those stud fees, and neither seems like a bargain to me.

12 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Those fees are ridiculous. I don't know a lot about pedigrees, but is there any substantial statistical evidence that well bred sires are tremendously more successful than those with modest breeding, but greater on-track accomplishments? Who the heck is paying these stud fees, when there seem to be plenty of bargains available for less fashionably bred sires?

Anonymous said...

Alan Maybe the weak dollar is starting to drive this?

Patrick J Patten said...

hey, i'll swap places with you any time, i just cracked 7,000,000

Anonymous said...

Hey, I thought you told Pletcher that we really don't care about the breeding business.....

KH

Superfecta said...

I'm hovering around the 5.5 million mark...couldn't agree more about Scat Daddy.

Alan Mann said...

>>Hey, I thought you told Pletcher that we really don't care about the breeding business.....

Eek, ouch! :-| But I think what I said is that we don't care to hear about the breeding prospects for horses currently in training. The breeding business itself is fascinating, but there are plenty enough stallions so that we could wait a few years before young stars like Street Sense become involved.

Anonymous said...

I will take Thunder Gulch over any of the Storm Cat sires Coolmore pushes like heroin.

And I will take any Raise A Native sire over any Storm Cat sire in general. If you want bad knees and distance limtations by all means breed to Storm Cat sires.

Please keep writing about the inflated stallion fees, you are the lone voice in the wilderness.

Agree I do not want to hear it from trainers, but this is a perfect forum for this discussion.

The major trade publications certainly will not dare question their clients, thats for sure.

steve in nc said...

OK, let's talk about horses still racing, in particular those at AQ with the big carryover today.

Anyone been using the BreezeFigs and have any insight to offer? I've seen them point out some good horses in NY lately. Today, they point to:
Race 4: Passion Ready and Kindasorta
Race 6: BR's Prize and Overheated
Race 9: perhaps Doc N Roll and Second Morgtage(and it says bad things about Ode to Revolution and Beyond Challenge)

Formulator is giving me some kinda server access error today so I can't search trainer patterns. But looking at races 4-6 so far, the P6 looks lottery-like.

Alan Mann said...

Steve - I have from time to time looked at the Breezefigs, and they have pointed to some winners that I've seen. I'd just question if their observations of under tack shows from the beginning of the year are still relevant for horses making their first starts now?

belmontbred - I believe these stallions are being marketed primarily to US mare owners, so I don't know if the weak dollar is that much of a factor.

Anonymous said...

Re: Eek, ouch! :-|
Agree with you on all counts!
Just havin a little fun ;-)

KH

Anonymous said...

Hmm $30k for (yawn) Scat Daddy compared to say booking ... multiple Grade 1 winner, 2 time Horse of the Year (US & Uraguay), Uraguay Triple Crown Winner, BC Classic and Dubai WC winner - Invasor - for just $35k at Shadwell for 2008.

Sure bloodlines suggest Scat Daddy is more regal as a sire, but who was hands down better? I'd rather capture 10% of Invsaor's determination over 80% of Scat Daddy's look on a lead line.

Anonymous said...

There is plenty of value out there if you are breeding to race.

But commercially you are probably dead with Invasor, and commercial sets the market.

With good proven studs like Quiet American and Thunder Gulch at 20k, it is even hard for me to justify 35k for an unproven stallion like Invasor with little commercial appeal. If I am breeding to race would prefer the proven stallion.

Sometimes the market just does not make sense, mostly because those advising the buyers are closely related to the sellers. Thats what happens when the major investors in the industry are not true horsemen who can make their own decisions.