Background: Horse racing. Breeding. Stud fees. Leading sire for the past few years: Storm Cat.
The news (excepted from the Daily Racing Form):
Freakin’ A! What does $500,000 get you? A pregnant mare (guaranteed). The fee is typically due “when the foal stands and nurses.” If it drops dead a couple of weeks later, oh well, too bad. (Although sometimes, esp. with the highest quality mares he’d be booked to, they may allow a re-cover.)
Just so you know, last season, Storm Cat covered over 120 mares. Do the math. FREAKIN’ A!
Here’s why his sperm is so outrageously expensive:
The reason a mating with Storm Cat is so expensive, is Storm Cat continues to produce winners of Grade races, which are Group races in Europe, and the progeny of this horse so far win about 90 such events, or maybe more.
Well, a stallion who sires winners of this quality is gold dust in the breeding industry, and it is no surprise that his book is full.
You do not stand a chance of success in this profession, unless you are a horse, and a top class horse, at that.
Um…okay, people are misinterpretting me here. What I’m saying is that I’m never going to see $60million a year as a teacher. But if I were a farm manager or owner in the thoroughbred breeding industry, I could see some serious bucks. (Of course, there is that tremendously high overhead.)
FWIW, Storm Cat is not very fashionable in Europe. Many of his runners are precocious youngsters, and Europeans typically frown on the speed-crazy American-style racing. (However last year, with the brilliant Giant’s Causeway, they had a taste of a Storm Cat horse that dominated European group 1s). Europe’s top stud is Sadler’s Wells, and he is, in fact, the #1 sire of stakes winners in history. Just as Storm Cat progeny are not often seen in Europe, Sadler’s Wells’ get are not as often seen here.
Sorry Monster…the Jockey Club will not register any foals produced through artificial insemination. They must be conceived “the old fashioned way.” The stallions don’t mind a bit. The only time anything artificial is used (think of it as a blow-up doll for studs…sortof) in thoroughbred breeding is to check fertility levels.
BTW, the term for the “old fashioned way” is:
live cover
Which, is, of couse, a pretty good name for a band, right up there with Pearl Jam.
Only a small percentage of thoroughbreds ever make back the investment put into them. In my barn we have 4 off-track thoroughbreds (meaning they were trained to race but either never started or were sold off after finishing poorly.) I think the most expensive one cost about 3K. I doubt the farm recouped the cost of raising the foals to the age of 3 on that price – and these are well bred horses, no Storm Cat foals of course but “names” in their pedigrees like Bold Ruler, Native Dancer, etc.
This thread reminds me of an old joke:
Q: What’s the best way to make a small fortune in horses?
A: Start with a large fortune.
You don’t need to be super rich (although it certainly helps) to be involved with racing. Where I used to board my horse there was a lady who owned two racehorses and she boarded them at my barn during the off-season. She moved her TB’s to the trainer’s barn during racing season, which in MN is short. If I wanted to be involved in racehorses I’d probably look into being a co-owner, buying into a share, instead of trying to hoof (haha) the total bill myself. But, yeah, Storm Cat’s fees…whoa.
