Well that's dissapointing

[Carole Hanson]

I bought this filly, Shadow On The Map for $50,000 hoping she might be a nice broodmare prospect as her dam is out of the wonderful mare Map. Well imagine my dissapointment when she galloped claimer. That wasn't the worst of it though. I just wasted $10,000 on checking with the bloodstock agent about her and in my case it's bad. I think I'll be bunkrupt by the time Monday races are ran. Here's the bloodstock agent comment:

Anna “Liza” Doolittle Says:

"Here is my analysis of Shadow On the Map.

'Shadow On the Map' doesn't have any potential as a flat race broodmare; I'd be impressed if she ever produced a winner!
Unfortunately, 'Shadow On the Map' probably won't produce a very good steeplechaser."

If anybody wants her, go ahead. You can have her for free.

[Kris Krueger]

Ya Carol, it's a bummer sometimes. I just make it a cardinal rule never to buy a horse site unseen, and the rare occasion that I do I will hypo the dam and sire and if I don't get at least a B+ I'll pass. If the horse is super attractive I'll spend the 10K before I buy. I hypo'd this mating and it was a B-. I know the hypos don't tell me everything but it helps me decide what kind of money I'm going to spend.

[Lisa Strummer]

I'm curious, did you ask the BS agent about her before you purchased her?

[Carole Hanson]

I'm curious, did you ask the BS agent about her before you purchased her?

No. I didn't think about that.

[Emily White]

Two things -

First, I think you should have given her a chance as a racehorse. I know she galloped claimer. But I've seen horses who galloped claimer do quite well on the racetrack. She could have paid her way into her barn, instead of sitting idle as she is now doing. WHo knows what she could have done. But what's done is done, and that brings me to my next point.

I've stopped using the bloodstock agent to check on my mares, and I'm a much happier girl for it. I've found that the best of my mares can produce a crap horse, and the worst can foal a wings galloper. I know that is probably the worst Anna comment you can get with a mare...but have you tried hypo-mating her with anyone? I'm not big on hypo-mating, myself, but I would definitely go there for this mare. It looks to me like she would mesh well with the July stud line - but I wouldn't recommend cashing out the big bucks for July or Committee of Five. There are two really nice sons of his named Celebrating and Defining Moment that are standing for relatively cheap. Try hypo-mating with them.

If all else fails, and you're really not satisfied, then I'm sorry for you. The SIM can be very cruel sometimes - sometime's you're just dealt a crummy hand. Best of luck in what you decide for her.

[Marzy Dotes]

This mare rated nada potential in everything. Three of her five offspring did win races. One was stakes placed and one was this mare who won one race and then was rated by Eliza as formidable, having a wow first time out and a hard to tell by a late blooming stallion with pretty decent works. Quite a few of my homebreds are a generation or two out of mediocrity as rated by Liza but they at least survived to produce racers that can make quite a bit of money on the track.

My other known "no potential" produced two out of three winners, one was multiple until she bowed her tendon.

But they're hard to breed. And if no one wants her, you could pension her into a money earning profession. You could pick a cheaper turf stud who's good at producing broodmares and try to breed up. You can GP her too. She might have worked well on the track though her works are pretty awful (brings to mind my filly "Choker").

It happens. I spent $200,000 on a claimer mare who couldn't run out of a paper bag. She was "nice" and did have a winged filly. But it's always going to be buyer beware when someone's selling a broodmare for sure.

[Lisa Strummer]

The one thing about the BS agent I really like is that if I ask about a horse I might possibly buy, if they don't get the "buy, buy, buy" (wow, I believe) or "whole lot of upside" (wings) comment, I won't touch them.

For the most part, the BS agent can confuse me, I have a few "should be good" broodmares that have thrown wows and a lot of my "star" and "formidable" mares have thrown poo, even with good hypos. I've only had one or two mares get the "doesn't have any potential" comment, and I'm pretty sure one of them did throw a winner. I do like the addition of the BS agent and the hypomating, but I also dislike it. For the first time I spent a lot of gamepoints on breeding last year, and I was very disappointed with the results. I don't know if I will waste the money on it again this year. But as far as buying a horse, I will not buy a non Steward bred without using the BS agent.

[Carole Hanson]

Well it's too late to breed her now, she was given to someone else but I don't mind cos that person can now have a nice mare. I don't have money to do nicks (I'm 15) so that is not an option for me but oh well, I cope without it. I mean if people could cope without those things before, than why can't they now?

[Marzy Dotes]

I just use it as a tool. For one thing, the random slide is still an important factor outside of Liza. I had some star broodmares that threw a special and two stakes performers with A-(special) and B+(stakes) but they tended to be much better on the racetrack than the others that didn't do as well (though some produced wings) too.

But I've found that with any rating, you can produce all different kinds of performing horses. I'm still a new breeder, so still working best with what I got but I'm learning to do that.

[Nena Olson]

I was definitely not expecting to see a two year old when I looked up this mare. I would have given her some time! Turf routers can easily go from poor 2yos to nice 3yos or even 4yos. Plus, turf routers are the type of horse that you do not need to be a wow in order to do well on the track. There are turf routes everywhere, and you could have earned some of that money back. As for the broodmare comment, I still would have attempted breeding her just to see what type of foal she produced before tossing her away.

Ah well It happens. Good lessons for next time!

[Stormy Peak]

Definitely give the mare a few tries before giving up on her.

I have a mare, Foremost, (now pensioned) but I tested her just out of curiosity, even though at the time she had produced several Grade 1 winners....Foremost, got the comment: "Doesn't have any potential as a flat race broodmare; I'd be impressed if she ever produced a winner"

Last year her daughter, Forgave, broke the million dollar mark in purse earnings.
She has produced some duds, but her good ones more than made up for them.
Here's her page...take a look at her winners : )

I brought this up once before, and it was suggested that Foremost might have just been lucky in picking up some good slides...but either way...the agent being wrong, or the slides being good and her getting lucky enough to get that many....it was worth breeding her. I might not have done that if I had that report when I first started sending her to the breeding sheds years ago.

Stormy

[Paul Heinrich]

The only thing I have to add is 50k is the price of an upper-mid-level claimer. If that's the most you ever blow on a horse who disappoints you, you'll be the most fortunate SIM player ever.

Wait until you spend 1.4 million on a horse like this, or 1.3 million on a horse like this. I know any disappointment hurts, but try to stay focused on the big picture, steadily improving your barn as a whole, so you can set yourself up to be disappointed for real by nags like these!

[Friedrich Barbarossa]

Ha Paul you got burned by Sound The Alarm too.....I LOATHE Sound The Alarm. Notice how I'm 100% blaming the mare and not the sire for Sound On Arrival's pitiful record? Neat trick, that.

She got me with this one, though I guess I spent less than half of what you did.

My big miss was on this pig.

Win some, lose some.

[Ronnie Dee]

I think Kevin and Paul are totally missing the specifics of Carole's situation. In the 4 examples that they cited, there was no opportunity to consult the BSA. Given that Carole is an excellent 15-year old student, I think it is much better that she learns from her decision making error rather than bringing up unrelated examples. Situations similar to Carole's have been studied by economists and game/decision theorists. Essentially, they would have advised Carole to spend the $10K BSA consultation fee to acquire valuable information before deciding whether to purchase this filly for $50K.

[Friedrich Barbarossa]

I think Kevin and Paul are totally missing the specifics of Carole's situation.

It could have been that. It's also possible that Kevin wasn't talking about Carole's situation at all, and instead was using this thread to go off on a tangent.