Bernardini

[Sarah Anne]

Oh well. He most likely would have done amazing next year. But since I don't own the horse... :rolleyes:

[Eric Nalbone]

I find it unbelievably hypocrital that anyone posting on this forum would turn down the opportunity to immediately start charging $100,000/mare for Bernardini at stud. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of potential revenues of $10,000,000 a year, give or take several million in taxes (You could buy a mansion, a Ferrari Enzo, and a $1,000,000 yearling, and still have more money left over than most people make in a lifetime, in the first year, to think in terms of real value). Three days will point out to you exactly why this is the only decision that makes any sense:

1) Preakness Day: Where is Barbaro right now? In New Bolton Center, where he was touch and go for a good long while and still isn't out of the woods in terms of survival, much less a stud career.

2) Travers Day: Where is Bluegrass Cat right now? Hurt. Retired.

3) Breeders' Cup Day: Pine Island's breakdown drives home the point how much is at stake each and every time a valuable racehorse steps onto the track.

Its all well and good for those of us who have no vested monetary interest in the horse to judge the Sheiks for their decisions, but to do so is, in almost every case, unbelievably hypocritical. Furthermore, simply because the Sheiks HAVE money doesn't mean they are necessarily willing to keep pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the industry; eventually they're going to try and at least pretend to turn a profit, and a big stallion like Bernardini is the first step in that process. Additionally, I understand one of the Sheik's main goals to be the development of a major American stud farm, and while Street Cry, Holy Bull, E Dubai, Cherokee Run, and Elusive Quality make for great stallions at Darley, Bernardini has the potential to be the kind of flagship horse that can be the face of the farm, somewhat like A.P. Indy/Kingmambo do at Lane's End, Storm Cat does at Overbrook, and Giant's Causeway/Fusaichi Pegasus do at Ashford.

Clearly, the argument that horses should be kept in training to lure fans to the game isn't successful, and people need to either come up with a financially worthwhile incentive for keeping horses in training (read: reasonable expectation that Bernardini can earn [$100,000 * 100] = $10,000,000 next year), or come up with a new way to market the sport. I don't know about you, but it seems to me like we should spend less time complaining about horses retiring and more time paying competitive salaries to young, savvy marketing geniuses who can think up something more innovative than "Fast horse. See fast horse run. Oops, no more fast horse. Darn. Look for next fast horse. Repeat entire process." as a marketing campaign.

[Ara Davies]

I'm sorry, but I would hope that there are some people who, once they have what I would call "a lot of money", would be sporting enough to continue racing a sound horse through a full career.

[The Steward]

This is, of course, if you are making the argument that there is such thing as a sound horse in racing in our current times. Sadly enough, 99% of horses (maybe higher) have problems, and they are all held together with tape and glue. And, unless you are in the barn with the horse every day, you can't tell me about a horse that doesn't have even minor problems. Odds are the Bernardini is not as "sound" as people would wish. Sound 2yos don't debut in January.

[Ara Davies]

So what, we should just be happy with the way things are, that people are in the sport just for money, that horses can't make it through even a full season without a career-ending injury, and that no horse can run without massive amounts of medication? I refuse to just accept crap like this as "part of the sport" when it doesn't HAVE to be.

At least people like the Phipps family are still around.

<a href='http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=36358' target='_blank'>http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=36358</a>

[IsaP]

This is, of course, if you are making the argument that there is such thing as a sound horse in racing in our current times. Sadly enough, 99% of horses (maybe higher) have problems, and they are all held together with tape and glue. And, unless you are in the barn with the horse every day, you can't tell me about a horse that doesn't have even minor problems. Odds are the Bernardini is not as "sound" as people would wish. Sound 2yos don't debut in January.

S'why I'm going to do racing the Mako way! Buy a mare that doesn't look like much pedigree wise but is sound as a rock and breed talent into the soundness!

Hey.. it worked with Honora.. and Mako always had the most sound horses I had ever seen. Maybe not the fastest....

I think it can be done. People just prefer to get things the quick and easy way of breeding or inbreeding talent to more and more talent, regardless of soundness. Sure, you get a fast horse, but a stiff breeze could break it in two.

And yes.. this is when I win the lottery and kittens are born with wings. (because in this job, I don't see owning a race horse in THIS century)

[Ara Davies]

Or do what I do, race 'em hard and the only ones who make it through with success are the sound ones. Then only use the successful ones for breeding. I've never had to worry about soundness in any of mine because I refuse to spend time trying to work around the faults of picky, unsound horses.

If that means I miss out on Mirror, well, I had Banner so I'm not too bothered.

[IsaP]

That's why I don't breed sprinters. I'd be lost with a glass horse.

[Eric Nalbone]

Now we get to the moral discussion. Who are we to tell the Sheik what his morals should or shouldn't be? Who are we to tell the Sheik that the "sporting" thing to do is to run his horse another season? What if, from his perspective, the sporting thing to do is put him on a farm and let him be a horse rather than leave him in a stall at the racetrack and only take him out to train for 2 hours a day before putting him away again? What if the "sporting" thing to do is protect his horse by not making him run over demanding dirt tracks where he faces serious, serious injury as a realistic possibility on a daily basis, when the other alternative is running on perfectly manicured grass in central Kentucky, with more than his fill of mares? What if the Sheik got gun-shy after running so many brilliant older horses over the years and seeing many go off form (Refuse To Bend) and others, even Electroutionist (not sure that Electrocutionist's death was related to training, but its gotta be unsettling to an owner) this year, dying while in training? A retired live horse is certainly more useful and fulfilling to an owner than a dead one, there's no way to sugarcoat that. What if the horse already HAS problems and they've just kept it hush-hush?

What if, god forbid, Sheik Mohammed doesn't give a rat's behind about what we think his morals should be, given that he's one of the two or three people on earth most responsible for supporting the top end of the thoroughbred sales market for the last decade or so?

Alternatively, what if Sheik Mohammed uses everyone's barometer of what a racehorse should be, Secretariat, as his model, and notes that Secretariat retired at age 3 after proving what his connections thought he had to prove, due in no small part to his value as a stallion? Do we slam Claiborne Farms and Penny Chenery as unsportsmanlike? (Note: I'm not saying that Bernardini is equal to Secertariat, simply that he might have proved what Sheik Mohammed thought he had to prove)

[Angela Dee Cochran]

Here is a pic of Bernardini I got at the Breeders Cup, Its not really that great, But I thought Id put it on here for you Bernardini fans. I need to figure out how to mess with eyes though...

[Laura Ferguson]

Look, the Sheikh can do whatever he wants with Bernardini, but then he shouldn't get upset if the horse doesn't get the respect, or place in history, that he feels the horse ultimately deserves. If he doesn't give a crap about that, that's fine. To me, Bernardini was a very nice racehorse, but by retiring now, I don't see why he's so much more special than other blueblooded horses retiring to stud, and certainly not $100k, although I suspect people will pay it. The irony here, to me, is that the Sheikh earns more money than he knows what to do with from his oil, so why on earth this has to be a monetary decision, given his so-called love of the sport, baffles me. But, it's his prerogative.

Nitpicker that I am, the Secretariat syndication and retirement has to be placed into context, because it doesn't compare to the Bernardini situation at all.

Christopher Chenery died on January 3, 1973, and his estate owed $6 million in inheritance taxes, and $6 million in cash wasn't lying around, surprise, surprise. The only way to pay the tax bill was to sell off either the farm or the horses, and the two most valuable horses were Riva Ridge, who had completely flopped in the second half of his 3 year old year, or Secretariat, who had just won Horse of the Year honors at two. The advice was to try to syndicate Secretariat for the $6 million. The logic was a good season wouldn't increase his value all that much more, and a bad 3yo season would cut his value in half (and as a son of Bold Ruler, no one expected him to win the Derby); whereas Riva Ridge probably was at bottom in terms of value, and could probably improve his value with a better 4yo decision. So, the decision was made. The attempt would be made to syndicate Secretariat for the $6 million.

In order to convince people to pay a record $190k per share for a horse that had yet to make his 3yo debut (this all occurred in February 1973), the terms of the syndication agreement _mandated_ that Secretariat _would_ be retired at the end of his 3yo year, as the investors wanted to get a return on their investment as soon as possible. So, that particular die was cast long before Secretariat won the Triple Crown and had everything to do with economics, and nothing to do with what Secretariat did or did not have to prove.

This syndication, in addition to the record price, is notable because it marks the beginning of the divide between the racing game and the breeding game, which is where we stand, complaining about, today, and it all started due to a $6 million tax bill.

Interestingly enough, Secretariat had originally been scheduled to make his 3yo debut in Florida, but with the syndication negotiations going on, Lucien Laurin was instructed not to run him, for fear of killing the deal. Once the deal was finalized, the only Florida race left was the Flamingo Stakes, and they weren't going to run him in a 9 furlong race with no prep. So, that's how he ended up debuting in the Bay Shore Stakes.

All of this has been laid out in several books; one of the best is The Horse Traders, by Stephen Crist, who discusses this as well as Spend A Buck and the decision to skip the Preakness, Devil's Bag, Sangster and the Shiekhs, and several other interesting topics involving the breeding industry and other financial factors that have come to dominate the sport of racing.

[Angela Dee Cochran]

I didnt know that about Secretariat- Thats interesting to know.

I think it was a shame that he was retired, even though Im not much of an admirer of his. But Its his horse so I figured hes the one to choose. He seemed like a nice racer but my heart still belongs to Lava Man and Invasor lol