KARAKA NATIONAL YEARLING SALE-2012

KARAKA YEARLING SALES-2012

1…There are just a few more weeks until the next National Yearling Sales gets underway in New Zealand.. This year there are 1,444 yearlings being offered, and thousands of people will be searching their way through all the pedigrees, and doing extensive physical examinations.

2…The PREMIER Sale starts on Mon 30 Jan, 2012, and finishes on Tues 31st and on offer are 516 lots being offered over the two days..
…..The SELECT Sale goes from Wed 1 Feb to Fri 3 Feb, and over three days 619 lots are carded to be auctioned.
…..The FESTIVAL Sale is a one day sale on Sun 5 Feb and a marathon 307 lots are catalogued for sale.

3…Last year for the 2011 sale, the 75% sold rate averaged $83,899
….and in the previous 2010 year, the sold ones averaged $82,876

4…If you are outlaying over $200,000 plus for Premier yearlings,
$50,000 plus for Select yearlings or $20,000 for Festival yearlings,
then you will need to have expert understanding and knowledge
of conformation, type, pedigree, and racing ability of ancestry, because the majority will not repay training costs, and the aim is to identify the one in every 17 to 19 that will possibly pay its way..

5…As a general guide, one historical method of assessment would
give an expectation for :
……..86 yearlings [about 16% of 516] from the Premier catalogue,
……..88 yearlings [14 % of 619] from the Select catalogue and
……. 30 yearlings [ 9% of 307]from the Festival catalogue
…….. to earn enough to repay all racing costs…
(DOES NOT INCLUDE PURCHASE PRICE!!)

6…It’s very hard to calculate repaying purchase price as well, and a
brave guess would be based on just averages, and there may still be a variance from the truth. However, if we look at the rounded $80,000 average purchase price for the sale, and add a basic $2,000 a month training bill, for 6 months a year, basic agistment, vet, farrier, transport, gear…then 4 seasons costs might approach $62,000 in New Zealand.

7…A quick check of how many horses earn in excess of $140,000 when we check with our list of 8,962 horses that raced in New Zealand over the last 8 or 9 years came up with 365..That means ABOUT 1 HORSE IN 24 WILL EARN ENOUGH TO REPAY PURCHASE OF ABOUT $80,000 AND CAREER RACING EXPENSES OF ABOUT $60,000.

8…Of course, some clever people may be able to purchase a top horse for a lot less than $80,000, or slip over to Aussie to earn a nice amount, or cut their agistment and racing expenses by training themselves, by floating horses themselves, so they may increase their ratio by diligent methods of cost cutting. A lucky or informed $25,000 purchase with career expenses of $35,000 only needs to earn $60,000 to be ahead.



This shows you need to get at least 10 or 12 ducks in a row.

9…The middle man agents make money on most purchases. They pay big money, astutely target interested people with the means to take shares, and manage the syndicates for their clients and provide very good communications to make them feel good. Trainers that spec buy and pass on horses to clients make management and trainer money on the horses they like physically and on their breeding, but the Owner or Buyer is the one that bears the brunt of the ever increasing costs and the unbusinesslike 24 to 1 odds against , or even 17 to 1 odds against which means most will lose money. The huge publicity around million dollar races and earners is a huge lure to thousands of newcomers and there seems to be a never-ending line of new owners wanting to chance their luck.

10…A few people make money from their sport (perhaps 1 in 17?) some astute owners target speed, early maturity and muscle and increase their chances of getting early trial winners, being more focused on the majority of races which are less than 1 mile (1600m). They can race more often, they can be sold more easily to buyers overseas because of their speed and muscle, and they can get more
of that steady demand for faster horses.

11…My general RULE OF THUMB is to expect that there will be only 1 IN ABOUT 17 YEARLINGS THAT WALK PAST YOU IN THE SALE RING WILL PAY ITS WAY, on average.
So buyers need to minimize their risks and know what good and bad conformation means, what type means, what speed means, what stamina means, and how faults will impact on a horse’s racing career, and know all about selection and performance in a yearling’s pedigree. This does not offer a GUARANTEE, but should increase your chances of not making basic mistakes and should increase your
chances of making a better selection.
All this work, knowledge and selection can go for NOUGHT, if your horse is not in the hands of a very successful professional. And even then, the best trainers who normally charge the most, also have more unsuccessful horses in their stable than horses that pay their way and recoup all racing expenses. Sometimes its best with a second tier
horse where there are too many horses in a stable and lots of decisions and handling gets delegated to stable employees that just
do not measure up to the best level for the best potential possible.

12…The figures do show very clearly that the breeders that own commercial stallions, have pursued and acquired commercial mares,
and prepare them for sale in the PREMIER SESSION sale are the ones that are making the largest gains in the horse industry.

13..They have acquired the best and most desirable bloodlines, have
a buyer bench hundreds of times their own number, feeding an ownership band thousands of time larger again, and each year are selling the majority of their yearlings at very high prices several times higher than their production costs.

14…My belief from looking at every pedigree of every Karaka yearlings for more than 12 years is that as a general guide about 86 out of 516 Premier Sale yearlings will probably earn enough to repay agistment, breaking and training expenses.
That means about 16%, and about 430 yearlings will fail to repay racing costs.

15…About 88 from the SELECT SALE-(about 14% guesstimate)
of 619 will repay training expenses, and 531 are expected to lose money.
About 30 (9%) of 307 FESTIVAL SALE yearlings should repay
training expenses, with 277 becoming losing ventures.

16…IF ANY ONE HAS MORE UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION,
AND WOULD LIKE TO MORE ACCURATELY UPDATE THESE GUESSES WITH ACTUAL FIGURES, I’M SURE WE WOULD BE ALL GRATEFUL.
To find every horse, list all earnings, and work out actual costs would be a mammoth task, but could be quite illuminating.
I would think that stallion owners, commercial breeders, syndicators
and auctioneers would not be very interested, because all their advertising is highly selective and reflects the merit of a few success stories at the top end, and tends to ignore the majority of failures at the lower end.
Selective advertising to bring new business shows the successes are usually highly accentuated and the many failures are suppressed or ignored. I’m sure we are all familiar with these business practices
in many of our daily dealings.

17…LINEBREEDING…looking at most traits, normally speed and
stamina have opposite connotations and a really good physical judge
of horses should be able to see a dozen factors for speed in the
conformation makeup of the yearling and over a dozen traits for
stamina. Many judges look for TYPE, but there are many more clues
to be seen in the physical make up of even immature yearlings.

18…We have looked at the line-breeding of all 1,444 yearlings and
it is possible to rank each pedigree on 7 basic methods. These methods all have different effects, and as they all exist simultaneously in each pedigree , the possible outcome can be wide and extreme. Some help speed, some help early speed, some help slower development, some assist fillies and speed, or stamina. Some line-breeding helps constitution, but a good knowledge of thousands of best and worst pedigrees is needed to understand the ramifications here. Watch out, because not all line-breeding is positive. Too much,
or too close, or too reversed, or involving certain ancestors can lead
to poor constitution, ill-thrift, light frame, crooked legs, bad alignment, nervousness, porous bone, brittle bone and dozens of
other unwanted conditions.

In respect of AMOUNT of line-breeding, 46 qualify as VERY HIGH
LINE-BREEDING in the PREMIER sale, 43 qualify on the same
scale in the SELECT sale, and 18 qualify in the FESTIVAL SALE.
All these should be inspected physically. I remember two high index
yearlings inspected, one had a bad turned right foot and won a race,
the other became a multiple Group 1 performer.
Make sure you combine highly selective pedigree scrutiny and
highly selective physical scrutiny.


19…FEM40 INDEX…this method involves a complicated series
of female crosses which only a computer can find, then do a complicated formula to find ratios which can be RANKED and COMPARED.

I’ve selected out those that are above 120%, and the best ones in each sale are: PREMIER… 81 yearlings…SELECT….71 yearlings…FESTIVAL..30..
These have the best promise, and are the ones to physically
check for size, growth, athleticism, movement, action, temperament
and leg conformation.

20..FEMALE….Because Nature allows a male to be a parent more than a hundred times in a year and a mare usually just one, there is a bias in favour of the male regarding selection. Therefore, because there could be up to a hundred times less males, only the very best bred, conformed and best performed are usually utilized to stand at stud.

This means if a hundred times more mares are retired to stud, by sheer numbers there will be many un-raced mares, unplaced, minor winners And moderately performed mares alongside the very good race-mares that also get retired to stud duty.

Just to emphasize this point, a check of the first 31 mares and first
31 sires in each of the 1,444 yearlings pedigrees in the 2012 Karaka Yearling Sales show that the SIRES in the pedigrees AVERAGED
over 9 wins (9.110 wins) and the DAMS AVERAGED just over 3 wins (3.187 wins.) WHICH IS A HUGE 6 WINS LESS ON AVERAGE PER HORSE BETWEEN ALL THE MALE ANCESTORS AND ALL THE FEMALE ANCESTORS, and as we are dealing with 44,764 males and 44,764 females, this is really a significant difference.

In this study 83 PREMIER yearlings, 104 SELECT yearlings, and 35
FESTIVAL yearlings have a 300% or more female index.

21..B13 METHOD. NATURE puts many controls into every operation and here is one of the MOST IMPORTANT, and is an overriding factor in explaining the exceptional success of just about every modern standout stallion that has proved exceptionally successful.

Applying the principle to the Karaka yearlings and looking at those
With a 130% or above rating, we find 85 PREMIER yearlings,
61 SELECT yearlings and 41 FESTIVAL sale yearlings qualify at
this level or above.

There is another more intense II800+ method that just about every double Champion sire in the world has, and a quick check shows
that SEVEN Colts in this sale have that, but of course they have to be checked very thoroughly for critical factors in their own sire,
dam, grandsire, necessary pre-potent crosses, size, muscling,
leg accuracy etc. A quick look shows that three of them would
fail the son/sire test immediately, and 2 more would fail the basic
desirable pre-potent line-breeding test.

22…BLUE METHOD…I’ve compared over 2 dozen of the greatest
TAP ROOT mares in the breed with the BLUE HEN LIST, with
GARVEY’S list of mares, with…SYLVIA ROSE’S list of multiple stakes producing mares, with 17,796 DAMS OF 1 SW, with 6524 DAMS OF TWO OR MORE SW, with DAMS OF 4 or MORE SW, with 12,675 brood-mares at stud in NZ and 23,553 current mares at stud in Australia.

This shows a high correlation between those that demonstrate
high class ability, compared with those that do not achieve higher success.

The best ones show there are 46 PREMIER yearlings, 53 SELECT
Yearlings and 16 FESTIVAL yearlings with scores at 100% or above.

23…CHAINS…This method looks way back into the pedigree and
links every line-bred ancestor with all duplicated ancestors in it’s
background.

This intensity has come up with 38 PREMIER, 31 SELECT, and
22 FESTIVAL yearlings that have a level of 100% or more. These
are the ones that should be short listed, then checked thoroughly
for the dozens of physical traits that suggest good locomotion,
stride efficiency, good reach, good muscling for speed, good
shape or muscling for stamina, and most importantly, tolerable
faults and leg accuracy along with temperament, early maturity
and constitution.

24…GEN200% CROSSES. 57 PREMIER, 52 SELECT and 55
FESTIVAL yearlings come to the fore for examination. These
yearlings should be listed with all the others that have advanced themselves to the front of their lists, and put into order of the ones
that are prominent on the most high ranking groups.

25….F4 & F5 METHODS…This is a favourite, and when several thousand of the GREATEST RACEHORSES in the world were identified, pedigrees extended, then this method showed one of the greatest range of differences of index between the CHAMPIONS and the horses on the lists that had very limited ability.

F4…PREMIER…55 yearlings, SELECT…63 yearlings, FESTIVAL yearlings 15
F5…PREMIER…38 yearlings, SELECT…38 yearlings, FESTIVAL yearlings 14

26…B50%…Different parameters and concept to the other B13
Lots of speed connotations. 13 PREMIER, 20 SELECT, 9 FESTIVAL yearlings rise to the top of the selection list.

27…INB130%..Big help with constitution..
……95 PREMIER yearlings to check,
……82 SELECT yearlings to check
……39 FESTIVAL yearlings to check

28…LM40% METHOD…Adds to REAL CLASS. .This is a feature
that is consistent in all the CHAMPIONS studied throughout every
country…42 PREMIER, 31 SELECT, 7 FESTIVAL

29….ALL3BEST…This is the mainstay grouping of line-breeding
methods. Big improvement in speed is always evident and is the
basis for a dozen other set-up principles.

The yearlings that this method identifies would have a significant
advantage over all other yearlings in their respective catalogues.
It identifies 27 PREMIER, 27 SELECT, and 9 FESTIVAL yearlings

30….PROVEN SIRES-40+SW…Buyers have always sought the progeny of the BEST sires. That usually means they have left MORE SW than other sires. NEW sires usually have impressive race records
and superior ancestry, but are just full of promise because they have not had the opportunity to prove themselves. The PROVEN sires have DONE THE JOB. No guessing, no relying on hope.
Less room for bias or prejudice, They have done the job
and give more confidence that their new yearlings will also be
up to the wanted STAKES WINNER level.

In this study, I’ve listed all 1444 yearlings, found how many
STAKES WINNERS each of their sires has left, then sorted
them in order. The cut-off level seems to be those PROVEN
sires that have left 40 OR MORE STAKES WINNERS.

This shows that 187 yearlings in the PREMIER sale, 56
yearlings in the SELECT sale and 0 yearlings in the FESTIVAL
sale are by these PROVEN sires. Obviously the yearlings have
been graded into the 3 sales primarily on this factor, and then
perhaps on vendor sales history and STAKES WINNERS along
the dam line.

31…4 DAMS-SW-5+
Looking along the dam line, and counting the number of SW
produced resulted in a delineation line of 5SW…
The theory here is that those families that are producing the most SW in the past have the best chance of producing the most SW in the
future. Looking at every yearling in the sale from those 2 yearlings
that have 13 SW in their first 4 dams , the 5 yearlings that have 11 SW, The 8 yearlings that have their first 4 dams producing 10 SW down to the 185 yearlings that have produced just ONE SW along their dam line, and the 54 yearlings that have 4 dams that produced NO STAKES WINNERS is quite illuminating.

204 yearlings out of 516-(39 % ) in the PREMIER SALE had 5 of more SW along their dam line.
134 yearlings out of 619 (21 % ) in the SELECT SALE had 5 or more SW along their dam line
33 yearlings out of 307 (11 % ) in the FESTIVALE SALE had 5 or more SW along their dam line.
Based on these figures, perhaps the first 60, 50 and 20 yearlings
with the most SW along their dam line would be the best ones to
short list for an exhaustive physical analysis.

32…31 DAMS of SW..
It’s important to LOOK THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE PEDIGREE, not just along the dam line where the catalogue gives a selective and highlighted abbreviation of the first 2, or sometimes 3 or 4 dams.
We have gone into the pedigree of all 1444 yearlings and compiled the Breeding record of all 31 dams in each 5 generation pedigree.
The PREMIER yearlings show 171 pedigrees where 27 or more of the dams throughout the pedigree are represented by 1 or more STAKES WINNING progeny.
The SELECT yearlings have 142 pedigrees which have 27 STAKES
PRODUCING dams.
The FESTIVAL yearlings have 69 pedigrees where 27 or more of the collective dams have produced 1 or more STAKES WINNERS.

33…WINNING ABILITY OF the first 4 dams along the Dam line.

Always nice to have that winning ability in a row along the dam line.
When we checked 7586 SIRES that have produced STAKES WINNERS, there are some really impressive and wonderful chains where two, three or four dams in a row had really outstanding ability. We can also name Dozens of sires where the dam and grand-dam were outstanding race-mares and it seems certain they have added an extra dimension to the stud ability of their exceptionally talented sons.

The PREMIER yearlings have 117 pedigrees where the first 4 dams
have a combined total of 16 or more wins between them. Many pedigrees do not have an extension to 4 generations on the catalogue
page, so we went into our computer files and other resources to find the race records for all of them.

The SELECT yearlings had 109 yearlings with over 16 wins won by
the first 4 dams.

The FESTIVAL yearlings had a lower score and only 32 yearlings
met the 16 win cut-off total by their first 4 dams.

34…WINNERS PRODUCED BY FIRST FOUR DAMS.
PREMIER yearlings were best with 200 pedigrees producing
TWENTY or more individual winners by their first 4 dams.
SELECT sale was 2nd with 175 measuring up with 20 plus wins
FESTIVAL yearlings came third with 49 pedigrees showing
up with 20 or more individual winners.

35…WINS BY FIRST 16 ANCESTORS and FIRST 62 ANCESTORS.

Those pedigrees which have more winners of big races in their near
ancestry would be expected to be better racing propositions than
those that have more limited racing records.

We looked at the wins by THE FIRST 14 ANCESTORS and also
the wins by all 62 ANCESTORS, and averaged them to see how
they compared.

PREMIER yearlings…..78 averaged more than 5 wins over 14 ancestors
SELECT yearlings…….74 averaged more than 5 wins over 14 ancestors
FESTIVAL yearlings….33 averaged more than 5 wins over 14 ancestors

PREMIER yearlings…..79 averaged more than 7 wins over 62 ancestors
SELECT yearlings…….52 averaged more than 7 wins over 62 ancestors
FESTIVAL yearlings.…23 averaged more than 7 wins over 62 ancestors


36…VERY GOOD RACEMARES IN ALL PEDIGREES TO 5 GENERATIONS.

There is an added advantage in pedigrees where there are many
better race-mares. We compiled the race record for all 31 race-mares
in each of the 1,444 yearling pedigrees to see which ones had the
biggest numbers of very good race-mares.

Looking at the range from the most good race-mares to the least
good race-mares, it seemed best to split at the 20 GOOD RACE-MARES level.

The results were.
PREMIER sale….127 yearlings had 20 or more good race-mares
SELECT sale……130 yearlings had 20 or more good race-mares
FESTIVAL sale…..61 yearlings had 20 or more good race-mares

1 yearling pedigree had 27 good race-mares out of a possible 31
in it’s pedigree, 2 had 26 good race-mares and 6 had 25 good race-mares. At the other end of the scale, 1 yearling had 9 good race-mares out of a possible 31 in it’s 5 generation pedigree, 3 had 10 good race-mares, and 10 had 11 good race-mares out of 31.

37….PREPOTENCY TOTAL %…over 84%.

This is a very strong breeding principle and covers multiple crosses
and each extra one lessens the chance of just luck influencing the
performance of the mating. There is an extra mathematical principle
involved which is extremely powerful, and when we checked
thousands of the best SW progeny of standout sires against thousands of their other progeny, a very strong correlation emerged
in favour of better performance.

Results for the 3 sales identified just about the right numbers to
match an expectation for horses that would pay their way and make a profit.

PREMIER…84 yearlings hit pre-potency at 84% or higher.
SELECT…..53 yearlings hit pre-potency at 84% or higher
FESTIVAL..24.yearlings hit pre-potency at 84% or higher

38…4X4P-250
The highest ranked yearlings with this very intense and complicated
breeding principle or method to 15 generations turned out to be:

PREMIER sale…60 yearlings
SELECT sale……55 yearlings
FESTIVAL sale….21 yearlings.

A check through the lists show a consistent pattern of repeat
yearlings that seem to appear with high indexes in many of
these listed principles.

The best way to proceed is to take the 33 yearlings that
have the consistent high indexes, check their sire and dam
for the ability to leave SW, check the necessary crosses,
check their type, speed, leg accuracy, make an assessment
on how they will grow and develop and what expectation
they promise in ways of speed, wins and money earning.
And then armed with this preliminary assessment, determine a realistic price for the yearling in the ring to give a profit after racing. We feel this method will eliminate a lot of poor buys, and will give the best chance to secure a future very good race-horse capable of
winning STAKES RACES.


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