Cholly
09-10-2014, 04:26 PM
Is it just me?...or does the current Keeneland yearling sale highlight a slightly disturbing parallel with the nation’s economy? I’m referring to a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. You’ve got a stock market on a steady five-year bull run, the same five-years that wages for middle-class Americans (the people who buy the products produced by those firms whose stocks prices are skyrocketing) have stagnated or declined. Similarly...every month racing’s economic indicators (wagering, purses, # of races) grind relentlessly downward. But everything in Breeder-land is all hunky-dory: Sales are up, average is up, median is up. Waiter, another bottle of champagne!
Normally I don’t get worked up about the baubles & foibles of the rich--hey, it’s just one fat cat fleecing another. But also this week the Paulick Report highlighted Pulpit’s coronation as a “Sire of Sires”. Really? I mean, Pulpit managed to race a grand total of six races. Six, coincidentally, being the same number of lifetime starts for Tapit and Sky Mesa, the two most responsible for Pulpit’s new reputation as a “sire of sires”. So if the exertion of six trips around was enough to cripple Grandpa, and ditto for Pops, one doesn’t exactly need a logarithm to predict how many performances we should expect out of Sonny-boy.
Oh, and the latest buzz from Bluegrass country is that, based on results of his first crop of two-year olds, Super Saver is the “Now” stallion. Super Saver did manage ten lifetime races, but those last three were so pathetic we should be disinclined to count them--label him a “seven”...which is the number of starts by Fast Bullet, whom WinStar this week trumpeted as their newest prize stallion (even though it did take three racing years for Fast Bullet to cobble together that lengthy resume).
The breeders must love this shit. “Let’s pawn off a product genetically engineered to blow-up the 1st Sunday in May...then the Fools will whip out their checkbooks and re-load!” Did someone say “planned obsolescence”? Which prompts the other disturbing parallel: the product of thoroughbred breeders today and the American automotive industry of the 70’s.
Only, unlike cars, people don’t really have to have horse racing. And there’s no Honda and Toyota waiting in the wings to induce some sanity to the market.
Normally I don’t get worked up about the baubles & foibles of the rich--hey, it’s just one fat cat fleecing another. But also this week the Paulick Report highlighted Pulpit’s coronation as a “Sire of Sires”. Really? I mean, Pulpit managed to race a grand total of six races. Six, coincidentally, being the same number of lifetime starts for Tapit and Sky Mesa, the two most responsible for Pulpit’s new reputation as a “sire of sires”. So if the exertion of six trips around was enough to cripple Grandpa, and ditto for Pops, one doesn’t exactly need a logarithm to predict how many performances we should expect out of Sonny-boy.
Oh, and the latest buzz from Bluegrass country is that, based on results of his first crop of two-year olds, Super Saver is the “Now” stallion. Super Saver did manage ten lifetime races, but those last three were so pathetic we should be disinclined to count them--label him a “seven”...which is the number of starts by Fast Bullet, whom WinStar this week trumpeted as their newest prize stallion (even though it did take three racing years for Fast Bullet to cobble together that lengthy resume).
The breeders must love this shit. “Let’s pawn off a product genetically engineered to blow-up the 1st Sunday in May...then the Fools will whip out their checkbooks and re-load!” Did someone say “planned obsolescence”? Which prompts the other disturbing parallel: the product of thoroughbred breeders today and the American automotive industry of the 70’s.
Only, unlike cars, people don’t really have to have horse racing. And there’s no Honda and Toyota waiting in the wings to induce some sanity to the market.