Quote:
Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage
I agree...stupid thread. But, stupid threads are still allowed.
I never got why horseplayers cared much who owned the horse. Unless it was some goldmine dude, like the guy who owned California Chrome...now HE was funny...  |
Normally, I could care less about who owns a horse, but with the China Horse Club, you literally have no clue who comprises that club, they are secret. The NY times found this out when it tried to track down who really owns Jystify. It couldn't, but it did unearth George Soros's share if the golden goose, which disturbs me more than the Chinses tbh.
This sport has enough transparency problems as it is. If ownership is allowed to be completely secret, you could have the same owners secretely owning every horse in the starting gate. Do you feel safe wagering on races like that? Do you think such situations are going to benefit the sport?
There is no reason for horse ownership to be secret. The secrecy of the China Horse Club smacks far too closely of the secret art seller situation that has made art auctions one of the chief money laudering avenues in the world. That the last word on the Coolemore deal was that it was on hold until Sept in order to avoid capital gains taxes, doesn't help.
Here's a scenario from the art world to ponder: A would be money lauderer goes around secretly buying up works by an unknown artist. No one knows who the buyer is, or that the buyer is all the same person. The "sales" create a false market for the artist, generating manufactured interest at auction. The secret owner begins off loading the works at auctions, sometomes bidding against himself to artificially raise the market value. Then he begins the real sales, and each piece sold is an exchange of ill gotten gains for clean money. The buyer and even the auction house have almost no way to determine with whom they are dealing.
Is that so far from Justify's situation? Secret owners buy a horse everyone passes on, including Spendthrift, for $600,000 (question, if everyone passed on him, who was the opposing bidder? Given his problems, he logically should have gone for half what he did). Sit on him for a 9 months. Inexplicably, sell him (he could be Windstar's Tapit or A P Indy) to a buyer that has no way to learn with whom it is dealing, but then delay the actual sale for 4 months to avoid paying taxes that should not apply given current ownership has ostensibly owned the horse for more than a year. There is a red flag for every sentence in this paragraph.
FWIW a sale is not a sale until finalized. If whatever agreement was reached qualifies as a true contract, taxes accrued immediately. No taxes. No sale. When you have $75M on the table, the last thing you want to do is give the buyer time to think themselves out of the expenditure. Four months is a long time.
Anywho, if owners insist on secrecy, I insist on the right to disparage them for doing so.
Want to know how I know Magnier is not a money launderer? He sells his art at auction for £157M under his own name.
