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Originally Posted by dilanesp
Winstar does not need the money.
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Maybe the people controlling Winstar don't need money in for their personal lives, but certainly the farm itself needs money to continue to operate and stay competitive at the sales as buyers.
It's a bloated stallion operation with 20+ stallions most of whom are unproven. The major sires there--Tiznow, Distorted Humor, and More Than Ready--are in their twenties and unlikely to be around in 5 years time. That leaves Pioneerof The Nile and perhaps Speightstown (whose petered out somewhat) to hold up the mantle in an uncertain future. Part of those future plans collapsed earlier this year when it was discovered that major purchase Battle of Midway was sub fertile.
On the bright side, Fed Biz has gotten a couple of nice looking prospects but they certainly can't bank on him developing from a $10K stallion to six figures unless lightning strikes.
At any rate, Winstar did not retire Justify because they decided to sell him to Coolmore. He was always going to be retired at 3 as soon as he crossed the wire first in the Belmont...and probably even before that.
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And more importantly, is this your vision of a healthy sport? Where the breeding industry controls everything and good horses run 6 times and then retire untested?
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Unfortunately, the Robert Sangster niche model of developing stallions and not racehorses has gone from a spark to a conflagration. What's worse is that his idea that only 2yo form is needed to justify entry into the stallion ranks has also taken hold and made things a million times worse for the quality of racing.
Thus the sport of Thoroughbred racing conducts its business based on ephemeral notions like "promise" and "potential" (which should be restricted to the shed row) instead of proven ability and tangible accomplishments.
