The Mating Game

Woe be to those who buy a race horse with the strict intention of making money. First they learn about food bills. Horses need to eat regardless of whether or not they are racing and with grain prices keeping pace with gasoline, well, it gets expensive fairly quickly. Then they learn about farrier bills. Horses need their feet tended to by professional farriers every six weeks. If they are racing and changing shoes for different surfaces, it can be more often.

Then they learn about dental bills. Horses need their teeth filed down routinely to accommodate their bits. And then there are the seemingly endless vet bills. Pampered thoroughbreds are routinely tested and treated for every possible symptom. Not to mention the insurance bills, training bills, shipping costs, race entry fees, licensing fees. You get the picture. It all adds up pretty quickly.

And woe be to those who figure they can earn it all back when the horse gets to the breeding shed. Because, as the owner of the very expensive War Emblem learned the hard way, there are no guarantees. As The New York Times reported on Monday, "In nearly five years of contact with hundreds of mares, War Emblem, now 9, [and purchased for $17 million by a Japanese owner] has managed to mate with only 70 of them, which is half of most stallions' yearly output. He has not produced a live foal since 2006..." Ouch and double ouch. "By conservative estimates, he [the owner] has lost as much as $55 million in stud fees," writes Joe Drape.

To frustrate the Japanese owner, Shadai Stallion Station, even more, the 26 horses that War Emblem has managed to sire, have, according to Drape, "become terrific racehorses, capturing six stakes races and putting their reluctant father near the top of Japan's leading sire list." Which may say more about the status of Japanese horse racing than War Emblem's lack of procreation, but nonetheless is a point of continued angst for all those associated with the 2002 Kentucky Derby winner.

So heads up all ye horse hedge fund creators (see my previous post on Big Brown, one of the horses running in this year's Kentucky Derby), there is no such thing as a sure thing in horse racing, on or off the track. A dud at stud can win the Kentucky Derby and a non-stakes winner can sire a Triple Crown contender.

As they say, hold those bets and don't tear up any tickets, just yet. War Emblem may regain interest in the opposite sex or then again, he may not. As I've said before, horses are not commodities and those that treat them as such may never recoup their investments. There is a reason it is called the sport of kings.....