On The Hunt In The Valley

Five of the last seven days I've spent tootling around a very green and lush Hunter Valley looking at Magic Millions yearlings.

I've been to Strawberry Hill, Attunga, Yarraman, Kitchwin Hills, Bellerive, Holbrook, Kia Ora, Segenhoe, Darley, Riversdale, Ashleigh, Willow Park, Murrulla and Kulani Park.

I took the opportunity to go up to Willow Tree to see the new Kulani Park farm of Rhys Smith and Chloe Latif. I'm too much of a hardened old cynic to start pissing in peoples' pockets at my age, but this country blew me away. The property is on a magnificent stretch of virgin horse country lying to the north/east with rich soils, 1,000 acres or so, and whilst it's being set up with practicality a priority it is aesthetically very stimulating and will be a real showplace. Looks to me every bit as good as anything in the Valley proper. I used to say when I was running Waikato 20-odd years ago that a fool could breed good horses there (and I did, often) because the farm itself was superior. I can visualise Kulani Park breeding and rearing good horses at this new location; they have wide open spaces and fertile soils and have made a decision in principle never to overstock the place. Good luck to them. I also heard on the Hunter Valley grapevine that Coolmore have either bought or are acquiring land in this area as an insurance policy for the future.

I'll be up in the Valley for a further two days, look at about 100 more yearlings, then call it quits. At least that breaks the back of the main catalogue. I hit the Gold Coast on 1 January.

There's general nervousness, and rightly so, about what state the market will be in when MM opens. In times of economic uncertainty - and I'm sure the worst is still well ahead of us - people react primarily on emotion and are likely to approach this sale thinking conservatively. I believe vendors hold the key; if from the start they adopt a realistic approach to the value of their horses and allow them to get sold and create momentum at the sale, that will be an encouraging signal to the buying bench to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in. Let's face it, yearlings have been selling for far more than they're worth for several years now and many breeders have enjoyed massive profits. It's in breeders' best interests now to keep the stock moving, keep owners in the game and help keep the wheels of racing turning.

In the last recession, late '80s/early '90s, the damage was done when very high ingoing costs of production (notably service fees) were met by a rapid drop in the value of resultant progeny, as much as 60% over a couple of years. This imbalance put a lot of breeders out of business. Faced with the near-certainty of a declining market in the immediate future, upper-end service fees in 2008 are totally out of kilter with the reality. Major studs profess to have the interests of their breeder customers at heart (though savage increases in service fees, sometimes before stallions even have a runner, tend to belie that). If they truly did have those interests at heart they should be rebating 25 or 30% of the service fees charged in 2008 for breeders who are contracted at full freight and who pay on time. They can afford to do so. It would give their customers a better chance of trading profitably at the sales of 2011 and would be an appropriate gesture of goodwill as breeders head into uncertain times.

Oh look at the sky! Pigs flying!

8 comments:

JJD said...

I am looking forward to this year's sales with the prospect of some real value buying for the first time in ages. However I have one small hurdle to overcome and that is the wife. Don't get me wrong, I am allowed to spend what I like on what I like but this year I have to buy her a bloody grey! No consideration for type or breeding - just bloody colour! So Steve if you happen to see a nice grey please let me know. I'm happy to reward your hard work because I'm petirfied of buying her a dud!

JJD

Anonymous said...

Will someone stop Gai from raving about how great the Strada yearlings are!
As far as I know his oldest are only foals!

Anonymous said...

Steve, with giving away any of your valuable IP, can you provide a general impression of what you've seen so far?

STEVE BREM said...

JJD - Is your wife a good-looker? I'm grey !!

STEVE BREM said...

Strada - Stratum - hey, what's a couple of consonants between friends? I can do most things but stopping Gai raving is not one of them. It's part of her inimitable charm. Don't forget, she declared Shamekha's $2.2 million sister was the finest yearling (where no money changed hands) at the sales, the $3 million 11th foal Mount Olympus was an absolute standout and $2 million Seven Reasons was poetry in motion. It's all part of the show and no one takes it seriously.

STEVE BREM said...

I rounded off the week inspecting the drafts of Emirates Park, Goodwood, Amarina, Baerami, Byerley, Vinery, Edinglassie, and Glastonbury. So I've seen perhaps half of the MM first five days. Still a heck of a lot of horses to see and could I make a plea to some of those Queensland vendors who wait till the last minute to bring in their horses - don't be so miserable, spend a few bucks at the motel and get there a day earlier. General impression of what I've seen so far: few superstars and a big variation in the standard of preparation. Not so many big, fat yearlings. Standard good but not vintage.

Anonymous said...

You're going to a real blood bath Steve.
The happy talk amazes me - I'm a breeder and a MM vandor - and God help the lot of us

Let's be real - who needs another horse anyway?
It will be positively lonely on the Coast - and vendors will be begging people to look at their animals - the syndicators would have a ball except they will be battling to find clients too.

Have a happy 2009 - remember as long as you have good health, anything is possible.

STEVE BREM said...

Look, I think the days when there was a buyer for every horse bred are well and truly over (for another 10 years) so we will see a massive bail-out of marginal mares in the next couple of years. There are going to be yawning gaps in the market but I don't get an overall sense that somehow the players are unable or disinterested in buying horses. But we operate on sentiment and the sentiment today is one of caution and risk minimisation, so perhaps no one will be buying themselves a headline this year (so often those headlines are bullshit anyway). As for syndicators, I would think they will be the most risk averse of all and I expect some vendors will be willing to hold their hands for as long as necessary. I was going to do a piece for the blog on syndication as I can't believe the outrageous rip-off stuff you find in the PDS of one or two of them in particular, but I don't need the stress. My only advice would be that if you have $20 or $30k to put into a horse, you may as well buy wholesale through a trainer than buy a watered-down retail interest through some syndicators. And let me make it clear - I do not include the purple and white stars amongst the latter.