Taking Stock with David Ingordo – Part 1

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Although the Keeneland September Yearling Sale began a fortnight ago, it’s hardly surprising that David Ingordo, one of the most sought after and successful bloodstock agents in the business did not have time to see me until the penultimate day. Traditionally the latter days of the Sale are quiet, the emptier barns and seats reflecting the dip in quality and price of stock as the sale days go by, but today there’s still a healthy buzz which bodes well for the business, as David explains,

“It’s been a little bit of a pleasant surprise, but I think people want horses. I thought it would be a good sale, and I’m glad that the actual market followed through. I’m not sure if you can attribute it to the tax break this year or not, but people love this industry. We’re already seeing the effects of less foals being born which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the proportion of the bad horses you lose is greater, but you do lose some of the quality too; you lose some from both ends of the spectrum. Just the fact that this sale is a day shorter this year as well, means that 600 or so lesser horses don’t come to market, or don’t get produced in the first place so those are all positives.”
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David estimates he’s probably looked at hundreds of thousands of horses already in his lifetime, whether at Sales, on the track, or on farms, so I ask him how he evaluates them when looking to buy,
“Every horse is an individual; there are positives and negatives to each one. I’m not looking to criticize every horse, but at some price points a lot of horses have value, so it’s just a matter of deciding if they have value to me or my clients, or not. 
You can’t put the saddle and bridle on a pedigree page, so the first thing I look at is the physical aspect. If the horse isn’t an athlete first and foremost then I’m not interested at any price, no matter what the pedigree. The second part is the pedigree though, and I’ll try to get as much as I can. 
 I look at a lot of horses, some of them I might not like and the guy next to me might – it doesn’t mean I’m right and he’s wrong or vice versa, but the horsemanship side comes into it – like a photographer, painter or chef.  There’s a little bit of an art that goes into this. There’s the nuts and bolts – is he correct? From the side, what’s his confirmation? Does he walk well? Are his feet good? Then there’s the extra ten percent that I say is horsemanship and being around horses a lot.  
X-ray’s and scopes are very important, they’re general tools to help you with the horse’s health but we’ve refined the process enough now that they’re fairly accurate. On the throat I’m pretty critical, but on the x-rays I’m very forgiving; if the horse is sound and looks okay, and the limbs are clean and the joints are tight, I’m a lot more forgiving than most people are.”
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I admit I can’t pick a winner at the races to save my life, but David might have better luck spotting potential sport horses; we look at a few horses together and I’m glad to report we agree on a couple of points – neither of us are keen on white feet giving them a “yellow, buttery look”, and we’re both partial to a “beautiful-bodied” chestnut, although David puts the kibosh on her, “her body would have caught my eye, but no foot no horse”. When I remark that another horse might be a tiny bit short in the neck for me, David says he “could do that on a Storm Cat” – touche! Although my favourite comment and one that I might have to steal, “that one looks like a jelly bean on legs”!
 David has been extremely active at this sale, spending millions of dollars on behalf of his clients and buying more than several dozen horses, but there were still horses he wanted that he didn’t manage to buy, and this rankles his competitive nature,
I’ve been bidding for some very wealthy people, but at a certain stage you just have to say we’ve gone far enough and we’ll find another one. Being the underbidder is kind of like being second, and I don’t want to be second. If I don’t get the horse, I’m upset, but good luck to the guy who did.
This is partly what drives David to be out here every single day, that and the fact that he genuinely loves and thrives on his work, 
“We work all the way to the end, we’re always looking because you never know what horse is going to come up.”
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David has been out at Keeneland every morning all day every day beginning at 7am since the Friday before the September Sales started;  on saturday night two weeks later when it’s all over he tells me he’ll probably fall into bed, but on monday morning he’ll start organising the payment and transport of his purchases. Most of the horses he’s bought will go down to his training center in Ocala for the winter before shipping out to trainers in the spring. David and his team will make physical notes on the horses, gather up the pedigrees and enter everything into their inventory, before the next Sale, the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. For David, there’s no break,
“I buy a lot of weanlings. I’m one of the bigger weanling pinhookers. I don’t spend a lot of money but I’ve had a good year. You have to be able to project, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what a foal will turn into. Every time I look at a horse I want to see something I can improve; even if it’s a million dollar horse it has to improve.” 
David, although still young to be so established in the business, is old school in many ways. He refuses to carry an Ipad like so many of his colleagues do, (“I like the physical book, I bend it, we’re outside, we’re in the rain and snow,  I drop it –  if I drop that Ipad, there goes the whole Sale!”) but makes notes in his catalogues, 
“Very simple; Usually I circle their name on the page, then an x if I don’t like them, a check if I do, and the best thing I give is a star! There’s a comment on this page, ‘ok body/ok confirmation’. I’m not trying to dazzle anybody, it works for me.  I have a little book that my assistant makes for me that I keep inside the catalogue of horses that I’m interested in to follow each day. We run a very successful operation on a few pieces of paper.” Indeed! 
Many thanks to David for sparing me time out of his hectic schedule to share some of the secrets of his genius with us. Check back in a few days for Part 2 of my interview at Lane’s End Farm, where he shows me a couple of his September Sale purchases and explains in more detail what attracted him to them. Go Thoroughbreds, racing or eventing! 
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