From Lauren:
Your Weekly “Why Does My OTTB (insert weird quirk here)?” Q&A
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Happy New Year, Eventing Nation! Firstly, please accept an apology for my absence since Christmas. I have been moving (myself and 20 horses) and it has been a task so monumental I haven’t even turned my computer on during the last two weeks. With things final settling down, though, I am back again and writing up a storm. This week, with a limited number of questions to answer, none of which addressed new topics that haven’t previously been covered, I have decided to offer a few suggestions and some information regarding what to look for when evaluating the racetrack performance of an OTTB that is for sale, where to look for the information, what all of the jibber jabber actually means, and how indicative a racing career may be of future suitability for Eventing (or other disciplines, for that matter). Enjoy!
To try to put this as simply as possible (nothing about evaluating an OTTB is simple, really!), I will detail to you, dear readers, the process that I embark upon when I get one of those text messages/emails/phone calls/Facebook tags/Craigslist alerts. You know the ones that I mean; where promises of fame, glory, gold medals, Rolex watches, four white socks and a blaze are all made…for the bottom basement price for $500 (or $1500 or $2000). That is clearly a steal for all of those wonderful probabilities, really. Well golly gee, let’s just hook up the trailer and go fetch WhatDreamsAreMadeOf with cash in hand. PUMP. THE. BRAKES. Every single time an OTTB pops up on my radar screen, there are several crucial research items that must be checked off before I even call the owner or go see the horse. Begin as follows:
- Ascertain horse’s NAME and, if possible, acquire a PICTURE. Little to no research can be done on an OTTB without knowing his or her registered Jockey Club name. Pookey Magee/Geronimo/Billy/Wiz/Old Nag are not gonna cut it. And, while I am not completely opposed to going to see a horse without having first seen a picture, even the terrible Craigslist pictures and butt shots, a lot of horses can be ruled out of earn lots of points on pictures alone (or a video is even better of course, even if just of the walk). At least in most images, the angles of shoulder/hip/lower limbs and the absence of angular limb deformities and injuries can be established. It is worth mentioning that this is not the case in all pictures and videos. I kid you not, an owner recently sent a client of mine a video of a horse for sale that featured a nose to tail trail ride and centered upon the visage of an equine derrière between the tips of two ears. The pony patootie looked to be well muscled and basically level and that was certainly a plus but when these attributes were mentioned to the owner of the horse for sale, she was quick to correct us that “Oh no! The horse for sale is the one being ridden in the video. Aren’t his ears just the cutest! And you can clearly see he is behaving himself.” Some people.
- Okay, now that you have learned the OTTB-for-sale’s name, you can really get down to business. It is imperative that the spelling of the name is correct, but once you are certain of that (ask the owner at least 3 times to spell it out), your very first resource should be EQUIBASE. When you access the homepage, you will see a box in the upper right-hand corner of the screen that is blank and features an adjacent drop-down menu with the word ‘Horses’ selected (other options include Jockeys, Trainers, and Owners which can later be a useful tool). Type the name of your prospect into this box and click search. Here is an example of what will come up for any horse, in this case COURAGEOUS COMET HORSE PROFILE.
- The most basic information is there. Given name, state foaled in, color, date of birth, sire, dam, dam’s sire, and connections as of last start. Next, current year statistics and career statistics will be listed, followed by a breakdown of all years in a line graph form and then a drop down menu with all results featuring links to charts.
- In conjunction with my Equibase searches, I also open up another window and search the horse’s name in PEDIGREE QUERY. If the breeding cannot be found of Pedigree Query, there are other ways to go about finding out genetic details but some of them cost money and most are more complicated.
- After I have established that the horse is decently bred (I should not be looking quizzically at every name wondering who the heck those horses are), is the age that he or she is reported to be, and basically matches the information that the owner has given me, I start to delve a little deeper. If the horse does not match information given to me by the owner, the red flags start shooting up.
- I usually work my way from the top to the bottom of the horse profile. I begin by quickly glancing over trainer statistics and owner details. Often not much help, but if the trainer and/or owner has a lot of horses running, I quickly evaluate their performance and class to get an idea of what sort of stable this horse is coming out of.
- Looking at the year and career statistics is helpful in establishing how many times the horse has raced, how successful he or she has been, how much money he or she has made (which indicates the level at which the horse is running), and I make a general note of the ‘Highest E’ which is sort of a complicated indicator to explain but just know that the closer to 100 the better. Over 100, you have a G1 stakes horse in most cases. Above 75, you have an allowance performer. Between 75 and 50, you have a claiming horse that is getting the job done. Below 50, you may not be able to outrun SlowPoke.
- Moving on to the All Years drop down tab, you can immediately establish the length of the horse’s career, the frequency of competition, and the success rate within those races.
- The Results drop down tab may produce an intimidating list of races and details. Don’t be alarmed. Most immediately, you will be able to establish when, where, and at what class the horse ran each and every time he or she ran a race. You can click on the track name for details about location and racing dates, you can make note of the dates the races were run and whether or not there are any significant layoff periods in between races ( the average racehorse races every 3 weeks or so), you can determine at what class your prospect started his or her foray into racing (Maiden Special Weight is the top class, followed by Maiden Claiming which can vary in price from $100,000-$2,500), and whether or not the horse was a consistent performer or yo-yo’d up and down the ranks with an inconsistent level of ability, fitness, soundness, or training.
- The little green icons on the end of the results lines are links to downloadable charts that detail every single thing that happened before, during, and after the race. My next article will provide a tutorial of how to interpret these and while they may look like a mess of hieroglyph and mumbo jumbo, they will soon become as easy to read as a children’s book, have no fear!
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I do hope that some of the information above has demystified to OTTB-hunting and evaluating process. I encourage you to send any further, horse-specific or general-knowledge questions to me via email ([email protected]) for more in-depth and on-point answer. I need questions badly! I’ll even bake you cookies if your whole barn will send one question per rider! Go Eventing, go gallop a former racehorse, and may 2013 be your best year yet.
