Our van driver/guide was Sean. He has been involved in various aspects of the horse racing business and was quite knowledgeable. Our tour, which lasted nearly four hours, started with a short visit to WinStar, a large, very upscale operation. Sean told us, I think, that Winstar has four of its colts running in this week's Kentucky Derby. (Update, 4/27: One of their candidates has been withdrawn.) (Susie thinks it's decadent for people to spend so much money it this way. She wonders how much money they give to the poor.) Sean told us about a Sheikh Mohammed, I approximate his name and title, of Dubai who has made a huge investment in KY. He told the city of Lexington, No, you can't expand your airport because it would disturb my horses.
Here's a castle we drove by that was built by someone trying to impress his wife. He bet a friend $100 that he could get his wife to move from England to Kentucky, so he built this castle, but it took him four years and by that time his wife had left him. Now this is an expensive B&B.
I didn't get any decent WinStar pictures, but here is a photo from the gallery at their website. The "farm" covers around 2000 acres and has several "barns" like this.
The stallion barn is nicer than my house, for sure, was the line Sean used to describe the barn we visited.
WinStar's star stallion is Distorted Humor (haven't you always wanted to name a race horse?). His stud fee is $100,000 for a lfsn, which means live foal, stands and nurses. We saw him in his stall, well-protected. Here's a website picture. Handsome fellow.
Stallions breed 3-5 times a day, for five months a year, more if mares are shipped from the southern hemisphere, so you can see what a moneymaker Distorted Humor is (among his many attributes).
(The southern hemisphere has a different date for setting a horse's age. Here it is Jan. 1 - a horse is officially one year old on the first Jan. 1 after its birth, so it's advantageous to be born soon after Jan. 1. You may know, people have done studies on birth date effects. For example, youth soccer teams are defined by a player's age on Jan. 1. Thus, a child born in Jan. is 11 months older than a child born in Dec., but they will be in the same age category and on the same teams. The older child is generally more developed and more likely to stand out in ability. The theory is that they tend therefore to get more attention and coaching -- are selected for all-star teams, etc. -- and so top-flight adult soccer players tend to have birthdates early in the year. Susie notes that the same effect is true of school children. Ain't statistics interesting?)
Of course, breeding requires a mare to be in heat, but owners can do things like put a mare "under lights" to trick her body into thinking it's ovulating time. Incidentally, you can't breed by artificial insemination or it won't be a thoroughbred.
Sean said it would take $100 million to buy Distorted Humor! What's so special about this horse? Well, he is one of only three horses in history who sired 20 or more stakes winners in a single year. (UPDATE: 4/28. I went down to Churchill Downs for the early morning workouts and picked up the Thoroughbed Daily News. It had a listing of Leading Sires, year-to-date, and Distorted Humor was rated number 1. His ninth crop is now running.
We made a pit stop at a country glitzy/antique-gift shop located in Nonesuch, KY, then had a long and very interesting visit to the Pauls Mill Farm, a more understated and maybe more authentic horse farm.
Pauls Mill Farm is just being developed as a thoroughbred breeding farm (by an experienced breeder who recently moved to this locale -- which is probably 20+ miles from Lexington -- it took about a half-hour to get there via winding backroads; Sean told us that there are around 400 horse farms in a 35 mile radius from Lexington) and in fact the first foal born on the farm under current ownership was born in Jan. this year. The best known stallion (to me) of the three currently "standing" there is Bellamy Road I remembered the name. He was owned by George Steinbrenner, won theWood Memorial race as a 3-year old, and was the favorite for the 2005 Kentucky Derby. He injured a leg in that race and finished out of the money. He went to stud (or whatever they say) in 2007. His first crop of 2-yr. olds is now racing, so as an unproven sire his entry-level stud fee is "just" $10,000 lfsn. Here he is.
The staff there was glad to have visitors and spent time telling us about the whole breeding operation. We even got to see it happen, but no pictures for this family blog. The handlers do some pretty unusual things to improve the odds of a lfsn, but I'm sure it's all pretty routine for them. Susie said: Gross.
The above Pauls Mill website has some beautiful pictures of the farm (which I can't seem to be able to copy and paste), so check those out. Some of my shots:
A group of yearlings:
Mare and very young colt. The big guy in the red shirt was a very intimate friend of the mare and stallion during the breeding operation.
Sean told us about the economics of fencing. Black paint costs $6000/mile and has to be redone every seven years; the traditional white paint costs $18,000/ mile and has to be redone every three years. Hence, black dominates. I like the look. The famous Calumet Farm is the classic white. Here's an internet picture.
One of the couples was personal friends of Sean, so they had signed up for his tour. They also were players/dabblers, we soon gathered, in the racing business. They owned small shares in a couple of horses, I think. We really weren't interested in the full story, but it couldn't be avoided. You could tell that they thought they were pretty big players. They were going to be going to races at Keeneland and occupying their syndicate's suite. They were eager to display their knowledge, not loudly, but incessantly. They engaged in lots of inside-baseball commentary with Sean. I think they were showing off for their business partners. Susie got Sean aside and asked if since this couple were monoplizing the conversation was this preventing him from telling the rest of us what he wanted to about the horse business. He said, No, not a problem, but he understood her concern. Susie still felt that their "performance" was taking away from our tour and the $$$$ we spent on it. Oh well, it was a great tour nevertheless.
Moreover, they had a daughter, Tracey, who is attending an equine school in Lexington, so she knew horses, too. We heard a whole lot about Tracey. (Susie at one point whispered to me, If I hear Tracey mentioned one more time I'm going to strangle someone.).
My favorite travel writer is Paul Theroux. He often writes about the travelers he meets. I remember one encounter on a train trip through South America. This fellow traveler had the habit of noticing and tersely announcing every item of interest just before Theroux noticed it: mission, team of oxen, mountain, ..., until Theroux was ready to scream. We had a Theroux-like experience.
I should mention the other group in our party: a mother and four daughters who lived on a farm in upstate NY. A very nice family group. They had once owned horses, but no longer. They had come to Lexington to see a big equestrian show at the end of the week. Sean said to Mom, You might not want to let your girls see the breeding action. She said, No problem. They've seen it all on the farm.
All in all, we enjoyed seeing a working horse farm. Susie insisted I give Sean a big tip, so there were no hard feelings.
Tomorrow we make the short drive to Cincinnati and prepare for a weekend of soccer.
Cheers,
Susie and Rob
1 comment:
wow what a nice place! I wish I owned that!
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