Another chapter begins

It's been a(nother) busy week, but a good one. The highlight has been the arrival of a lovely horse, who emerged from the first day of the December Sale (Monday) which is the day of the sale given over to yearlings. We'd looked at several on the Sunday and of, the ones who passed muster on inspection, the one to find his way here was a very well-bred and very handsome colt. He's by a very good stallion (Nayef) and is closely related to quite a few decent horses, most obviously his half-brother The Geezer, who was second to Scorpion in the St Leger six years ago after winning a Listed race at Haydock and the Gordon Stakes at Glorious Goodwood. You might recall that The Geezer then formed part of a multi-million-pound package sold by Jeff Smith to Godolphin, which also included the Prix Jean-Luc Lagadere runner-up Opera Cape. It transpired that Jeff Smith got substantially the better part of that deal, but at the time The Geezer did look like a realistic Gold Cup candidate for 2006 and beyond. So that's really good, and I hope that these photographs of him being taken off for his post-sale wind test make it easy to understand our excitement at his arrival. In case, by the way, the man leading him looks vaguely familiar, you might be interested to know that that is Dickie McCabe, whose claims to fame are that he was a multiple stable lads' boxing champion and that he did the Derby winner 30 years ago. And as the Derby winner 30 years ago was Shergar, you can understand why Dickie's place in Newmarket's folklore is secure.

This horse when he arrived here was, of course, a colt. He's no longer, which is great as it maximises the chance of his fulfilling whatever potential he has as a racehorse, as well as ensuring that his life while he does so will be as enjoyable as possible. (And that latter aspect, of course, helps us to achieve the former, as horses are no different to humans: you function best when you're enjoying your life). Of all the horses we looked at, this seemed arguably the least biddable, but one can't read much into that as horses who seem very docile at the sales can end up quite fiery, and vice versa. So that's not an issue - we just go back to an area upon I've touched previously, in that as I see things horses should be gelded at the first opportunity rather than the last. Basically, the arguments in favour are that it is much easier for geldings to focus on their work, for obvious reasons. There is an argument to say that it's easier to keep geldings sound, but I'm not sure about that and I'm not really that bothered in agonising over that one. But basically, the geldings can have a much more enjoyable life while in training: they can go out in the field every day with other geldings and with fillies, but the life of a colt in training is really rather wretched. In practice, colts have to be confined at all times other than when they are exercising as you just can't allow them to socialize with other horses. It's obvious why you can't let them socialize with female horses, and if you let them socialize with other males you usually end up with fights on your hands. So the colt doesn't have a nice life in training at all. And so he gets frustrated; and you very often find that he's harder to handle because of it, so finds himself at odds with his captors, which just makes his life even less pleasant. So it's a no-brainer as far as I can see.

There is, of course, one reason for keeping colts as colts, and that is because gelding them takes away the chance of their becoming stallions at studs. But, in practice, the chances of that coming to pass are, even at the outset, so miniscule that if you're living in the real world, you shouldn't be factoring this into your equation. I think and hope that this horse will be very good. But good enough to become a stallion? Well, his half-brother The Geezer wasn't. He won a Listed race and a Group Three race as a three-year-old and was second in a Group One, but he couldn't be found a place at stud, and was instead gelded and given away on the Darley re-homing programme. So this horse would need to be considerably better than The Geezer to be considered for stud. He's going to be a stayer, and basically there is just so little demand for stayers at stud that we'd be kidding ourselves if we said that he was at all likely to develop into a stud prospect - which is, of course, a view universally shared, because he would have fetched considerably more than 24,000 gns (or would have been unsold at that figure) if either other bidders or his breeder had felt that he was a realistic stallion prospect. And, if by some miracle he does end up considerably better than The Geezer and we are ruing his lack of testicles, then I'll silently be contemplating the fact that that lack of testicles has probably been a major factor in helping him to achieve as much as he has achieved. There is, of course, a more general point that, if everyone maximizes their chances of turning their colts into durable and successful racehorses by gelding them, then you can get into the situation that the breeding industry in general finds itself bereft of stallions to keep the lines going, as has happened on occasions in New Zealand when they've found that many of their best sires (eg Star Way, Noble Bijou, Zabeel - and it was probably just lucky that two of the best sons of Sir Tristram - Marauding and Zabeel -were owned by Robert Sangster and Sheikh Hamdan respectively, as otherwise they'd have been geldings and, although they would have enjoyed more fruitful racing careers, they wouldn't have become stallions) don't become noted sires of sires simply because their best sons are all geldings. That, though, isn't an issue in this side of the world, where the vast majority of nice colts remain colts until they've proved that they are not potential stallions, so we needn't be worrying about that and I thus don't think that we need to be losing any sleep about not doing our bit to keep the Mr Prospector sire-line alive!

Anyway, that's our latest recruit. We'll get him broken shortly and then turned back out again to get a bit older before we ask him to do very much, but he's already off at Colton Stud to spend a week or so unwinding from the sale and getting used to being a gelding before we bring him back and break him in. There wasn't going to be a suitable mate for him there so I've sent my own yearling Roy (another gelding) off to keep him company, which is lovely for Roy. As these photographs show, the two already look the best of friends, which is great as I'm sure that they'll be spending a lot of time together over the forthcoming weeks, months and years. And they look more than happy with their lot. I'm delighted that this horse is here and delighted to be able to say that we're giving him the best chance both to achieve his utmost and to enjoy his life as he does.

In the meantime, we'll go to Towcester tomorrow to see if Asterisk can build on the glimmer of promise which she showed on her hurdles debut at Lingfield a couple of weeks ago.