While I was lamenting my downward turning fortunes a couple of seasons ago, my friend Steven of Golden Acres suggested that I start breeding more foals. "It's the only way you can get and stay successful", he said.
I was very lucky early in my career. I bought Nightwing and Predator in my first season and watched them ring up almost $9M in earnings. Then a couple seasons later, War Machine ran amok and added $12M to the bank account. Union Jack then came along and chipped in another $6M.
I didn't give breeding much thought at the time. Why bother? I was raking in the dough easy enough and I didn't need to house broodmares and stallions or wait 2 years for the foals to begin racing.
Then my luck ran out. My string of successful horses petered out and I had no breeding infrastructure in place to reestablish my stock.
I tried to buy some veteran racers who were a little past their prime, and had some success with the likes of Big Easy, Petenwell, and Confederation. But that strategy eventually proved to be a dead end. Buying castoff youngsters always seemed to end disastrously.
With my resources flagging and my patience ebbing, I got the sage advice from Steven.
So, I spent some cash and got a few mares. Virtually every one handpicked for specific attributes. Now, I am producing 8-10 foals every year and I'm seeing positive results that I feel will put Otsego Farms back on the map. A couple that I have coming up that I'm particularly excited about are Juggernaut and French Twist (click for AR's).
Cya at the track!
2 comments:
Hahaha i remember telling u a long time ago to breed as many as u can aswell and yes u are having a good start to the season (better than mine)
P.S. when u click on the horses names it just goes to a blank page
Foxie
Hmmm. When I click on them I see the AR's.
Yeah I remember you also telling me that Foxie.
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