"This racehorse is as honest as they come. He's not blessed with blinding speed or endless stamina, but he'll give you a solid effort every time out." So said Otsego Farms owner Jim Webber when asked about 5yo Shatterstar finally reaching the $1,000,000 earnings plateau.
"He's been in-the-money in 26 out of 33 career races and has finished either first or second in over half of his starts", Webber continued. "You gotta love a producer like that."
It has taken some time for Shatterstar to reach this milestone because he has never won a GR1 race and has had only one purse that exceeded $100,000.
There was some speculation that Shatterstar would be sold to make room for younger racers once the magical $1M mark was reached. Those rumors were quickly squelched by Webber. "No way I'm selling this guy. He's coming back next year as a 6yo for another season."
Which will make him just the second horse in Otsego Farms history to have a 5-year career whilst wearing the blue and yellow. Can you guess the other?
4 comments:
War Machine had a pretty short peak I think. He ran in the BC Sprint as one of his last races (because he couldn't handle the longer distances anymore) as a 4yo?
Union Jack was retired early from memory, and Nightwing probably would've been too because you didn't have a stallion before him.
The only other horses of yours that I know off the top of my head - other than the recent buys like Methy Bus and Kayson - are In Spirit (because I was a bit miffed you got her so cheap, but you bought her already retired so it's not her) and Shattered Record (because you outbid me for her years and years ago).
That was when I was still in high school, so it was a lot of seasons ago. Wouldn't her oldest foal be too old for her to have raced for five seasons though? She'd only be 11 now, I think.
Now cheating a bit and looking at the list on the right-hand side of the page (and assuming you still own the horse in question, which is a bit of a leap) she's all I can think of. I don't know who Art of Seduction is, but it looks like the list is in age order so he'd be a 2yo.
If it's not Shattered Record (and I don't really think it is, though it'd be cool of mother and son were the two), I don't know who it is. I don't think you've owned many of your broodmares for a long time, it can't be another racer because he's your oldest and I don't think it's any of the stallions.
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Just checked. It's not Shattered Record.
If you remembered all of that, about another stable, from memory... I'm very impressed.
Because no one else will probably care to hazard a guess, I'll spill the beans. It was Union Jack.
You mentioned that you were miffed that I got In Spirit so cheaply. I find that interesting because at the time, I thought that was quite a bit of money for a broodmare. She was just sitting there in EV. I picked up Second Strike the same way.
Prices have since gone through the roof for decent mares, so I guess, in retrospect, those were very good buys.
I was going to guess Doomsday lol, he was a gutsy old bugger.. Love Shatterstar! One of the biggest mistakes newbies always make when starting out is spending a lot of young or unraced horses when they can get a consistent older horse for cheap. It confuses me to be honest.
Doomsday would have been a very good guess Josh, except he did not run as a 2yo.
I agree on your other point. I still haven't warmed up to the idea of paying big dollars for unraced youngsters. Way too speculative for my blood.
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