How much is too much?

Everyone has there own opinion on how much a horse might be worth and a lot of factors go into each person's opinion.

How much racing potential does the horse have?  If it's an older racer, is there still gas in the tank?  Do I think a seemingly mediocre horse has just been mismanaged and I can turn it around?  Maybe it's a proven winner who is on the downslide but I want to add him to my stable as a source of prestige?

It may be a needed stallion or broodmare candidate, or perhaps it is just the offspring of a stallion or mare that I admire.  Maybe I just like the name...

The point is, how I perceive the value may differ vastly from how another stable owner feels.

When Pointgiven Stables paid $6,000,000 for Gradient, I thought the man had lost his mind.  However, it turned out to be a tremendously shrewd investment.  

We've all seen bad deals go down.  Glenmore Park paid $5,510,000 for the stallion Imperiosso, an above average racer who won the 2014 Dubai World Cup, but otherwise had a fairly checkered racing career. Bought for that exorbitant price strictly as a breeder, Imperiosso, who has not sired a foal since 2016, now resides at Endless Vista, having generated virtually zero in breeding fees for Glenmore Park.

Showing that turnabout is fair play, our friends at Glenmore Park got the better end of a deal two years later when yours truly at Otsego Farms paid $4,000,000 for the filly Xtra Gold.  I thought Xtra Gold had a couple more big seasons of racing in her, but that proved to be incorrect.  She was hit-and-miss, winning just $350,000 in her only season of racing at Otsego Farms.  Hopefully, she will pan out as a broodmare so I can recoup the large investment I made.  It is possible that some of you may think that $4M is not too much to pay for a broodmare with her potential. You see?  We all see things differently.  My best mare is In Spirit.  She produces winners and she cost me a reasonable $400,000.  So yes, I think I overspent on Xtra Gold.

I have shaken my head in admiration and in disbelief at some of the deals I've seen over the years.  No matter how educated we all  get... there will always be purchases and sales that defy our own perception of logic;  because we all see things differently, don't we?