BUYING YEARLINGS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 939, 5 March 1908, Page 5

BUYING YEARLINGS.

Investing in young thoroughbreds may be likened to searching for gold in new country. In both cases it is long odds against you striking it rich, but there is always the chance, and one good “find” makes up for a lot of “duffers.’ And so the prospector for the precious metal and the investor in yearlings are not dismayed by one, two or many disappointments. They go on while the funds last, in the hope that on one happy day the pick will expose a “jeweller’s shop,” or a bid secure a Mountain King. Then, when that lucky hour arrives, you can afford to forgive the past, and view the future with something like contentment. But how rare are “jeweller’s shops” and Mountain Kings?

A great authority once gave it as his opinion that to the whole of the British Isles no more than three horses of the highest class are produced in any season. The average is probably less. It has been admitted that in some seasons in England it is difficult to even find one performer on the Turf entitled to be put in the “front row” if judgment is made by the highest standard. There have been Derby winners that proved to be quite ordinary animals when pitted against the best form of the day. Sir Visto was a case in point. It must, though, be admitted that the winning of a race like the Epsom Derby generally carries a certificate of high merit with it, and, as a rule, the colt or filly that gains the Blue Riband of the English Turf manages to confirm the form in subsequent tests of speed and stamina. , L , If the percentage of the best class of horses is so low in any given year in England, how much less must it be in Australia? For, at a rough guess, there are probably four foals that see the light every year in England to the one in Australia. So it will be seen that the chance of having a Mountain King knocked down to you at the ringside is very remote, especially as in every season many of the most piomising yearlings do not come under the hammer at all, but are withheld from sale. Mountain King himself, for instance, was not offered for public competition. He is still owned by his breeder, who from the first in all likelihood looked forward to the gigantic chestnut making a sire some day. Had he entered the ring as a yearling, Mountain King would, no doubt, have made a lot of money. And it often pays to go to a high figure for a yearling, though it often happens that the most costly are not the best in this connection. There are high-priced failures every season, while “cheap lots” are sometimes more than useful, but “the man with the money” is often rewarded for enterprise at the yearling sales ,as elsewhere. There was talk of “the fool and his money,” etc., when Sievier gave ten thousand for Sceptre as a youngster, but it turned out one of the most profitable speculations ever made in horseflesh. Still, the “little man” need not despair altogether. His “hundred” occasionally brings in a good winner, while the thousands of the “capitalists’ miss the mark. Remember Newhaven, for one. There were several more expensive yearlings than the Newminster colt sold on the same afternoon; in fact, he was one of the comparatively cheap lots. Yet he won the Maribyrnong Plate, Derby, Melbourne Cup, and other races in Australia, and then went to England and landed, amongst other events, the City and Suburban Handicap. And there may be a Newhaven to be picked up at the same price, or less, at the sales this Autumn. It is mostly a lottery, and one never knows what the “lucky bag” may send forth. —“Melbourne Sporting News.”