New Irish national hunt syndicate

We now have enough members in the syndicate to go to the Derby sales at the end of the month and find a really nice young horse to add to our winners so far. I still have three shares available @ £3k a share (or lower if horse costs us less) and €50 a week thereafter (based on actual costs rather than all-in, so you get the benefit when the horse is out-of-training etc).

Two shares left. Two weeks to Derby sale.

ok sounds good,when do i get my turn to have the horse,
do we all have the horse for a week each

Jordi, if you buy a 10% share then you own 10% of the horse. The horse is registered in the syndicate members name. None of these shady leasing deals. You buy into the syndicate, you buy into the horse. As long as you keep paying your share of the training and racing costs, then you retain ownership of your 10% of the horse. There isn't a catch.....other than needing the %u20AC3k to buy the share. But even that's at cost. No commissions. no-one skimming off the top. If we don't spend all of it, you get some cash back. That is until we buy the horse, and then we'll be increasing the price of the share to compensate for the risk we are taking. So with only a week to go to the sales, this is the last chance to get the share for %u20AC3k.

For some reason, it didn't like me using the euro symbol. The price of a share is three thousand euro.

Hi BI,

I assume you'll be in tatts thurs & fri.

Can you let me know what u think of lot 252 oscar/katie quinn?

Thanks

Jungle, I'm no expert and a lot would depend on how the horse looks and what you are looking for. Are you involved in this one or thinking of buying?

I wouldn't be mad keen on the pedigree. If you check out Oscar's nicks, mares by Supreme Leader, Be My Native and Phardante tend to produce winners when mixed with Oscar. Glacial Storm has  pretty poor record, probably because the others inject a bit of speed and Glacial Storms tend to be a bit slow. The mare wasn't good enough to win, and she has an unraced 7yo by Norwich,6yo by Dushyantor. So I'd be a little wary. They paid 37k for this fella in 2007 and isn't Moanmore Philip Fenton's operation? So he must have been a decent looker at the time, but then again the siblings would have been very young at that stage and none of them have helped the pedigree in the meantime. But having bought a Beat All (and being told we were daft), it's all about the horse and then look at the pedigree for negatives.

Thanks BI.

Was offered 1/2 sister to the Oscar so am a little undecided.
In fairness dam is full sister to control man who was a decent horse & she also won a p2p.

35k seemed a little pricey as a foal,it'll be interesting to see what he sells for.
I'll keep u posted.

Was Control Man not a longer distance chaser? Would that fit in with the family being a little slow?

Sorry, when I mean slow, I mean needing longer trips i.e. Control Man and the mare winning a p2p.

know what u mean BI,its the wizard king filly I'm looking at,so hope he injects some speed

in fairness control mans 1/2 brother won a bumper for henderson,so family are not all stayers

you hoping to buy many over next 2 days?

Just trying to buy the one. Budget is €20-25k and buying for a new syndicate. Could have bought a few today at the €10-15k level but little negatives so we didn't buy. Saw a lovely Lando but I don't know anything about him and he went for €23k so we could have bought him. But I have a few shares to sell so also know I need to buy a nice pedigree so we can sell shares. Lando might put others off.

We ended up buying a three year old by Oscar out of four time winning black type mare Sharesia (lot 448). He's a lovely racey type and his half sister won recently for Evan Williams. You can check out a picture of him on the website winningwaysracing.ie. A couple of shares are still available at €3,500 (which covers horse purchase, VAT and insurance) plus €50 a week.

Why has the price for a share jumped by €500 when the horse was bought relatively cheaply?

The horse cost €23k + 10% VAT/commissions + insurance for one year = circa €27k. Syndicate shares reduced from 10 to 9 shares (11% each) so that's €3k a share, at cost.

Those that committed to coming into the syndicate before we bought the horse get it at cost, as they should. Those that want to see what the horse is like first have to pay a premium for that. Also, I have to advertise the remaining shares, which isn't free, and I take the risk if they are not sold. Like everything else with Winning Ways, this is a very transparent process. I will make €500 from each of the last two shares but it will cost me €6,000 if I cannot sell them.

Thanks for that.

It is not overly appealing from a potential new member point of view, that up to €500 may be going straight into someone's pocket and they do not get the same treatment as one who may have seen this advertised before the sale. I appreciate the risk that you are taking, but that really is not a new member's problem and the 16.7% premium that they have to pay, in comparison to existing members could be offputting.

Temlett, I'm sorry you feel that way. I've brught 60 new syndicate members into racehorse ownership on the same basis. I need to fill a good portion of the syndicate before we buy. You must appreciate that you are turning around to people and saying "give me €3,000 of your hard earned cash, and by the way I don't know what we are going to spend that money on". They take the leap of faith but expect others have to pay more (and this is what memebrs have told me which I'm not complaining about). Or else why would they bother? You saw the ad before we bought the horse. I ask you, if you were interested enough, why didn't you join up then? Probably because you wanted to see what we bought. If you didn't like it, then you don't buy. I'm taking that risk, as I have in the past and I've managed to fill those shares with either existing members (who get it at cost) or new members (who pay a small, and it is small, premium).

Furthermore, one of the Irish flat/HN syndicate businesses will charge you a lot more to acquire a share and that's before the outrageous trainging fees. Interestingly, Derbyshire Racing, who I admire for their ability to pick cheap horses (well done Dave), had Aegean Destiny advertised here for £175 for 2.5%. That's a £7k valuation. Is that what they claimed the horse for? Was any profit taken? Are they doing it for free?

Winning Ways is very transparent. The only place I make any money is from selling on a few shares after we buy the horse, which offsets my risk, and a management fee of €400 per share per annum (which is included in the costings of €50 a week). If only all other syndicate businesses would say how much they make out of it. For example, full all in fees are still charged when the horse is out on grass for three months. Not with us. You pay the reduced "at grass" rate. Syndicate managers will tell you all-in-fees cover you against expensive surgery. Not true. When our horses need surgery and we get a bill for €2k, they are stading in their box for two months at a considerably lower "at rest" rate which offsets the cost of the surgery. In my eyes, transparency is key and that's why members get a set of financial statements supported by invoices and bank statements every 12 months.

Thanks for the response.

I am sorry if it sounded as I was being overly critical as that was not what was intended. If syndicate members are happy with that then fair enough. There is no way that I would go near some of the commercial syndicates that you refer to, or larger ones that you have not mentioned, as thre seems to be a lot of creaming off the top in those syndicates and they do not appeal at all. At least with your own syndicate, the potential member knows what he is getting into and if they are happy to pay a premium after the horse is bought then there are no problems going forward as the decision is made. It is foolhardy to think that you would not be making anything from it, so if it is outlined in advance, then things are clear.

I was not interested in joining before or after the purchase, as syndicates are not my thing. The purchase would not have made that much difference to me based on the page as you have to faith that the purchaser has looked at the individual etc and you have trust in what they were doing. Therefore if I had decided to go with an organisation I would be happy enough to trust them with their choice of horse.

Anyway good luck with the horses.

Good points Temlett.  Nice handle by the way!  Whatever happened to you?

What is it that The Terminator said?

Really? Did me a turn in the Ulster Derby one day

I just went on the website that BI has and looked at the picture of lot 448. He looks  an awful long horse for one with average depth, there is so much room on him you could fit two on his back.  It is how the price should be dropped by €500 not raised.  Anyway good luck to all concerned...

That is a bit harsh Mickie D.

I think the photo on the site is the least flattering of the 3 that I have seen. He is unfurnished but I have seen much worse that this and I actually quite like him as an individual. I am an inexperienced judge of horseflesh and my knowledge is book based. My ability to spot physical qualities in stores would be limited. There are better shots on the facebook site if you take a look. It is not meant to be promoting the horse by me by the way, but should at least refute or reason with your last post. The photos are under Our Latest Recruit on the site.

Mickie D, he's not a long horse, maybe it's just the way he's standing for the photo. I think Colm knows a long one at this stage. Although he's not been very good buying horses for us in the past......Brave Inca, Kimberlite King, Raise The Beat! Not to mention buying Zaarito for his syndicate.

The last thing I would say about Colm is that he's a bad judge of a horse. Like any horse, you can pick holes if you look long enough (as you have) but his beauty won't get him over the line in front. How he looks and how he moves are only indications. It's the substance in his movement and how he uses himself that are key (in our opinion), and you haven't seen either of those so how can you judge without knowing all the facts?

BI - as you say how could i judge.  I have only offered my opinion based on the photo which YOU have encouraged people to look at to see for themselves.  As you have seen from the below posts this is a game of opinions, you have put yours and other peoples hard earned behind lot 448, i have offered my opinion based on a photograph you have advertised.  As for Colm Murphy, Brave Inca i agree with (i imagine your handle BI has something to do with it), Raise the beat only starting in fairness but looks good so far.  As for K King, what a waste of talent, and upon my observation the way he was campaigned last year was strange to say the least.  Zaarito is a machine, perhaps he needs schooling however now and again :)

The problem may be with the photographer and not the horse!!

You might enlighten us on Kimberlite King's campaign.

Hindisight is helpful i admit - but it is clear that the horse was being handicapped, so why run him against osana and sports line in his first 2 chases? 2m/2m 2f is from what i have seen his best trip so he was entitled to win at fairyhouse the day he did (no price for his owners though so not great placing), what he was doing over 3m God knows and it bordered on cruelty running him lto at fairyhouse.  Racing should not have gone ahead that day and i vividly remember his fall/ur as i thought he was dead.  IMO he does not jump well enough to contest good handicap chases and is not as quick as he was a few seasons back and as such i feel he will be incredibly hard to place next season if not impossible to pay his way.

Mickie D, you make some valid points but also some incorrect assumptions.

The first was that he was being handicapped. He wasn't. If he was, we wouldn't have run him in a grade 3 hurdle as a novice when he was third to Go Native and Roberta Goldback. That meant he was never likely to get a mark below 110 over fences as he was in the 120s over hurdles. He came up against some good novices the first two times but we beat Wickham St 20 lengths on his second outing yet we got a mark the same as Wickham St so you can't say we are badly handicapped.

The second assumption is that he can win over 2m. He simply cannot jump quickly enough over that trip, as we saw against Across The Bay. Also, we had missed six or seven weeks over the Christmas/New Year snow period. So you had to take what you could get in order to win a race, and that race in Fairyhouse paid for his training fees for the winter. The 3 mile race was worth a hell of a lot of money so it was worth taking a chance, and better finding out if he stayed in a good race than a bread and butter race. Unfortunately, the ground was far quicker than described and we knew our fate before he put a foot on the track. So we never found out if he stayed or not.

The third assumption was that there was another novice handicap chase that he could have run in other than Fairyhouse. Other than open handicaps, where he would have no chance with his jumping, the only other novice handicap chase was the 2m one the previous day, won by Psycho. And as already noted, he can't jump as well at a shorter trip. You are right in saying the ground was atrocious. It was soft the day before but it deluged the whole night and morning of our race. But what are you supposed to do. There was no other novice handicap chase for him until Punchestown when the ground would be too quick. We weighed up the ground, which he loves, against the weight he had to carry and said, realistically, this was his last race of the season. He pulled himself up at the last, I don't blame him, I'd have given up at Ballyhack that day.

He will be difficult to place next season but he's won four races for us and if you tried to get him handicapped from the outset (over hurdles and fences), whose to say you would have won four handicaps with him when you see the likes of Willie Mullins, Tony Martin, Charles Byrnes etc finding a few stone with their horses. Handicaps are the hardest races of all to win in Ireland. At least, in the main, Tony Martin and Charles Byrnes avoid bumpers and conditions hurdles/chases. Sometimes it's easier to win those than handicaps.

At risk of this turning into a Kimberlite King post and gazumping your sales pitch/post this will be my last input.  I think myself and Temlett have said enough for fellas not investing in the original subject.
I think if you read my note again i have said his best tripe is 2m/2m2f but he does not jump well enough and as such will be difficult to place.  you spent 2 paragraphs saying i was wrong but effectively confirming what i said.  No idea where you go with him now as he is one of those horses trapped with no obvious programme for him.  Maybe send him down to hourigan or bolger and go play humpty dumpty races for a few years. Anyway good luck to you and your fellow owners - i think you will need it.

I wouldn't be as worried as you. All the ingredients are now there. You must remember that we missed 7 weeks of last national hunt season. Which for him, on his favoured soft ground (Nov to Feb) was nearly half of it. He's not run often enough on his favoured ground to say he is "trapped". He's on a favourable mark and if his jumping steps up then he should be able to offset any weights rises next season.

And I wasn't saying you were wrong, just that you weren't privy to all the information. I'm sure when you looked at him running over 3m, you just thought to yourself "that's mad, he won't stay" without thinking of what the alternative was or why we were running in the race. Plenty of horses do similar things during th season.

PS I still have those two shares available!!