Stud Fee's

[Silver Charm]

TGJB care to comment on some of these market crashing drops.

Ghostzapper-$15K
Smarty Jones-$10K

Neither one of these have been around long enough to warrant drops from maybe 6 figure levels to half or one third of More Than Ready.

Positive is its good for buyers

[richiebee]

Silver:

Even in this current economy, the end result will be that each of these stallions
will probably see 100- 120 mares.

Mr Farish of Lanes End seems to be holding quite a hand -- Champion sires AP Indy
and Smart Strike, plus the superbly bred Mineshaft and Rock Hard Ten, who\'s off to
a decent start.

Smart Strike\'s accomplishments over the last 3 years extraordinary-- a leading
stallion in many categories the last 2 years, plus Curlin, English Channel,
Fabulous Strike and now Looking at Lucky (who will probably be forced East sooner
than later by wet westrern weather).

[Silver Charm]

GZ was a homebred but Smarty came in an LBO that wasn\'t cheap. I\'m not knocking anybody it but there pressure to get this horse bought which ended his career after the Belmont

Now he stands for peanuts after a couple years at stud

WOW!!

[sighthound]

Stud fees are greatly influenced by what the progeny will ultimately sell for.  In other words, the yearling market still sucks, this year\'s yearlings will still be sold based upon the higher stud fees their owners paid before the recession, so smart stallion owners are keeping their studs affordable for the babies that will sell in 2012-2013.

In other words, some \"market crashing drops\" in stud fees have little to do with how good their progeny is - rather what the market can afford to pay for them.

[Funny Cide]

Disagree with you, Sighthound.  Stud fees are directly proportional to how good the stallions progeny are on the track and how they sell at the sales.  Smarty is a serious concern for members of his syndicate, with his 3rd crop now set to run this year and he\'s yet to make any serious noise.  Ghostzapper is of concern because he didn\'t have any hot 2yos and it\'s going to be hard to talk breeders into sending their mares to him this year.  The verdict\'s still out on him, though, but his kids need to make some noise this year as they run at 3.  I suspect he was bred to more classic-distanced mares so it might not be surprising he didn\'t have any early offspring.  I do think he\'ll make some noise this year and he\'ll be ok.  Would be a shame if he doesn\'t make it as a sire given his brilliance.

[sighthound]

Yes, it was the sales part I was talking about.

[Cartman]

I think there is an interrelationship between purses, success of progency on the track, yearling prices, and stud fees. With stud fees and yearling prices seemingly falling off their peak, but Graded purses more or less holding a bit steadier, that could bode well for racing. The economic calculation may now favor racing top horses a little longer to earn purses in some of the marginal cases where it made more sense to retire and breed. THis is something I\'ve been expecting and hoping for. It may be bad news for many in the breeding business, but it\'s good news for buyers of horses and fans of racing. Anything that lowers yearling prices and stud fees in relation to purses is great news for fans of racing.

[dannyboy135]

I believe ghostzapper is at 30k
and smarty is 10k

both have gotten off to a less than stellar start, but I have seen others such as Sky mesa who was down to 15k and now represents really good value at 25k.  I also think that while Mineshaft has been dismissed by the commercial breeders he is really good value @ 20k and I would n\'t be surprised to see his career resurrected

[Silver Charm]

The DRF listed GZ at $15K. That was my source. Stronach has several six figure sires so he could afford to lower GZ if he isn\'t being that productive very very early in order to keep a full book. Also as I said this one is a homebred. This is his own money.

Smarty Jones is another story and maybe other than the Sheik maybe the rush to syndicate and retire a 3YO as soon as the Belmont is declared official is over.....

And again not trying to knock anybody. These are big boys who put up their money and know the risks. But $100K to $10K in about three years means they have only gotten about half their money back.

Maybe others more informed than me can weigh in. .