Black Type: The "Value Adder"

Extract from the Summerhill National Yearling Sales Brochure

Rebel KingThere’s a saying in the Bible that goes something like “it’s more difficult to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” While the former test is for some daunting occasion in future, as producers of racehorses, we can identify with the “camel” version.

You see, the most precious commodity in racing is knowing the inside of the best piece of real estate in the game: the Big Race Winners’ Circle. Apart from keeping the cash registers ringing, Black type performers rattle up the “added value” with every successful visit to the racecourse. There’s no end, it seems, to what one rich man will pay to beat another.

The problem is finding these horses. They’re said to be as rare as hens’ teeth. Unless you visit the statistics, where the log for 2007 shows that Summerhill horses have a strike rate of 14% Stakes winners. That means a staggering one-in-seven are Black type heroes, while as near as “dammit” to one-in-five earns a place cheque in the same company.

Sitting where we are, we’re not quite sure what to make of all this talk about “camels” and “needles”. Because our customers seem to have unlocked the Keys to the Kingdom.