NEWS
King Wesley
Posted: Saturday, June 01, 1996
Don't knock inbreedingI once ventured into racehorse ownership. It would have been successful, too, but for the temerity of my wife.
As an equine veterinarian, I faithfully attend all the local sales because there is always the chance that someone will need a vet and I can make a buck or two. Also, out-of-town horsemen have at times asked me to bid for them. While attending a yearling sale one year, I noticed a plain bay colt being groomed early in the morning and I liked his looks. I asked the young woman working on him what his number was.
"One-twenty-one," she replied.
I looked him up in the catalog. It was an amazing pedigree: He was closely inbred.
The sire, Westward Looker, had been a good racehorse-he had earned more than $500,000-but his pedigree was borderline and he had not met with great success as a sire. "Moderately useful" is the best that could be said of him.
The colt's dam had been a nice race filly but not outstanding. She won two races and placed in a couple of cheap stakes, but the interesting part: She was a half sister to Westward Looker himself.
This made the colt inbred 2 x 2 to the dam of Westward Looker, herself a stakes-placed winner. Many pedigree "experts" call this "intense" inbreeding but it is not. Sure, it is close, but that is all.
Inbreeding
People associate inbreeding with mutations, freaks of nature, and lack of vigor because it has been drummed into our heads that the closeness of the genes can bring forth deleterious and detrimental characteristics, but the same gene closeness can just as easily bring forth desirable characteristics. Inbreeding to a good performer may well produce another good performer. I do not know if the colt's breeder had this in mind when he planned the mating or if he just got his wires crossed, but the potential interested me.
The colt was handsome, actually resembling his sire to a great extent. Maybe, I thought, he would resemble his sire in performance, too. I decided to be present when he entered the ring. I wanted to see what he brought.
When his time came, people were pointing at him and laughing. The announcer made a joke about his pedigree.
The bidding on him was slow. It started at $1,000 after the auctioneer pleaded and went up $200 or $300 a crack as the bids were begged. The auctioneer started to knock him down at $2,500, but I thought it was too cheap. I bid $2,700. Somebody came back at $3,000 so I figured, 'Okay, he's yours.'
But then someone else came in at $3,200, and the bidding made another slow, tedious climb, finally reaching $4,700. Once again, the knockdown was coming.
"$5,000. Do I hear $5,000? $5,000?" The hammer was poised.
Someone near me said, "Who in the hell would pay that much money for that?"
That offended me. There was nothing wrong with him or his pedigree. I raised my hand. The spotter made his sound-something between a shout and a burp-signifying he saw me, and the hammer fell.
Sold for $5,000
"$5,000," said the auctioneer. "Billy." He nodded toward my spotter.
Billy, in turn, nodded at me. I had bought a horse.
When I got home, my wife's less-than-overjoyed response to my announcement was, "You did what!?!" I sensed displeasure.
A discussion ensued, most of which centered around my lack of responsibility and "money-grows-on-trees" mentality, and the result was a mutual agreement to sell him as a two-year-old in training.
(In fairness to my present wife, this wife was a very pretty lady who never quite adjusted to the life of a horse doctor. She could never get used to a husband who was gone from February to July and then was constantly underfoot from July to February and the accompanying seasonal income variance.)
The colt turned out to be a nasty booger so I gelded him, then turned him over to a woman trainer I knew who agreed to give me a break on her normal rates. I arranged for an exercise rider who owed me $200 I would never see. He was a good rider if not financially solvent.
The now-gelding, whom I had named King Wesley, broke and trained uneventfully. One day I asked Barbara, the trainer, if he looked as if he had any ability.
"No," she answered, "he's just another horse. And hard to work with."
I still wanted to race him but this opinion made me feel better about my agreement to sell him. Barbara repeated her opinion later and said she hoped I would get my initial investment back. I did not relay that to my wife.
Two-year-olds in training sale
The weekend of the two-year-olds in training sale arrived. By sale rules, the entrants were paired randomly to perform on the track for potential buyers. King Wesley was a one-horse consignment and he was assigned to work with a well-bred colt out of a 16-horse consignment.
Preston, the exercise rider, asked, "What do you want me to do with him?"
"Just take it easy," I said, "but don't let him get embarrassed."
"I'll talk to the other horse's trainer and see what he plans to do with his horse and I'll just stay with him,"
Preston suggested.
He came back to me a half-hour later. "He said he just wants the buyers to see how his horses move. He's gonna take it easy so I'll just keep Wesley alongside him."
The horses went to the track in the designated pairs. The onlookers were betting among themselves as each duo performed.
Finally, Wesley and the other horse came onto the track. A guy standing next to me said to his companion, "Hey, look at this. We got a freak!" He showed him Wesley's page.
His friend laughed. "Who would do something like that?"
The two horses moved around the track to the gate. "Who do you want?" asked the first guy.
"I'll take the freak," chuckled his buddy. "It's only 20 bucks."
Wesley and the other horse entered the gate and a moment later they broke. Preston came out easily on Wesley, but the rider of the other horse was flat down on his mount whipping him. He zoomed out ten lengths ahead of Wesley and Pres-ton.
Preston sat down on Wesley and began to ride him. He gained on the other colt but that horse's rider was really getting into him. With about a sixteenth-mile of the three furlongs left, Wesley caught him. By the end, he was a length ahead and pulling away. His time turned out to be the fastest of the entire sale.
I went back to the barn where Pres-ton was fuming. "Son of a bitch said he was gonna take it easy. I coulda aired if I'da known." He mumbled on and said, "Nobody makes my horse look bad."
The next day, Wesley sold for $12,000. After expenses, I made about $4,000 profit.
The racing career
Later that summer Wesley made his debut in a $12,500 maiden claimer and won easily. A couple of starts later, he won for $15,000 and was claimed. He eventually won a few allowance races and even ran in a couple of small stakes but was off the board. He finally settled in as about a $35,000-to-$40,000 claimer and distance did not matter-long, short, or in-between, it was all the same to him. He was probably claimed four or five times over the years. He never took a bad step and remained sound through the age of five. In those four years, he earned about $130,000.
I sure wish we had kept him.
Brent Kelley, DVM, is a practicing veterinarian living in Paris, Kentucky.
