The average cat weighs nine pounds, the average dog thirty. One horse weighs as much as a busload of both. Own a few horses and do the upkeep math. It costs a whole lot of rubles to keep and maintain a few horses. I have been in the horse business for about a decade, buying and selling to breed and race at Thoroughbred tracks around the world. I have partners because I need them.
Horse ownership is unique in that if you own a “leg” (share), emotionally you own all of it. Partners help spread the pain when the bills arrive at the end of the month.
Breeding large animals is a very tricky, very dicey business. Anything that can go wrong will. This is especially discouraging since mares are pregnant (in-foal) for nearly a year. The cost tied to risk of loss is staggering.
When things go right you can make a good nickel. When they go wrong, which is often, it’s a very somber thing—partners or no partners. Miscarriages mean three years before there’s a baby to sell.
My pal Lonnie has been in the horse business for nearly forty years. He’s shrewd and conservative. He’s done well because he appreciates the highs, sells a year before he needs to, and weathers the lows as part of the game. He is a hardboot Kentuckian born and raised in the Paris, a half-hour northeast of Lexington, America’s Thoroughbred capitol.
There’s much to learn about any business where money is easily vacuumed from the rich and unknowing. Lonnie protected us as we learned the ins and outs of the game. It’s a tough business but a fun one. Many come into the horse business later in life, when they can afford to. Or think they can.
There’s an adage in the horse business that it’s easy to become a millionaire.
“Start with a billion dollars,” it says, “and stay in.” The horse industry can bleed a man or woman dry; it has turned billionaires into millionaires and millionaires into workingmen. It is not a pursuit for penny-pinchers or P&L logicians. The industry has taken many a good man down, a fraternity recently joined by basketball legend Dan Issel. Dan got in over his head and doubled-down with borrowed money. The market didn’t care, he got caught short, and had to file bankruptcy.
Everyone in the horse business shares one common belief: When you’re buying, you never buy cheap enough; and when you’re selling, you never sell high enough. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
Early on Lonnie taught me a very important lesson about buying and selling.
“Live by the three-day rule,” he said. “If you have to take a loss, your first loss will be your best loss. Take it. It’s allowed to bug you for three days. After that, forget about it and move on.”
The 3-Day Rule applies to many of us facing difficult financial decisions. Money is America’s number one worry (job security is second) and millions of good folks are caught between the jaws of a vice-tightening economy. They must make choices. Tough ones.
Stalling doesn’t make a decision go away. Action does. If a tough financial choice must be made, evaluate your options, pick the best one, and pull the trigger. Then subscribe to the 3-Day Rule: It’s allowed to bug you for three days. After that, it’s ancient history. Hike up your socks and move on.
But if you want to buy a horse, find a good advisor. It’s a madcap business full of smiling ventriloquists. But if you sweat it, don’t bet it.