Presentation to the Darley Flying Start Conference at Keadeen Hotel, Newbridge, Ireland
October 25th 2006
Fabricio Buffolo
Brazil’s Potential to Replace Ireland as a Thoroughbred Nursery
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. First of all I want to introduce myself. My name is Brazil and I have travelled more than 5000 miles just to speak for 15 minutes about one single word:
Potential
Yes, potential. About my potential. If we look in the dictionary we can find several meanings for this word but one is very interesting: “… a latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed…” Excellence, I have shown it in the last ten years with a lot of sacrifice as you can see by my appearance. Today my situation is not good, today my situation is not beautiful but I am sure that I have this single word called potential. And the best way is showing what horse I bred has done in the last few years. I want to show you some of my sons, some of those who grazed in my lands, grew with my people and fortunately they conquered foreign hearts and minds.
I start with these two guys that gave me a lot of satisfaction; I will always be proud of what they have done. Not only did they win Grade 1 races in the United States as they went on to the second running of the Dubai World Cup and ran an excellent second and third place to the great Singspiel. Siphon won the Santa Anita H. and Hollywood Gold Cup and Sandpit won five Grade 1 races and more than US$ 3.7 million dollars. The third Grade1 win came with Virginie when she took the Beverly D. Hills H. Unfortunately she raced just three times in USA winning two races. She was a Triple Crown Winner in Brazil and won nine times in ten starts.
And now that we have three Grade 1 winners I just want to stop and analyse:
- One Grade 1 winner we can say that it was luck.
- Two Grade 1 winners we can say that it was coincidence.
- Three, ok another coincidence.
- But after the third maybe there is a pattern.
And it repeated with another eight great horses that I had the privilege to feed through my grass. In total there are eleven individual Group 1 winners. In this list are names like:
- Joe Who - Winner of Eddie Read H. A consistent miler running from 2 to 6.
- The great mare Riboletta - Winner of five G1 and the Eclipse Award (Champion Mare)
- Redattore - More two G1s and five G2 races –another consistent miler running from two to eight years of age.
- Pico Central - Three prestigious G1 races including a victory over the sprinter of the year Speightstown in the Vosburgh S.
- Hard Buck - Winner of G1 in USA but maybe more important is the second place in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II S. to Doyen and second in the Dubai Sheema Classic.
- Pellegrino - Here winning a G1 and we can see another Brazilian bred horse finishing third.
- The eclipse award winner in 2005 Leroidesanimaux – here we can see a start of a new tendency of horses being exported at early age. He ran in Brazil just three times and went to USA.
- And following the tendency we can see the first winner of Grade 1 race in USA that have not run in Brazil; bought as a yearling Einstein was sent to USA unraced.
I am showing some prices just for your knowledge and maybe for you do some comparisons with prices of yearlings here in Ireland, Europe or United States and have some idea of some opportunities. It is not just G1 races. The list of group winners or placed getters is big and will increase even more in the next few years. We had success not only in USA but in South Africa too. It started just five years ago and already we have four Grade 1 winners including Velvet Green, who first foal was the new price record for a yearling in South Africa.
It is very interesting that some of you can think, okay, you have a lot of success in the USA but you have always exported a huge number of horses and it’s obvious that some of them will succeed; but this is not the reality. If we compare the exports and imports between me and USA you can see that I imported more than I exported. Here we can see some figures from some years. The totals are since 1990, 432 exports compared to 1.040 imports.
Here we have to see and remember what is really important about Brazil and which are the main points that may attract buyers and why not some operation such as Darley, Coolmore or Shadai. One is the cost; more and more the cost is an important issue inside every operation. We saw some prices of some horses in the auctions. Breeding and training your horse at a low cost is interesting for everyone, even for the major players. You can raise your horse, with your pedigree, with your organisation, with the same quality paying at least four times less.
Land/Soil
Most of Brazil’s breeding farms are in three states: Sao Paulo, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul. The area of this three states is ten times the area of whole Ireland. Some regions of Sao Paulo are blessed with rich volcanic soil that is extremely fertile. The soil of these three states has shown a capability of producing good and sound racehorses. Actually these regions are almost in the same latitude of the region of New South Wales in Australia and South Africa.
Genetic pool
“A leading country for "outcross" in international breeding”, John Aiscan. You can find bloodlines that are almost extinct in some countries in the world like Tourbillon, Wild Risk, Prince Rose/Prince Bio, Precipitation, Pharis, Hyperion/Owen Tudor and others. Some countries have an over concentration of the Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector lines and sometimes it is good to outcross and try to add vigour or roughly speaking variability to the breed.
Sun
The sun is an important factor that helps to regulate our blood calcium levels through the vitamin D metabolism. Some people believe in the positive effects of the sun in thoroughbred breeding. More and more the importance of the sun is discussed when raising horses. Those who receive an adequate amount of sun tend to have balanced blood calcium levels and subsequently deposit this calcium into the bones.
Doping Control
The important racetracks have a good doping control and horses aren’t allowed to race under anti-inflammatories. In my opinion this is one of the main points and leads to a selection of a sounder racehorse.
Industry is still Incipient
There is a lot of room to develop and the first big operation that goes to Brazil will have more difficulties than those who follow. But on the other hand they will be favoured and could dominate the industry.
How Can I Develop?
How can I go from this actual situation to a better one? I have potential but how can I show my potential, how can I show my ability? I believe in 3 main points.
(1) Horsemanship
(2) Support/Investment
Here I mention shuttling. I mean at least shuttling is possible and can bring new bloodlines that will improve our industry. We have already had some horses and they caused a huge impact. Spend a Buck (Hard Buck and Pico Central), Royal Academy (10 group 1 winners), Candy Stripes (Leroidesanimaux and Ilha da Vitoria), Roy (5 group 1 winners), Trempolino (2 Group 1 Winners), Vettori and recently we had Sagamix, Mark of Esteem and Miesque’s Son.
(3) Marketing and Betting Resources
And I want to finish with a saying that like very much and it says: “If you are not riding the wave of change… you will find yourself beneath it”.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Click here for a complete list of Oct 2006 Keaden Hotel, Ireland assignments