Stallion News

[TapitsGal]

Rumor has it chrome will NOT be shuttling? Is this true?

I had heard that, too. I believe it's the case, but I don't know with 100% certainty.

do you know why?is the shuttling contract up?

[Mylute]

Perhaps they're pasuing his shuttling to see how his two (or three) crops do.

[Northport]

Read yesterday that after announcing late last year or early this year that More Than Ready had made his last shuttle trip and was retiring from shutting...... surprise.....he's shuttling to $$Australia again.

I saw that as well, and had an actual moment where I thought that I had dreamt up the whole "no more shuttling" thing from earlier in the year.

[mariasmon]

Rumor has it chrome will NOT be shuttling? Is this true?

I had heard that, too. I believe it's the case, but I don't know with 100% certainty.

do you know why?is the shuttling contract up?

What I heard was something like, "he fulfilled his obligation," although maybe not those exact words.

[Retrospectiv]

I thought Chrome's contract was for 3 seasons in Chile. He's not stood 3 there yet has he?

[mariasmon]

I thought Chrome's contract was for 3 seasons in Chile. He's not stood 3 there yet has he?

It's been 2 SH seasons for him. I also heard that he may not have attracted as many mares there as hoped.

[Ridan_Remembered]

I thought Chrome's contract was for 3 seasons in Chile. He's not stood 3 there yet has he?

It's been 2 SH seasons for him. I also heard that he may not have attracted as many mares there as hoped.

Well then you heard wrong. Unlike the U.S., where something upwards of 20k Thoroughbred foals are born each year, Chile produces less than 5000. Chrome was received like a rock star there both seasons, with lots of publicity and some well-attended stallion shows featuring only him. At the time the deal was first announced in 2017, Duncan Taylor said. "There are four to five billionaires who own the best mares and will breed a lot of mares to him."

[Mylute]

@ Keene Thoroughbreds (May 13)

Texas Chrome looking good during breeding season!



https://www.facebook.com/77542502590520 ... =3&theater

[Northport]

I thought Chrome's contract was for 3 seasons in Chile. He's not stood 3 there yet has he?

It's been 2 SH seasons for him. I also heard that he may not have attracted as many mares there as hoped.

Well then you heard wrong. Unlike the U.S., where something upwards of 20k Thoroughbred foals are born each year, Chile produces less than 5000. Chrome was received like a rock star there both seasons, with lots of publicity and some well-attended stallion shows featuring only him. At the time the deal was first announced in 2017, Duncan Taylor said. "There are four to five billionaires who own the best mares and will breed a lot of mares to him."

Dude, chill. Publicity + Stallion Shows + “a lot of mares” = 110 mares, which is what he was bred to his first year there. I don’t know if that is a lot for Chile, but either way, I have a sense that they had a two year contract then maybe “wait and see” how his first runners are before they commit to shuttling him again. Or maybe he had an adverse reaction to the trip, like Scat Daddy, or maybe he just wasnt as popular his second season there. Who knows.

[Retrospectiv]

It's been 2 SH seasons for him. I also heard that he may not have attracted as many mares there as hoped.

Well then you heard wrong. Unlike the U.S., where something upwards of 20k Thoroughbred foals are born each year, Chile produces less than 5000. Chrome was received like a rock star there both seasons, with lots of publicity and some well-attended stallion shows featuring only him. At the time the deal was first announced in 2017, Duncan Taylor said. "There are four to five billionaires who own the best mares and will breed a lot of mares to him."

Dude, chill. Publicity + Stallion Shows + “a lot of mares” = 110 mares, which is what he was bred to his first year there. I don’t know if that is a lot for Chile, but either way, I have a sense that they had a two year contract then maybe “wait and see” how his first runners are before they commit to shuttling him again. Or maybe he had an adverse reaction to the trip, like Scat Daddy, or maybe he just wasnt as popular his second season there. Who knows.

LOL, ^^ Huuuge fangirl/boy.

The contract was for 3 years, so there's obviously a reason he's not going back.....

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... e-to-chile

[Starine]

Goodness; Texas Chrome sure resembles his sire.

[Ridan_Remembered]

Well then you heard wrong. Unlike the U.S., where something upwards of 20k Thoroughbred foals are born each year, Chile produces less than 5000. Chrome was received like a rock star there both seasons, with lots of publicity and some well-attended stallion shows featuring only him. At the time the deal was first announced in 2017, Duncan Taylor said. "There are four to five billionaires who own the best mares and will breed a lot of mares to him."

Dude, chill. Publicity + Stallion Shows + “a lot of mares” = 110 mares, which is what he was bred to his first year there. I don’t know if that is a lot for Chile, but either way, I have a sense that they had a two year contract then maybe “wait and see” how his first runners are before they commit to shuttling him again. Or maybe he had an adverse reaction to the trip, like Scat Daddy, or maybe he just wasnt as popular his second season there. Who knows.

LOL, ^^ Huuuge fangirl/boy.

The contract was for 3 years, so there's obviously a reason he's not going back.....

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... e-to-chile

The contract was for 3 years, and TM kept an option for it to be fewer. Of course there's a reason why they are keeping him home, but there is no reason to think it's a negative one. The comment above I remarked on is hearsay, or potentially even worse, a made-up rumor. Some random person on an internet forum says they heard something that 'may' have been such and so. Real solid info there.

[lurkey mclurker]

C'mon, Ridan, be fair... MM is not some internet rando.

If it's a rumor you'll get your chance to I-told-you-so. But it's not like we only single out Chrome to talk about what's been heard around the internet, it's not like a personal affront or anything.

[CoronadosQuest]

MM is definitely not some internet "rando". She doesn't just say things for sheet and giggles. She doesn't have some vendetta against Chrome either. She just said what she heard and if she heard it, it probably came from reliable sources. There is nothing wrong with not attracting enough mares for a third season. It happens.

[mariasmon]

I actually quite like Chrome and am rooting for him to do really well at stud

[Ridan_Remembered]

In the meantime, over on the Chrome - National Treasure Facebook site, another person claims there is "interest in him in Europe." I think the same way about that information. Hearsay and worthless unless it comes from TM or the Martins. I did not take MM's comments as a knock against Chrome, or mean anything insulting to MM. But I do dislike hearsay, and that is what I pushed back against. I'm waiting for factual information. For example, Chrome has 5 yearlings in The July Sale, Fasig-Tipton's select yearling sale. People here who followed Country Life's foaling cams in 2018 might remember the bay colt by Chrome out of Our Fantene. He was an absolutely spectacular newborn. Even though he's a Maryland bred, he is one of Chrome's first crop selected for this sale. I'm anxious to see how this colt and the other four by Chrome are received by buyers. (The Chrome x Our Fantene '18 colt during his very first turnout: https://www.facebook.com/jesus.gutierre ... 192612130/ )

If anyone is interested in what Duncan Taylor has to say, TDN recently interviewed him. Here's some of it:

TDN: His weanlings sold well last year. What were weanling buyers seeing that they like?
DT: I think Chrome is throwing nice horses, but he’s throwing different types. It’s not cookie cutter that we say, “Oh, that’s a Chrome, that’s a Chrome, that’s a Chrome.” I think he is getting good-looking horses and I think that the yearling buyers will really be wanting to buy and I think they’ll be happy with what they see. [He] raced in Dubai without any drugs. So, he’s ticked about every box that somebody that would want in a horse. Sound, started at two, ran all the way through to five, won $14 million. With what’s going on in our industry in California, I think people are looking for soundness and sound horses. I think Chrome is the type of horse that is going to fill the bill for that.

TDN: It’s early days yet, but has it been rewarding to see what’s on the ground and the promise that the horse has shown?
DT: Yeah, it sure is, and what we’ve tried to do with this horse is look at certain broodmare sires that we think bring things to the family. I think that hopefully we’ve picked the right ones.

TDN: He’s had a huge fan base, the Chromies on the track. How has it been with his popularity? His fame both on the track and as a stallion.
DT: We have never really experienced that before. Taylor Made has had, in the last 15 years, two of North America’s leading sires in Saint Ballado and Unbridled’s Song. Neither one of them even pale in comparison to the popularity of the general public. So I’ve really enjoyed it. You see people enjoying the horse business, and we get to share with people. Beautiful farm, the setting, and just a race horse that just captured the imagination. I wish we had one of those coming into stud every year because I think it helps the Thoroughbred industry.

[CorridorZ75]

Pretty sure I remember the contract was for two years with an option for a third. It is pretty expensive to ship and to insure a stallion, and I am sure they factored that into a return if the interest wasn't overwhelming. Chrome was always going to have to prove himself with results on the track which is tough in the early breeding years when 80% of breeders are commercial. He also doesn't have a huge operation behind him like Coolmore or Godolphin willing to prop up the early sales numbers with million dollar buys. However, if he delivers with runners, then the crowd will flock to him soon enough.

[Ridan_Remembered]

Pretty sure I remember the contract was for two years with an option for a third. It is pretty expensive to ship and to insure a stallion, and I am sure they factored that into a return if the interest wasn't overwhelming. Chrome was always going to have to prove himself with results on the track which is tough in the early breeding years when 80% of breeders are commercial. He also doesn't have a huge operation behind him like Coolmore or Godolphin willing to prop up the early sales numbers with million dollar buys. However, if he delivers with runners, then the crowd will flock to him soon enough.

Corridor, you are right about the contract and expense of shipping/insuring a stallion, but once again I have to take exception to "...if the interest wasn't overwhelming." It's the negative assumptions that I'm disagreeing with. We do not know the reason why TM decided to keep Chrome in Kentucky. From all indications, Chrome's two seasons in Chile went just fine. Here's additional insights might add to our understanding of the situation.

The 2017 article "Horse Racing in Latin America" (https://annisesanecdotes.com/2017/06/08 ... n-america/) had the following information:

"In 2016, Marshall Taylor of Taylor Made Farm and Sales in Kentucky, and Sebastian Angelillo, a native of Uruguay who has worked for Taylor Made and whose family owns Haras Sureno, documented their travels around South America through blogs in the Thoroughbred Daily News...Visiting farms and racetracks, their goal was “to increase awareness of the quality of South American Thoroughbreds in North America and help bring talented runners from South America to the United States” (Taylor & Angelillo, 2016)...Their first blog entry about Chile estimates that the country’s Thoroughbred foal crop is about 1,700 each year."

Only about 1700 foals in a crop for the entire country of Chile! That's a very low number and indicates a low number of mares bred. Even if Chrome got 50 mares each of the two years, that's 3% per year of the mares bred in Chile. In the United States, a stallion who gets 130 mares a year out of about 20,000 bred is only getting 0.65% of the mares. So you see the point? How does one decide what is and is not "interest" when the numbers are so small in Chile?

[Mylute]

Not sure what way you would determine what is and is not "of interest" in a breeding market that small.

My first guess would be if your stallion only attracted like 10 mares. But then, I'm sure to some stud farms in Chile, for a stallion to get 10 from the outside (not including mares supplied by the farm or stud owner themself) would be pretty good.

It's probably just the contract running out and their waiting for his babies to run down there before renewing it (that's what I would do if I had a shuttler).

[Ridan_Remembered]

And here is the official news from Taylor Made about why Chrome is staying home. (Note that they count the two seasons in Chile plus the three in Kentucky when they say his fifth season.) It's from their Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/taylormadeadva ... 2925016814

Taylor Made Farm
2 hrs ·

The wealthiest Kentucky Derby winner and 2x Horse of the Year, California Chrome earner of $14,752,650 just completed his fifth successful breeding season! Breeding 143 mares in the 2019 season, he achieved his highest percentage in-foal rate to date.

We are excited to announce, Our Champion has earned a well deserved rest and will remain in Kentucky at Taylor Made to enjoy some extra time with his "Chromies"!

Wanna visit with California Chrome? Here are two ways starting today:
General Farm Tour:
https://visithorsecountry.com/book-your-tour/…

VIP Stallion Experience:
https://visithorsecountry.com/book-your-tour/…

Stay tuned for special opportunities coming from Horse Country including more dates for the California Chrome Experience and an all-new evening tour as well!