How much??!!!

[trudij]

I’m a big fan of anything only being worth what someone is willing to pay for it ( regardless of what the seller would like that to be) but for the life of me I can’t get my head around this. $2,000,000 au is around the million pound mark - and while he could easily win most of it back if he had a good year or two with how good the prize money is compared to anywhere else it still seems nuts to me. Presumably Gai is thinking about a dual campaign for him and trying to take in the bigger jumps races as well as prepping for autumn.

Who’s got others that have made them wonder….

Australian Bloodstock, Gai buy Vauban

Vauban is to remain in Australia to race after being purchased by Australian Bloodstock and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott

www.racing.com

 

[chaumi]

Gai took Fiorente some time back to win the Cup, maybe the thoughts are to try and replicate (well, you'd guess they almost certainly are). Add one or two others and it's recouped. But could be it's just the glory and money is kind of secondary.

 

[edgt]

Interesting to see if our Breathless Spirit is offered for syndicate over yonder.
Bought for 70k at Newmarket October he is to be trained by Archie Alexander.
His likes are sold to shareholders with an overall budget of 700,000 or so to cover transport, quarantine , training and associated racing fees.
At that budget Vauban is possibly cheap by comparison but good luck to anyone trying to improve a WPM resident !
Consider also that his 2 trips to Oz have cost north of 500k so from Rich's point of view the horse is just about covering himself, unlikely to win the equivalent over here.
One of our Whitegrass friends was very put out when, after a Sun Alliance chase with a Ricci runner finishing fourth to Don Poli, Rich was overheard asking his manager " What is fourth prize worth ?"
The answer, unheard probably was it paid the horse's expenses that week.

 

[trudij]

Quite possibly - they do love a syndicate and it works brilliantly.

7 year old gelding Vauban who’s not loved the stay either time he’s done it just made me a bit - but maybe with staying rather than shuttling he’ll be better, and he’ll get used to the ground ( soft there is nowhere near our good to soft even !) and the heat better - it’s not like Gai isn’t master of her craft. And she’s dual licence, so a tilt at the Grand Annual and the National wouldn’t be out of the question I guess.
I hope they do really well with him, at the end of the day they aren’t going to be tiptoeing around the country meetings whatever else they do!