So, you wanna own a racehorse?

There are many ways to get involved in horse racing as an owner. You can partner with others to share the expenses or go it alone and pay all the bills yourself.  You can buy a horse at a public sale or purchase one privately – although obviously if you go the sale route, you will have to bid against others who also want that horse.

You can claim a horse that is already running and pay the price that it is entered for that day. Here, again, you will be up against others who also may be putting in a claim. If more than one person puts in a claim, you will have to win the “shake”, meaning that the track pulls a numbered pill from a bottle to decide who gets the horse.

The last way to obtain a horse is to breed your mare, if you have one or purchase one for breeding purposes. That way you can choose the stallion and pay the fee for which he stands.

Of course, that fee could be anywhere from $1,000 to $300,000, depending on your budget and your goals.

The caveats are that only about 20% of owners make money, and that, of the approximately 21,000 foals born each year, only about 60% of them make it to the races – and of those, only about 60% ever win a single race. A pretty risky business. One must decide if it is worth the costs. To add to that, there’s the fact that only about one percent – roughly 210 – of these foals ever win a big race, meaning a Grade I contest like the Derby or other similarly well-known races.

The first thing to decide, as a prospective owner, is your goal. Do you want to try to win the Kentucky Derby, or simply own a horse with the expectations of having a winner and maybe making some money? Your goal is as important as your budget, because your expectations will have profound effect on your costs. Many owners want to win the big races, so the costs are high. But one can get in the business at lower levels and still have a ton of fun.

I got in the game with a very limited budget; my main goal was to get involved, spend a small amount of money, have a great deal of fun and, hopefully, make a little bit of cash. So I jumped in with a friend from California and another partner from Ohio who had roughly the same goals.

We two Ohioans agreed to purchase my California friend’s two 3-year-old horses. The three of us would partner and share the expenses. The Ohio faction would pay the California partner for the horses by paying his part of the expenses until we had compensated him for the price of the two steeds.

We hired a trainer, one who my partner in Ohio already was using for her race horses. Coincidentally, the trainer she was using was a former student of mine.  More importantly, thanks to her connection, the trust we needed was already there, since we were going to need to rely on the trainer to lead us through this entire process.

So we shipped these two horses, a filly and a colt, from California to my partner’s farm in Ohio. Our plan was to get the horses ready to run at a training facility, and then send them to Thistledown race track in Cleveland for their final preparations. After that, if all went well, they’d actually race.

As I awaited their arrival, the thrill of ownership was surging in this first-time thoroughbred owner.  I was about to officially be in this game that I had loved for years, and my enthusiasm and excitement was over the moon.

To be continued…