TDN sat down with seafood dealer Liz Crow to offer this fourth in a series of products introduced in partnership with the Depositors and Breeders Association (CBA). Through conversations with buyers and sellers, this series aims to contribute to the discussion of radiographic findings and their impact on track success.
Bloodstock dealer Liz Crow, who has an ever-expanding list of completed purchases, as well as a burgeoning book on crochet successes with partner Paul Sharp, admits there is a mix. There is a subtle difference between buying to race and buying to resell.
“There are a number of different finds about a horse that you can live with for racing, but you cannot buy to crochet,” says Crow. “For example, some of them are moderate to severe meningitis and juvenile tendinitis. Those horses will be perfectly fine and perfectly normal if you give them time, but you can’t put them on a 2 year old sale because you can’t give them that time. They have to get ready and start enjoying the breeze. Moderate to severe sepsis takes 60 to 90 days before you break them. Obviously, you don’t have 60 to 90 days [for a pinhook prospect]. You have to start breaking them when they come to your farm and they need to be windy in January. And that doesn’t give you enough time. So it’s all about timing.
Whether it’s finding a racing lead or a potential pickpocket, Crow says the biggest part of her job is likely to be determining what’s consequential and what isn’t in the news. veterinarian report.
“I think your relationship with your veterinarian is very important,” she says. “Don’t just trust the vet’s report or what the vet’s report says, but really form a relationship with the vet and have a line of communication where you can discuss it. essay. You as an agent and together with your client, you must take that information and make decisions based on what you are given.”
Crow has been shopping for discounts for over a decade and has learned to value the kind of relationship she has developed with Dr. Jeff Berk.
“I’ve been doing this for quite some time, and I’ve used the same vet throughout my career,” says Crow. “I have heard Dr. Berk read the vet reports to me and talk to me about this for over 12 years up to this point. We tested 400-500 horses in September alone. Usually, Jeff would tell me in September – obviously we’re all moving really fast – he’d say, ‘Call me the call. call this, let’s talk about it.’ And that means this is not a black and white thing. Honestly, I think it’s a change to what’s more important to my job, whether it’s picking out and finding a talented horse or it actually deciphering the reports. this vet.
She continued, “The vet reports to me are very subjective. They are not black and white. If you have three different vets giving three different opinions—and that happens more often than not—they are giving you their opinion. They can’t tell you if this horse can or can’t enter the race. They are using their experience to tell you what they think based on what they found in the X-rays. But this is not the truth. So the most important thing for me, as a dealer, is to decipher what that means and whether it fits with what my client is trying to do with that horse. or not.”
Crow has built a career looking for thrifty horses who will continue to do great things on the track. She bought future champ Monomoy Girl for $100,000 at Keeneland’s September 2016 sale and could land the next Class I winner Jack Christopher for $135,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s October 2020 sale.
“Sometimes the best thing you can do for your client is to find out that horse is not the perfect vet, but can be very healthy,” says Crow. “I’ve had a lot of success doing that and I think it’s a great way to approach it, as long as your client is clear and understands the risk.”
After purchasing Monomoy Girl in 2016, this kitten went on to win the 2018 GI Kentucky Oaks and twice won the GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The two-time Eclipse champion provided Crow with a specific case.
Crow said: “Monomoy Girl has moderate uveitis on both hind ankles and she also had her obsessive-compulsive disorder removed in her back. “Doctor. Berk and I discussed that and I was completely comfortable bidding her based on what he told me. And I think it has bothered some people, to my knowledge. But that’s the point, when you see three or four different vets, they all have different opinions. I think that’s part of the problem, all comments.
Over the years, Crow has developed an understanding of the important issues and problems she can solve.
“If your vet says the horse has this, this, this, and this, I’ll take a look at it and immediately think, a piece of posterior P1 metatarsal bone, an indentation in upper joint, slight grinding on the upper joint of the right knee, those are fine. I know those three findings. Like a sharpened knee, any findings in the upper joint of the knee, mild to moderate meningitis with clear scans, debris at the back of the ankle, these really don’t mean anything. They are just comments, a normal divergence. I think there are a lot of findings just like that, a difference from the usual. And deciphering what is acceptable and what is not is as easy as just looking at the vet sheet. Monomoy Girl is such a great example of a horse that if you read her vet newspaper without any context or discussion you might think she might have a problem, but she didn’t and none of that bothered her during her racing career.”
Advances in veterinary scanning provide potential buyers with a treasure trove of information to learn about. That’s not a bad thing, according to Crow.
“You can never go wrong with more information,” she says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing when we have better information. I’m just going to say that every horse has something, and it’s very rare that you inspect a completely clean horse. You have to learn what you can live with. Most good horses have something. It would be great to keep informing these buyers that horses don’t have to be NSA [no significant abnormalities] to be able to afford it.”
Click to read previous X-Ray Files: with Tom McCrocklin, david ingordo or Ciaran Dunne.
