#ICYMI - The Science of Thoroughbred Racing

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. What does it take to win the Kentucky Derby? Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore thoroughbred genetics and the ins and outs of horse racing with Dr. Stephen Harrison from Thoroughbred Genetics and former champion steeplechase jockey Sean Clancy. Photo Credit: Velo Steve [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:02Gary O'Reilly?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:03Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Today, we delve into the sport of kings, aka horse racing. So what makes a winner? Is it nature or nurture? Or does nature need a nudge? One of, if not the world's leading expert on thoroughbred genetics, is Dr Stephen Harrison, who will untangle the equine DNA for us and show us how you go about breeding a Kentucky Derby winner. And giving us the view from the top, on top of a horse, that is, is former championship steeplechase jockey and a person actively involved in buying and selling bloodstock is Sean Clancy. So saddle up, it's time to ride out. But first, let's talk to Dr Stephen Harrison. How are you, doctor?

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I'm very well, thank you, Gary. How are you?

• 0:49Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm fabulous, thank you for asking. Right, thoroughbred genetics. Quite an interesting title, so let's ask a quite simple question. How do you go about, or what makes, a thoroughbred horse?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Ah, well, a thoroughbred horse is a fantastic animal. It's a fantastically athletic animal. It's totally artificial, of course. It's been evolved over the course of about 350 years, just by man. It wouldn't have evolved naturally. It has its roots going back into the 1600s, but the first stud book was set up in 1791, and from that point onwards, every horse that was bred for racing, that was called a thoroughbred, has to be in that stud book. So over 350 years, what we've got is concerted breeding that's happened, and it's concentrated genes in these animals that are so specific just for racing. And, you know, you don't get any other animals like them.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  If you took any thoroughbred, even the worst thoroughbred, and you put it up against a horse of any other breed, not one that's been derived from a thoroughbred, like a quarter horse, but any other breed, it would beat them. Even the worst thoroughbreds are faster than anything else, and they've got all the genetic combinations that make them just pure racing animals.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  So doctor, with that in mind, when you talk about selective breeding, how does genetic diversity play into that? Or is there enough diversity in the pool that makes up thoroughbreds? Because I thought that, you know, if you had genetic diversity, you were actually stronger. But you're saying that, you know, these animals are so narrow in their breeding that that's why they're bred basically for running and for racing, that's it. So how does diversity play into that?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  That's true. That's a great question because diversity is really important. And I would kind of argue that thoroughbreds probably aren't as inbred as people think they are. If you look at the thoroughbred breed themselves, you pick out individuals, but they all look quite different. They're all different colors, they're all different sizes. You get ones running over different distances. They jumped over jumps in jumps racing and then on the flats. So they are quite versatile, which is a strong indication that they're not particularly inbred. They've all lived over 350 years to be racing animals, but there's so much diversity in the racing within that group that there's no real matter fixation like you're getting pedigree dogs for instance. In fact, thoroughbreds, I would say, are pedigree mongrels, basically.

• 3:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, interesting. Wow, that's interesting. That's really cool, actually.

• 3:28Chuck Nice?

  So they're very much like human beings?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Very much so, but like a group of athletes in a running club, they're all different, but they're all doing the same job.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 3:40Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, so we've kind of got to the nub of what a thoroughbred is, and thank you. Now, the bit that interests everybody with a dollar in their pocket, how do breeders slash owners and trainers gain an edge? Or a winning edge from the sort of work that you do with these thoroughbred horses?

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's a good question, too. And we set the company up in in two thousand. So it's been going a few years now with the view to getting all this this pedigree data and performance data that has been collected over the last three hundred and fifty years and trying to make genetic sense out of it by applying DNA tests. So what we were trying to do is actually make sense of what works and what doesn't work. And the edge comes in what we would consider to be something like the equivalent you had on the show a few weeks ago, the Moneyball. So what we're doing is using the probability of looking at a whole lot of genes that we think are important or not important and seeing what animals have which genes and looking at the balance they've got and seeing

• 4:47Speaker 02

  how that works in probability wise, just like it would in Moneyball. So we're looking at thirty five to forty percent heritability of racing ability. And we look at all these different factors and we put them in a statistical model and we, when we're looking at horses to breed or horses to buy, we'll use that system to assess a kind of Moneyball type system. So we, an example, recently, we looked at a whole lot of yearlings that we'd help people buy over the last few years. So in terms of prize money, quality of race and their official ratings, we estimated that probably using the system we've got gave a thirty percent increase, all those things, over the system we would use if we didn't use the genetics input.

• 5:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, that's that's pretty impressive. Yeah, I mean, you must become pretty popular within the bloodstock business.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  We kind of have our fans and we have our kind of sexy blood art fans as well. I think it's a very traditional business. And again, you know, using the Moneyball analogy, you know, you saw what kind of resistance there was to that in terms of baseball and, you know, certainly in soccer to a certain extent.

• 5:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Is there resistance? Is there the old ways are the best and don't try and change it?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Could be, yeah, but I mean, some of the old ways are great. I mean, there've been a lot of successes in the old ways, but you look at adding extra things as you go along in terms of trying to increase the percentage in every little way. So if you think about, say, Vincent O'Grady, the great racehorse trainer, he used to look at so many different things. He used to take every little small thing into account and make sure he was the most successful. It's the same as the British cycling team in the Olympics. The small things they take into account make a big difference.

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  So when it comes to the breeding and the genetic markers that you're looking for, is it, is there anything that you find, or like in human beings, there are certain mutations that we have that cause certain things? Does it work the same way in horses that you might find something that says, okay, this horse will be more likely to yes and no because of these anomalies that you find? I'm not just talking about the things that you know you're looking for. That's my, that's my real question. Are there things you find that you weren't looking for when you do these tests that may be beneficial or detrimental to the horse?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are always kind of anomalies that you find, and a lot of them aren't necessarily anomalies, anomalies are just things we've never found before. I mean, you don't kind of find very often major mutations that other horses don't have. It's normally a mutation that lots of horses have. It's happened a long time back and it's been selected for on the basis of its, its contributions to racing ability. But there aren't any kind of major things that you'd see that just suddenly appear. You know, for instance, sprinting and, and distance ability in a broad sense is down to a single mutation in the muscle genes. So it would broadly say that a horse is going to be a short distance horse, a

• 7:57Speaker 02

  long distance horse, or a middle distance horse. But the effects are so obvious. You know, the muscly horse looks like a sprinter, the leaner horse looks like a stayer. So you don't even bother testing for it a lot of the time. What you're more interested in... Are the smaller genes that say what kind of a sprinter is it gonna be? Is it gonna be a really short distance sprinter? Or is it gonna be a long distance sprinter? It's it's these kind of fine tuning genes are are the most important that would make a difference to trainers, because they know by looking at a horse that it's a short distance horse. But they don't know what kind of, was it a five eight to a mile horse or or was it a mile horse? You know, you've got to look at all these other different little genes as well.

• 8:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. I mean, if I remember my if I remember my high school or A level biology, the powerhouse of a cell is the mitochondrial, and you've got mitochondrial genes that you that you look for? I mean, please explain just how vital they are within the horse DNA.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  But we've got a we've got a big kind of affection for those because they're the first ones that we really showed that had an association with stamina and and speed. So back in two thousand and six, we looked at a whole load of samples from about a thousand horses and we categorized them based on the mitochondrial genes. And we saw, again, by looking at pedigrees that were extrapolated from the samples, because just I need to point out that the mitochondrial DNA is only passed on down the female side. So it doesn't get broken up by any kind of randomization. And you can therefore then say that a horse has got that pedigree, therefore it should have that particular mitochondrial set of genes. So we could then work out what in history, what how many types

• 9:33Speaker 02

  have won the Derby, how many types have won the Kentucky Derby, all all the kind of different races. So we could say that that's that's that particular type is associated more with short distance, that a type is associated with long distance. And then we started building this into models for for genetics. And what we would do is consider that to be like, again, we're going back to your previous shows, like a NASCAR F1 argument. So we'd have a we'd call the mitochondrial genes a chassis, and we'd try and build the rest of the horse around it. So if it was a long distance chassis, we'd try and get other genes in that made it a long distance horse so that we made coordinated horses or helped breed coordinated horses so that they were very specific and ran over certain distances to the best of their ability, rather than being even bigger mongrels than they are.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So let me ask you with respect to steroids, because I read that steroid use amongst horse trainers, it's totally, it's not like our sports. They're used and they're sanctioned. And so it's okay to do that. But that had to be a relatively new development in horse racing. I'm talking about going back over the years of the history of the sport. As Gary said, it's the sport of kings. Have you seen any effect that steroids might have had on the genetic makeup of horses in their lineage? Or is it just too short a period of time

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  to affect the development of DNA in that way?

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, the steroids wouldn't have any effect on the DNA. But also, you're not actually allowed to use steroids to any great excess in thoroughbreds. I mean, whilst they're actually racing, they can be used as a treatment. But until it's out of the system, they can't run again. I mean, particularly in Europe, they're really, really tough on drugs. You can't even use Lasix to run horses on here like you can in the USA.

• 11:30Chuck Nice?

  So let me just get that straight. You can use it as a means of treating the horse as a means of recovery, but you can't use it as a means of performance enhancement? Is that the case?

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, no, you can't use it as a means of performance enhancement. But it is helpful in terms of treatment if you need a horse that needs it.

• 11:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well, that clears up my understanding then, yeah. So there you go. Forget what I asked then.

• 11:56Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, doctor, we've sort of clarified the obvious. You can analyze DNA. That'll tell you whether this guy is going to go fast over a short distance, faster over a middle or a longer distance, or the power is there for jumping, all the indicators, biological indicators without actually physically looking at it. But can your data analysis then go beyond breeding? For instance, can you then, using this information, indicate which training techniques will work better for certain horses? Does it have other knock-on effects in a positive sense?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, the way that it affects training is actually really important for us. So, for instance, if we've got a whole lot of different genes involved in stamina and speed, that definitely affects the kind of way you train them. For instance, we've got an example at the moment, we hope people who've got a two-year-old that did really well last year, won graded races, and this year they're having to decide whether to put it in the one and a half mile English Derby or not, because some indications genetically are that it might not make that trip. And we're kind of deliberating at the moment as to whether or not it should run in the French Derby, which is a mile and a quarter. But then you come up with another problem then, is that the French Derby is often run in very soft ground, so does that then make that race a mile and a half? So, yeah, I

• 13:20Speaker 02

  mean, it is being used by our clients to do that. And also, you get cases where somebody's bought a horse or they bred a horse that's basically got mismatched bodywork. Again, we're going back to that analogy with the motorcar racing, with the NASCAR and the Formula One. Sometimes you get a car, a horse that's been made up of a Formula One chassis, NASCAR bodywork, and a Formula One engine. What we don't want is that to happen. What we want is a horse that's geared up to run over a set distance with all the genetic components in place. So, we then have to take the best course of action and say, well, that horse is more of a mile and a half horse, therefore, train it for a mile and a half. So, it's taken things on balance and probability again.

• 14:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So, let me ask you this with respect to what you just said. You look at like all the money that is spent in the breeding, and this is like just a multi-million dollar industry, and everybody wants to get that secretariat, everybody wants to get that, you know, that unbelievable horse. And I hear owners speak about their horses as athletes. And I also hear them say things like, "This horse wants to win," okay? Or they talk about the temperament of the horse. Are they projecting? Are they anthropomorphizing? Or is that real?

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  And if it's real, could there be a gene linked to those qualities that seem to be intangible?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, definitely. They've definitely got personalities and they definitely, uh, their minds work in different ways. There are so many examples of that. I mean, and some of them aren't very pleasant to be honest. Some of the ones that win races are just not pleasant characters. There was a horse called Moonaxe that used to win in Ireland. It used to veer off across the track to attack other horses so they didn't get past it.

• 15:14Gary O'Reilly?

  I like that one.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was quite entertaining to watch. But then, I mean, I had the privilege to ride Red Rum when I was a boy and he was not particularly pleasant.

• 15:25Gary O'Reilly?

  No. You rode Red Rum? Stop the...

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did.

• 15:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Hold the page. You rode Red Rum?

• 15:31Speaker 02

  That was, that was when I was a lot lighter.

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Well, uh, listen, let, hey, hey, Doc, Doc, let's be serious. If you're riding a horse named Red Rum, that's murder backwards. I don't expect it to be nice.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was my last memory.

• 15:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Chuck, Chuck, this is a Grand National winner. This, this horse was a national treasure. Am I right, Doctor?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, it was fantastic horse. I mean, but I went to see him just before he died actually and my last memory of him was him biting me because I didn't give him the last polo mint. So, you know.

• 16:04Gary O'Reilly?

  That'll teach ya.

• 16:08Chuck Nice?

  As the sign of a true champion. Behind Chris, they're, they're all a-holes.

• 16:12Gary O'Reilly?

  So, Doctor, um, apart from our little, the fact you rode Red Rum, I'm just thrilled to bits. Um, where does your work go from here? Is there another level and another area you can take it to in terms of genetics?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, well, we keep, we keep on developing new genetic analysis all the time and, uh, you know, we, we're trying to improve it all the time. But, you know, it, there are so many variables involved. It's, we can't cover everything all in the first go and, uh, you know, it's only still early days. You know, we've been doing it for, um, since, uh, 2000, but, um, we're adding to it all the time. If you look at all the variables, I mean if you look at the factors we look at between seventy five and seven hundred and fifty genes and about three different variants, so there's so many different combinations, but you know every now and again you get a good horse

• 17:07Speaker 02

  comes along like Frankel or Justify, you know it happens, and if you look at the odds of winning a five-card poker hand, which is if you get a royal flush, that's six hundred and fifty thousand to one, if you consider that there are so many more genes involved than there are cards in a deck, that the combinations are unbelievable. What we're trying to do is cut down that kind of failure rate, if you like, and to promote the better odds in achieving that royal flush with the horses.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Wow, so now that that kind of brings you into genetic engineering. Do you see a time where engineering will be just where the industry is and the people who have the best, the best facilities for engineering a horse genetically will be the ones who who produce winners?

• 17:59Speaker 02

  There's you veering off to the dark side again, you're talking about steroids, you're talking about engineering things, it can't keep you down, can you?

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Come on Doc, listen, I gotta go there, man. You know people are thinking this stuff. You know people are thinking this stuff.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't you can't use genetic manipulation in thoroughbred, it's not allowed. You can't even use artificial insemination, the stallion has to get down to business and do it there in situ, you can't even use artificial insemination. So that's not gonna happen. But it's interesting what you say about the money involved, though, because with thoroughbred breeding and with thoroughbred racing, you've essentially got different leagues within the thoroughbred world. So you've got like your Premier League going down to your conference, if you look at English soccer terms, or your high school going all the way up to your NFL, if you look at American ones. The people who kind of reside in the Premier League are the ones with more money.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  So they can buy better, better horses, they can buy better mares, they can use better stallions. Uh, so they're getting better genes involved in, in, in their horses. And we've looked at, um, the castoffs of some of these big organisations that have got fantastic breeding programmes. We've looked at them when they come through the sales and we, we kind of look at the genetics of them. And we, we, we graphically represent what we find into little shapes that are characteristic of certain groups. And you can always see that the castoffs from the best breeding organisations or the biggest ones have got a certain pattern which is different from any of the other patterns. So that they concentrate their own kind of genes within their own kind of breeding groups.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  And that, you know, if they ever come up for sale, they're certainly worth buying into because the genes that ordinary breeders can't generally get their hands on.

• 19:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Wow. That is, that's just fascinating stuff, man. I mean, like, who would think that the world of horse breeding would be so intricate? And, you know, so, so incredibly, uh, um, scientifically engaging. So this is, this is really just great stuff, man. Uh, I'm so glad that you came and, and told us about it. I mean, it's really, really fascinating.

• 20:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, no, I mean, Chuck, you want a great horse, then you got to get great genes.

• 20:13Chuck Nice?

  Well, this is true. And, you know, a lot of times I say, if I want great genes, I got to go see a good horse. So.

• 20:20Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 20:21Chuck Nice?

  Right now I got to go see a man about a horse. So, no.

• 20:24Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Doctor, thank you. Um, and thank you for opening up our minds to the world of thoroughbred genetics. It is fascinating and we'll keep an eye on your studies and your developments because I think, as you said, there is more to come.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Great. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 20:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Pleasure's been ours, Doctor. Thank you very much, Doctor Stephen Harrison there from Thoroughbred Genetics over in the UK. We are going to take a commercial break. When we come back, former Championship steeplechase jockey, Sean Clancy. And a man who's at the cutting edge of the doctor's work in bloodstock, the buying and selling of horses, racehorses, that is. Stick around, we'll be back very, very shortly.

• 21:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science. Thank you to Dr Harrison from Thoroughbred Genetics. All right, that is simply what the scientists are thinking about horse DNA. But what is it truly like to be on the back, on top of a horse? To be the person who's actually going to go to the auction and buy it? Well, it's quite simple. We've combined both of those people into one and we have Shaun Clancy with us right now. Okay, and time to welcome Shaun Clancy, a former championship jump jockey.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, and now if you ever want to true test a manhood chuck.

• 21:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my god.

• 21:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Get on the back of one of these big beasts.

• 21:56Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 21:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't run flat.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 21:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Find yourself a series of jumps.

• 22:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my god, I can't wait. I can't wait to talk to him because it's steeplechase. Oh, my god, this, this man actually ran steeplechase. Well, he didn't run it, the horses ran it, but he was a jockey and a championship jockey. And I am fascinated by that. I can't wait to talk to him about it.

• 22:16Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, but that's, that's one part of this guy's life.

• 22:19Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 22:19Gary O'Reilly?

  The other side of this life is bloodstock. So we spoke, we speak to Dr Harrison, we find out what the theory is about, you know, what it takes to be a great thoroughbred.

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Someone's actually got to put that theory into practice.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Shaun does that with bloodstock. So the buying, selling, understanding, looking at of horses. This is where Shaun comes in. This is putting into practice the theories that Dr Harrison discussed with us. So Shaun Clancy, welcome to Playing with Science, sir.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Hi, guys. Hey, Shaun. Okay, all right, we got to get into bloodstock because, you know, we're, we're talking about horses here. That's what this show is about and, you know, the, the science behind it, which is fascinating. But before we do that, man, I just got to talk to you about steeplechase and what it's like to actually do this. So, okay, here's what you do. Picture a horse race, okay, like the Kentucky Derby, which is already dangerous enough, right? It's already fast moving enough, right? You have these horses thundering around a track, okay? And then all of a sudden, it's like, let's jump a small river.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  That's steeplechase. Yo, man, you gotta just talk to me about this. How'd you get into it? And what, what is it like? When you are, I mean, this, this isn't some equestrian show where you see the guys, you know, kind of going around a little, a little arena and they're, you know, they make the jumps and then they trot and you guys are full out like sprinting and jumping hedges and water hazards and tell me about it.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Well, for me, I mean, I grew up with it, so it made perfect sense. I mean, I, once you look outside of your life, you realize it makes no sense. But when you're growing up and your dad's doing it and your friends are doing it, you're living on a farm and it was a very natural thing for me to do. I mean, I started riding pony races when I was 13. Um, I actually won my first pony race and the stirrup fell off the saddle and I fell off the pony and the pony ran over me and got seven stitches. So that was my first ride and, um.

• 24:23Gary O'Reilly?

  And you went back?

• 24:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  When I was 13 years old and that pretty much sums up the, um, the career of a steeplechase jockey. You have the, you know, in, in one race, you can win and fall and go to the hospital. So, um, it's, uh, I mean, pure adrenaline. Um, it's amazing how slow it can actually be going. I mean, when you're going 30 miles an hour on a horse with a pack of 10, 12, 14 horses, going two miles, two and a quarter, two and a half miles. It actually goes really slowly. I mean, you know, when you're in that moment, um, when you get good, I mean, at least when you get that kind of experience, when I was, the, the young kids, it's going really fast.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  And for the older guys, uh, it slows down and, um, you know, then you're really tactically trying to ride a race and trying to do all the things like any athlete is, uh, trained to do. And, um, I always laugh, I've retired now, but I always laugh when I see these jump jockeys, they'll say, I, they'll retire and I'll say, I don't know what I'm gonna do to find, what, how I'm gonna find something to replace riding jump races. And I go, well, that's your first mistake. There is nothing that's going to replace riding steeplechase races. So find something else that might give you some. Pleasure, you know, some interest, some challenge, but forget replacing it because that's impossible.

• 25:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, like, you know, just become, become like a, a, I don't know, like, uh, what do they call them? A bomb diffuser. Anything like something that bring your adrenaline to the highest point that it could possibly be.

• 25:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Give you the echo of what it takes.

• 26:00Chuck Nice?

  Right, give you just a small like taste of what it's like. I have to tell you, I'm gonna get off of it now because we gotta move on to the horses. But it is, anybody, just go on YouTube, people, and just put in Steeplechase and just watch some of these races. If you wanna, I mean, your adrenaline, this is why, this is why it excites me so. I can't imagine how the jockeys feel, uh, how the jump guys feel because my adrenaline is pumped just watching.

• 26:27Gary O'Reilly?

  See, it's not just the adrenaline because you can go and get an adrenaline rush in a number of different places in a number of different ways. I am on another species that has its own free will and mind and I'm trying to get it to do stuff. It is such a test of your self and then being able to orchestrate this other beast to do this thing. And you have to have a synergy between, it's, it is the most amazing.

• 26:51Chuck Nice?

  Interesting question, Sean. So, race car drivers often say, I feel like I'm at one with this machine.

• 26:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Great point.

• 26:57Chuck Nice?

  I feel like I'm at one with this machine. I feel like I'm at one with the road. Do you, do you feel that connection when you're with the animal? Do you, does it feel like you guys are in sync together? Or is that just some kind of machination, the, the romantic machination that we put in our heads?

• 27:14Speaker 04

  Uh, no, for sure. I mean, when it's going well, you feel like you're at one with the horse for sure. I mean, you're really, you're thinking the same, you're, uh, you're reacting the same. Uh, the horse's instincts are, are your instincts. A good horse, the moment you think, God, we should go like at a jump, you say, man, we should be going long at this. And, and the moment you even get that thought, like, the moment you get. The split second, the millisecond you think long, he thinks the same thing and increases to that stride. That's when it's going well. When it's going poorly, there's no instinct and it's a complete disaster.

• 27:48Chuck Nice?

  When you guys are having a telepathy argument, that's when things.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:54Gary O'Reilly?

  So the interesting thing is race car drivers, it's all about horsepower, like with Sean, only there's quite a hun- there's several hundred more. But, all right, let's bring it back to where we are. And, all right, we are, we're in an auction. Just imagine that, Chuck and I, with a suitcase full of dollars or whatever the currency is. What's the first thing you would look for in a horse if you were looking to purchase one?

• 28:20Speaker 04

  I mean, I look them dead in the eye. You know, as soon as I see a horse, the first thing I look is right in their eye and try to get a sense of who they are. I mean, I can get a pretty good sense. Anybody's been around horses, you get a good sense of the horse's kind of attitude, his confidence level, his approach to life. So you kind of look them in the eye. And then my first move is just to look at the balance. I mean, I think the most important thing when you're looking at a horse is just if they're balanced. Because there's big ones, small ones, there's skinny ones, there's tall ones, there's narrow ones. What you want is balance, just how they walk, how they stand. You want everything to go together. So what I try to do is just as they walk out of the stall, you look them,

• 29:05Speaker 04

  I like to look them right in the eye and just see their head, their presence, and then watch them walk and see if they have that balance that I like. And presence is a lot of it. You really want a horse with a-

• 29:16Gary O'Reilly?

  You can't, you can't write a theory or an equation or do research.

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  Not for that.

• 29:22Gary O'Reilly?

  No, that's got to come from experience.

• 29:24Chuck Nice?

  That's experience. So when you say balance, I'm just trying to understand, are you talking about like musculature? Are you talking about symmetry? Are you talking about a gestalt, which is, you know, the way the animal carry itself along with all these other aspects? What exactly do you mean by balance?

• 29:40Speaker 04

  You want, what you want in a horse, you want a, you want a big, strong front end, but you also need the strong hind end to push that front end. So, you know, when you go, like you, if you walk in the paddock for the Kentucky Derby, there'll be 20 horses in there and they will be all different shapes and sizes. But for pretty much all of them, they will be balanced. So if you have a light made horse that's athletic- You need to have a really light, you want a light front end, light hind end, light middle, so it all kind of goes together. What you don't want in a horse is a big, you know, heavy neck, heavy shoulder, but then not have the hind end to push that, or the walk to uh to maintain that. A lot, most of the auctions, you're just seeing them walk. So like at a yearling sale, you're only seeing them walk. So you're really trying to figure out by that walk, how

• 30:25Speaker 04

  they're going to gallop, how they're going to race, how, you know, when they go faster, um how much balance they're going to have. That's really what you're trying to do.

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  It's kind of like, um, professional, um, what's it called when the guys? Bodybuilders. Yeah, professional bodybuilders. That's how they're judged. Kind of like, it's all about. It's an aesthetic, and then again, it's balance. It's balance and aesthetic.

• 30:45Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay, Chuck and I, we're two multi-billionaires.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't tell the accountant.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Um, what's the biggest mistake Chuck and I are going to make? For sure, absolutely guaranteed as newbies.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  As, as a novice, as a novice billionaire trying to get into the horse game, baby.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Well, the most important thing in a public auction is you don't want to, you don't want to get caught up in the moment, uh, the ego part to try to show off and, and, because it's a big adrenaline rush. Uh, the public auction, what they always tell you, you got to remember the auction team is not, um, not friends with the buyer. So they're trying to get you to spend more. Um, so you want to keep that in check, you want to keep your emotions in check, your ego in check. As far as a horse goes, I think the most important thing, when you look at a horse, you don't, what, I think what you make, the biggest mistake you make is going into it with preconceptions. So if you see a horse, like we, it's a lot about pedigrees and a lot about, um, different things and, you know, consignors who owns the horse, um,

• 31:42Speaker 04

  and things like that. So if you go into it, as you walk up to the horse and you have a liking to that stallion, and maybe the mare, you will have that kind of, you'll, you'll want to like the horse rather than just that instinct of. Is this the right horse or not? Like, my best moves are almost like when I not really looking for the horse. It's like when you, you know, you're just, you're, and you don't know who the stallion is, you don't know who the mare is, and you're almost just, it's almost like it catches you by surprise. And, and the public auction is much, is difficult because you're obviously in the public auction marketplace. But like, my best moves privately is when I'm not even like going to look at the horse and the horse just, I see a horse

• 32:26Speaker 04

  and I go, wow, look at that horse. Those are my best moves. So you kind of want to go into it with an open mind rather than a preconception, or somebody tells you about a horse, oh, you'll love this horse. You're much better with a blank slate, just walking in and getting that.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  It's, it's kind of like, it's kind of like drafting when you're, in, in, in every other major league sport. I mean, you know, they tell you like, don't have your preconceived notions about the player. You got to make sure that, you know, you're looking at what you're looking at. And with that in mind, here's what I want to ask you. Have you ever seen a horse that, like, let's equate this to like the NFL draft or the NBA draft, right? That, have you ever seen a horse where it's like a six round pick, but it becomes a phenomenal player? Has that, is, and, and is that common? Or just, or is it just the genetics and all the other things that we look at kind of make that?

• 33:18Speaker 04

  Uh, no, it happens all the time. It's not common, but certainly, like at a, at a Keeneland, the biggest yearling sale in America is Keeneland, and they sell, Keeneland September. Um, and these horses are just over a year old, a year and a half old. Um, and, or a year and about, they're, you, you, you know, they're about sixteen, eighteen months old. And they sell five thousand horses there. And there's horses come out of that sale that are way deep in the, in the book that don't bring a lot, you know, aren't bringing a lot of money. Um, so yeah, there's certainly horses come out of the, out of the, um, you know, break the mold. Most of those horses don't have pedigree, but they have confirmation. They're, they're a great looking horse, or they're somehow just an athletic looking

• 34:02Speaker 04

  horse. There's a lot of old things that you're not supposed to do, uh, with horses, you know, all these crazy, you know, confirmation things. Um, but ultimately, most horses will break those rules too. So, um, yeah, those horses will come out of nowhere for sure.

• 34:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Sean, I, I must ask you, okay, this is, this is my cynicism. If someone is selling a horse.

• 34:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Then there must be something wrong with it. Otherwise, they keep it.

• 34:29Chuck Nice?

  That's

• 34:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  I know, because I honestly, that would be my first thing. And you know, it's funny because my brother used to sell real estate.

• 34:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 34:39Chuck Nice?

  And the first thing you ask is, so why are they selling the home?

• 34:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  Like, why are you getting rid of this home?

• 34:44Gary O'Reilly?

  They put a lot of money into this four-legged straw-eating machine, right? So I want to know. So how do you go about getting that mindset or taking it away?

• 34:52Speaker 04

  No, that's important. And there, there are, I mean, when I go to a yearling sale, I'll certainly know. I try to know who's selling the horse, who owns the horse. There are some, some people breed horses to sell. So that's their business. They are breed, they've raised that horse to sell. They bring their horse to a marketplace, just like any marketplace, whether you're selling napples or, or cars or whatever. So, you know, you, you want to take that into consideration. Um, and, and that's certainly asked, it's certainly an element of it. Sometimes you go and you're like, these guys race all their horses, but they're selling this horse. That's probably a bad sign, a, a kind of a red flag. Certainly when it's, when they're older and a more in a private session. Like for me, I sell a lot of steeplechase horses and prospects that are three and four

• 35:37Speaker 04

  year olds that are running. And that's always one, I mean, the first thing I think is, okay, why are these guys selling this horse? If I know the people and they only want really some great flat horses and this horse isn't, isn't cutting that, then it makes perfect sense why they're selling that horse. So I'll buy that horse. Uh, if a guy's just randomly selling a horse that loves the race and has other options to keep racing the horse, then that's a red flag for sure. I mean, I like, I don't know about that. I don't know why that guy's selling that horse. It's certainly a, I mean, you, you, it's, it's, I mean, the, the stuff that goes into buying that horse, certainly who owns the horse and why they're selling it is a part of it. And sometimes you'll say, oh, these guys breed, they breed a hundred horses a year and they sell all a hundred. That makes perfect sense. I'm fine with that.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  If a guy breeds a hundred horses and sells three a year, yeah, you might question.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  That's not the dude. You don't want to deal with that guy.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. So let me ask you this. When it comes to, you know, horses and everyone in the, in your, in your field refers to them as athletes. They're like the athlete, this, the athlete, this is a great athlete. With respect to them being athletes, can you find a horse that may be at a certain level, say eighty percent, and then train that horse to get to the one hundred percent that you're looking for, just like a regular athlete or a human athlete? Is that possible? Or are you limited by what the horse is and basically you're kind of stuck in that place?

• 37:06Speaker 04

  I mean, you're somewhat limited. You're not going to take a slow horse. I mean, an innately slow horse, you're not going to make that horse fast. You can certainly take a, you might make him a little faster. I think you're right. I mean, if you're going for twenty percent better, sure, you can try to get him in a situation, a different, you put him in a trainer or they'll, or they'll simply develop. There's sire lines and pedigrees that get better with age. There's horses that are, some trainers are better than others. Some trainers are better with sprint horses. Some trainers are better with older horses. Some trainers are better with turf horses. So you can move your horse around and try to adjust and, and kind of create a better environment. Just like athletes, you know, if, if a guy, you know, if a track and field runner is running a mile

• 37:51Speaker 04

  and you're thinking, God, he looks like he's more of a sprinter, then, you know, you'd shorten him up and try to train him differently and see if he could run a, you know, fifteen hundred meters or whatever. So we do that a lot. I mean, you're constantly trying to tweak the horses and trying to adjust things to make them, make them faster, make them more competitive for sure.

• 38:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Sean, what, how many thoroughbreds on the market at any one time? How many sold during the year? And just how much money is the thoroughbred market worth annually? Just so as people and myself get an idea of what we're talking about here.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, like the thoroughbred, the North American thoroughbred crop, there's about twenty thousand yearlings, or twenty thousand foals a year. So there's, so roughly it's gone down. It was almost forty thousand in nineteen ninety. It's down to tw- less than twenty thousand now.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  But of those horses, those 20,000, not all of those will go to a marketplace. Um, but like, for example, Keeneland is the biggest, that's, they, they sell the most yearlings. Um, and the yearling market is really, your horse would be born, it's obviously it's a foal, uh, uh, in the spring of the, spring, the following fall. So he's a little over a year old. Is the, is the Keeneland's, uh, September sale and they sell five thou-, almost 5,000 yearlings there. There are lots of other sales during the year. Um, so, I mean, I don't have a number on it, but I'd say probably, I mean, of a foal crop of, of 20,000, I mean, probably 10,000 of them or, or would be, yeah, but well, I mean, probably, yeah, probably anywhere between five and 10. I mean, there's certainly lots of other yearling sales.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  So probably, you know, roughly half would be, would, would eventually go to a, a, to a sale. And they can be sold as what they call weanling. So that's, um, before they turn one year or just after they turn one. Um, yearling sales, there's two-year-old sales. So it's a big marketplace and there's, and it goes, I mean, there's huge numbers as far as what people pay for horses. I mean, it's, um, you know, you'll get like Keeneland. I mean, they'll sell mil-, they'll sell two, three million dollar yearlings. And then they'll be selling some, you know, later in the books, they're selling very cheaply by the end.

• 40:05Gary O'Reilly?

  So, fall to finish line, Kentucky Derby. I have to call it Derby because for me it's a Derby. So I'm going to speak American. So it's Kentucky Derby. Thank you. Neil will be so proud of me, right? So what's it going to take, fall to finish line? And where's my money going?

• 40:22Speaker 04

  All right, money goes? Uh, well, it's going to cost you a lot. I mean, it'll cost you a lot of money. Uh, if you're trying to breed one, you'd roughly, you're gonna, you're gonna, uh, find a stallion that stands for 50,000. I mean, you could, there's all the different levels, but that's just a stallion service to, you have a, you own the mare, you, you. Let's go, say we'll spend fifty thousand to breed to a stallion. Uh, you own that mare, that's gonna cost you, you know, every day you own her, she, she's in foal for eleven months. So you're paying day rate on that, which, you know, you're roughly, say, that's probably fifty bucks a day. Um, then, then you have the foal, um, it doesn't even get to the races for, um, till it's two.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Um, so you have, if you have that horse in training, that's gonna be a hundred dollars a day from the time he goes to the track to the Derby, so, um, and then you have all the other vagaries of the game, which is, you know, the, all the, lots of other elements, injuries and different things going wrong. And the chances of only, only, only one horse and get into the Derby is, that's like a million to one, so, um, for you to get to the Derby, you're gonna start with twenty or thirty or forty or fifty. I mean, guys have, I mean, there's people that have hundreds of horses and have never had a Derby start or ever, so, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, um,

• 41:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they, they might wanna find a new endeavor.

• 41:50Gary O'Reilly?

  What I'm hearing Chuck is, keep that suitcase locked.

• 41:53Chuck Nice?

  Keep the suitcase locked, full of money.

• 41:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Let the money out.

• 41:55Chuck Nice?

  We gotta go, but I got one last question for you, cuz here's the thing, there's a term, and it's, uh, it's now become political, but it, it, and it says, horse trading, it's like, oh, we're horse trading, but it really just means that it's the hardest, shrewdest bargaining that you can do, because selling and buying a horse is, is that difficult. Is it still that way? Is it still like about, like, the hard, shrewd deal? Or has it become more, uh, baseline like any other business where commodities are bought and sold?

• 42:33Speaker 04

  I mean, look, it's still, no, it's still a hard, I mean, it's a hard thing to do. It's, um, you know, it's a lot of elements to it. Um, you know, you're trying, like, when you're trying to buy a horse, you're trying to combine everything. You're looking at his pedigree, you're looking at, um, looking who owns it, looking at its, how athletic it is, and then you got a guy who's selling it, you don't know if the guy's just trying to unload the horse, or he's trying, or the horse is a nice horse, and he's trying to get, uh, what he's getting. You're at a public auction, which is everybody's there, and everybody's trying to buy the horse, so, um, or not trying to buy the horse. There's lots of gimmicks and games and things that happen, just like any, um, any commerce. Um, so, you know, you gotta be good at it, you gotta be, um, you gotta get lucky.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Uh, it's a little like, I mean, I think if you, like, baseball, it's like, like, the Astro, Astro Ball, if you read that book, it's more, it's about the, the, all the details and the numbers and the, the, all the elements of the, you know, the, the, um, percentages and numbers and different things, but it's also the, the, the human, you know, they, they factored in human instinct, guys who, who can hit in the clutch and who can't, and that's why they were successful, they combined the two. So, horse racing's like that, you're combining all the, everything, the science behind it, but also you're just straight good old fashioned horsemanship, trying to figure out, you know, which one's the fastest.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  Good old fashioned horse sense.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Yep. Exactly.

• 44:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Sean Clancy, thank you. Um, if people want to find you, learn about this a little bit more, where do they go? Just give us a plug for your...

• 44:11Speaker 04

  Uh, it's, is, our website's thisishorseracing.com, that's our publishing website, and my stable's River D Stable, which runs, uh, flat end jump and, uh, around the world.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Awesome, man, thanks so much.

• 44:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Sean Clancy, thank you very much indeed.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  Thanks, guys.

• 44:27Gary O'Reilly?

  What Dr. Harrison was saying, by drilling down into the genetics...

• 44:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Is one side, you look at a lifetime of growing up with horses, being a jump jockey from the age of 13.

• 44:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:44Gary O'Reilly?

  And what blew me away was, what's the first thing you do? I look the horse straight in the eye.

• 44:49Chuck Nice?

  I know, that's.

• 44:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Because they're characters. They have their own unique characters. And this is what he wants to find.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:57Gary O'Reilly?

  There's, I mean, all of the, she's just wrapped up there. All of the numbers, all of the statistics, all of the, I mean, basically the horse's logbook. Like he would buy a car and you're going then, but then I gotta think, what's this horse like in a certain stage of a race? What's this, is it built to do this? Can I get this horse to go a little bit somewhere else? Can I see potential above and beyond what it's shown in the past? Yeah.

• 45:23Chuck Nice?

  It's pretty fascinating.

• 45:23Gary O'Reilly?

  The sport of kings and you have to be one to afford it.

• 45:26Chuck Nice?

  I'm just very upset that I didn't ask him if he's ever licked a gift horse in the mouth. Damn it, I missed that opportunity.

• 45:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Shaun. Well, that's our show. Uh, and we'll never know, will we? Unless we get Shaun back, um, he may well do so. From Chuck Nice.

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  And Gary O'Reilly.

• 45:47Gary O'Reilly?

  This has been Playing with Science and our Thoroughbred special. And hopefully your money isn't wasted on the Kentucky Derby. Um, I know mine won't be because it's not going to go on the horse. Uh, yep, we look forward to your company very, very soon. You enjoyed the show, hopefully. And we ask you to go and find the rest of our shows with Playing with Science. Catch up soon.