"We believe the real opportunity to ‘hit the long ball’ is to own a prospective stallion, and with significantly fewer horses coming on the market to buy, it is increasingly important to try to ‘make’ these stallion prospects."

For many years, we offered pinhooking opportunities to various clients and ourselves. Initially it was pinhooking weanlings to yearlings but four years ago we have included yearlings to two year olds. The results have been fabulous. We have purchased 46 horses to pinhook at a cost of $3.8 million and sold them for $11.3 million before deducting expenses. Equally rewarding are the Graded Stakes winners included in this group: MINT LANE (G2), BOSS LAFITTE (G3), PALACE EPISODE (G1), MALABAR GOLD (G2), NORTHERN AFLEET (G2), WANDERING STAR (G2), FLEMENSFIRTH (G1), MUHTARRAM (G1) champion.

When we expanded yearling pinhook to two year olds, we formalized it to a limited partnership because there were friends who wanted to participate, and I thought this was the most reasonable way to become involved in the business. In order to accomplish this, we offered 30 units at a cost of $50,000 per unit. We placed the majority of these and retained 6 units ourselves as an investment and also demonstrated our confidence in the project. In our opinion, the real potential for a significant return is if you are fortunate enough to own a promising horse on the track. Even though our objective is to sell these horses at auction, we are able to assess their talent and if they do not bring what we think is a fair value then we are prepared to race or go to the next sale.

	MINT LANE Adam Coglianese

Recently, MINT LANE won the (G2) Dwyer S. for our 2006 Sycamore partnership. He was a colt who demonstrated talent for Niall Brennan when in training as a two year old but for one reason or another, did not sell at the two year old sale. This also occurred in 2005 when PALACE EPISODE, a Machiavellian colt we purchased in partnership for $100,000 failed to sell as a two year old in England. We raced him that year and had the great fortune of winning the (G1) Racing Post and later sold him for a very significant return.

The limited partnership has worked out well with the first year essentially breaking even… second year nearly 100% profit… the third year is still in process with four retained racehorses including  MINT LANE. The fourth year, 2008 we have all of our money back with one yearling still to sell, a Friend's Lake colt. We know the market is very selective and responded accordingly last year, investing only about a third of the available money.

Once again, we intend on looking for opportunities at the upcoming yearling sale and weanling sale. For the most part, this partnership is completed and not open to the general public. Many of the participants are friends from college or acquaintances that want to participate in the business and realize the pitfalls that always exist.