Thoroughbred Ownership Experiences

jaefeathered

Feel free to discuss any great racing syndicates or other ownership experiences you guys have!

I just invested $500 into Little Red Feather's LRF Thoroughbred Fund. They plan on purchasing several horses with the money they raise through this crowdsourced fund. They seem like a very classy, reputable organization and I'm proud to call myself one of their own now. I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on the horses they buy!

If you guys are interested in it, check out this link: https://www.startengine.com/startup/lrf-thoroughbred-fund-llc

lauraj_cincinnati

Good luck! They had a nice winner yesterday at Del Mar--Pretty grey son of Smoke Glacken.

I might get into Racing Factions. Shares are $500. They collect as much money as they can and use it to buy a horse at auction. They only buy one horse at a time. One nice thing is that they have a democratic process for major decisions--one vote per share. Right now they have two horses and are forming a new partnership. They are based in Kentucky, which makes them better for me than Little Red Feather.

Some day I'd like to get into a regular partnership. I like the way Pocket Aces operates. They've had decent luck with some inexpensive purchases, and they are KY based and run their horses in my general area. Right now I can't afford a quarterly fee, though (that's what happens when one's car dies and needs to be replaced).

jaefeathered

lauraj_cincinnati said:

Good luck! They had a nice winner yesterday at Del Mar--Pretty grey son of Smoke Glacken.

I might get into Racing Factions. Shares are $500. They collect as much money as they can and use it to buy a horse at auction. They only buy one horse at a time. One nice thing is that they have a democratic process for major decisions--one vote per share. Right now they have two horses and are forming a new partnership. They are based in Kentucky, which makes them better for me than Little Red Feather.

Some day I'd like to get into a regular partnership. I like the way Pocket Aces operates. They've had decent luck with some inexpensive purchases, and they are KY based and run their horses in my general area. Right now I can't afford a quarterly fee, though (that's what happens when one's car dies and needs to be replaced).

Yeah, Kentucky is still too far for me, so there's not much difference between syndicates based there and syndicates based in California. For you, a syndicate based in Kentucky is a fantastic idea. If there was a good, cheap syndicate a little closer to me, maybe around Laurel Park, I'd definitely go for it. What I like about LRF though is that they're a large, proven ownership group, have been around for 15 years, and they have had several multiple graded stakes winners. My $500 also buys into more than one horse, which is extremely appealing.

I hope you have good luck with whichever partnership you choose!

jaefeathered

The Little Red Feather fund hit its $100k minimum last night! I'm hoping we can make it to at least $200-300k by October 1 though. It's really accelerated recently though, so I think $200k is a pretty reasonable goal.

bigherbie

jaefeathered said:

The Little Red Feather fund hit its $100k minimum last night! I'm hoping we can make it to at least $200-300k by October 1 though. It's really accelerated recently though, so I think $200k is a pretty reasonable goal.

Jaefeathered, I contacted LRF with a question if other expenses will be incurred after initial buy-in. Here's the response. What do you think?

Thanks for contacting us. No additional expenses. Having said that if additional are needed we will need it from somewhere. Likely I will have to pay and then everyone reduces on a pro rata basis.

Make sense?

Call me any time to discuss.

Gary

jaefeathered

bigherbie said:

jaefeathered said:

The Little Red Feather fund hit its $100k minimum last night! I'm hoping we can make it to at least $200-300k by October 1 though. It's really accelerated recently though, so I think $200k is a pretty reasonable goal.

Jaefeathered, I contacted LRF with a question if other expenses will be incurred after initial buy-in. Here's the response. What do you think?

Thanks for contacting us. No additional expenses. Having said that if additional are needed we will need it from somewhere. Likely I will have to pay and then everyone reduces on a pro rata basis.

Make sense?

Call me any time to discuss.

Gary

Yup, I'm not worried about that. I actually don't really care much about what percentage I own. I just like having the insider experience and am not out to make money. I like that they aren't going to come asking for more money from us.

KMM

True.

jaefeathered

Santa Anita Park has just become a marketing partner for the Little Red Feather Thoroughbred Fund. This means that investors gain a few extra benefits, but also means that the offering deadline has been pushed back to November 30th from an original deadline of October 1. So far, they've raised $147,000 and have a total of 91 investors.

I was really excited to finally get this whole thing started this weekend and have LRF start looking for horses, but this means that more money will be raised and we'll get to own shares in better horses. I'm willing to take that trade-off.

marepower

Keep us posted Jae. Have looked into this myself.

jaefeathered

Sure thing! I think this fund will get a huge boost from the annual Thoroughbred Owner's Conference at Santa Anita Park during the Breeders' Cup. LIttle Red Feather has their own booth at one of the syndicate events and Billy Koch (one of the co-founders) is going to be on the Breeders' Cup Owners panel.

I'm really hoping this means that Little Red Feather could raise up to $250,000-300,000 and buy a few nice horses outright instead of just 20% shares or something.

jaefeathered

The LRF crowdfunding effort has been slowly scraping up some more funds over the last month. We're up to $169,500 invested from 107 different people.

I'm pretty excited though because LRF just sent out another email about it and said "LRF will use the proceeds to privately purchase a select number of stakes-quality thoroughbreds, and also keep a suitable reserve for expense. WHO KNOWS, WE MAY JUST BUY A MINORITY INTEREST IN A KENTUCKY DERBY PROSPECT?!"

Wouldn't that be amazing? =O At least they're seriously looking for their horses to race beyond the claiming level, which is more than I can say for some other syndicates.

Especially_Horses

Jae, is there a minimum amount to be an investor in LRF. I am being cautious after the TBSX experience

jaefeathered

It's a $500 minimum investment, but they're looking to buy (at least shares in) a couple of different horses, which means you're at least a little diversified. You also don't have any monthly or quarterly bills to pay, which is a big benefit. Little Red Feather has a fantastic reputation though. I've heard nothing but positive things about them.

Essentially, they've been around for about 15 years and have won a Breeders' Cup race (the Mile with Singletary in 2004) and dozens of other stakes races. This year alone they have over $2mm in earnings, have won 24% of the time, and have been in the money 49% of the time. From what I've heard, they also give near-daily updates on their horses as well, which is a huge benefit to me.

One of the downsides of LRF though is that unless you live out in California, or are willing to at least travel out there, you probably won't get to see your horses run in person.

lauraj_cincinnati

How's the Little Red Feather thing going?

I've been exploring (read: internet surfing) other opportunities. I've restructured my finances so that I might be able to afford a monthly or quarterly maintenance fee, plus the cost of shares in a horse. Or I might go with Thoroughbred Factions. I like Pocket Aces a lot.

There's also Horseplayers Racing Club. I contacted them some years ago about one of their fillies. I went a different direction, but I remember that they were responsive and polite. They do traditional partnerships in which one pays a share of the horse's expenses. As partnerships go, they're inexpensive. Most of their horses are not in my area, but occasionally they have one or two. They partner with other syndicates, including Pocket Aces If someone is in the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, or Louisiana area, this group is worth looking at.

https://horseplayersracingclub.com/

jaefeathered

The LRF fund is up to $173,000 raised from 112 people so far. I'm hoping that we start to get some more publicity at Santa Anita's Ownership Conference this week, so maybe we can get over the $200k mark. They aren't going to start looking for horses to buy until December 1, but man I'm so antsy about it haha.

I love hearing about other ownership opportunities though! I think I'd consider going with It's All About the Girls LLC, Bourbon Lane, or maybe Hibiscus Stables if I was going to do something a little more local. For now I'm going to just see how LRF goes I'm not quite ready to spend money every month (or every few months) on expenses.

KMM

How much is initial investment jae, in your favorite?

lauraj_cincinnati

@jaefeathered, keep us posted.

I keep looking for opportunities around here. You'd thin that there would be a lot of them, Lexington being the "Horse Capital of the World" and all, but there aren't. Most of the public partnerships that I know of and could ever afford are in the New York-mid Atlantic area.

Pocket Aces just yesterday added a new Ohio-bred to their stable. I'm trying to restrain myself.

jaefeathered

KMM said:

How much is initial investment jae, in your favorite?

The initial (and total) investment in the LRF crowdfunding effort is as low as $500. There are no ongoing expenses involved, which is pretty great.

EDIT: If you were asking about the minimum investments for some of the other partnerships, I think they're all at least $1500 for an initial investment with ongoing monthly (or quarterly) costs. Hence why I haven't done any of them yet.

lauraj_cincinnati

It depends on the partnership and how much your share of the horse is. More horse = more money; more quality = more money. The Horseplayers Racing Club is quite inexpensive to get into, as such things go. Depending on the horse, you can get in for $400 or sometimes less. Their ongoing expenses are lower than one finds with many partnerships. On the other hand, they run mostly at mid-lower tier tracks where day rates are lower. They've had a few stakes horses, but generally partnerships on this level are not going to yield the next Derby winner. On the other hand, there are outfits like West Point and Team Valor that play at the top of the sport. Shares of their horses can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more, with expenses for top trainers.

The Pocket Aces Ohio-bred is $900-something for a quarter share, which is about 2%. That's why I am slapping my own hand.

Besides the established, well-known partnerships such as Little Red Feather, Hibiscus, West Point, etc., a lot of owner/trainers are willing, even happy to sell a portion of a horse. It helps to have a partner to offset even a small portion of the horse's expenses. Back in the 2007-2008 recession, I even saw a free partnership. The owner/trainer just wanted help with the horse's expenses and was willing to give away 5% of the horse in exchange for support.

jaefeathered

I'm glad that I don't care too much about making money off of owning racehorses, so the percentage I own doesn't really matter to me. If the LRF partnership ends up making a massive amount of money, I'd rather they just bought more horses for the partnership rather than distribute the purse money. I'm just doing this for the thrill.

jaefeathered

I thought this was an interesting article in BloodHorse today about racehorse ownership and spreading risk between several horses: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/216305/spreading-the-risk-key-for-new-owners

This was from the National Owners Conference at Santa Anita Park earlier today, which continues this week.

bleubetty

@jaefeathered --- I was reviewing entries in the Breeders Cup Mile and I noticed that Midnight Storm is owned by A Venneri Racing & Little Red Feather Racing. Would you be part of the ownership of this horse, since you are a share holder with Little Red Feather?

lauraj_cincinnati

jaefeathered said:

I'm glad that I don't care too much about making money off of owning racehorses, so the percentage I own doesn't really matter to me. If the LRF partnership ends up making a massive amount of money, I'd rather they just bought more horses for the partnership rather than distribute the purse money. I'm just doing this for the thrill.

Oh, I have no illusions that I might one day make money off a racehorse. I guess that I need a minimum portion of a horse to really feel like an owner. 0.1% isn't really enough for me.

jaefeathered

bleubetty said:

@jaefeathered --- I was reviewing entries in the Breeders Cup Mile and I noticed that Midnight Storm is owned by A Venneri Racing & Little Red Feather Racing. Would you be part of the ownership of this horse, since you are a share holder with Little Red Feather?

No, Little Red Feather has separate LLCs for each partnership. Midnight Storm has a separate group of partners/investors than Bellamentary, who has separate partners/investors than Midnight Miley, etc. The fund I've invested in hasn't purchased horses yet, but I should own part of at least two horses and possibly three. Billy Koch told me that the plan is to get three though, even if LRF only buys a 20% share in each horse.

lauraj_cincinnati

Well, I entered Racing Faction's contest to win a share in their Group III purchase. Wish me luck.

jaefeathered

Neat! What does the contest involve?