Labor Day weekend is a milestone on the calender. It signals the end of summer, back to school, start of football season, etc. In the thoroughbred game the start of September means the end of racing at two elite meets, Saratoga and Del Mar, the approach of the Breeder's Cup championships, and an increasing focus on the promising two year olds who are beginning to make an appearance at many tracks. With that in mind, we thought this would be a good time to take a look at some two year old stats; how many start, how many win, how many win stakes, etc. An article in the Blood-Horse of March 19, 2016 (pg. 45) has a table titled "2015 Performance & Earning Metrics, Sires of 2-Year-Olds", which lists the following;

Number of named 2yo registered foals; 21,572

Number of 2yo starters; 8,105 (37.6%)

Number of 2yo winners; 2,443 (11.4%)

Number of 2yo stakes winners; 258 (1.2%)

In other words, if you bought 100 two year olds randomly, you should expect to have 38 start, 11 win, 1 win a stake, and 62 not even make it to the races. Of course, a skilled team at the sale coupled with capable trainers at the racetrack should be able to significantly improve on those numbers. Nobody really knows at a sale of unraced two year olds which will be tomorrow's star, but it's pretty clear who by virture of physical conformation, movement on the track, and to a lesser extent pedigree those who are highly unlikely to stand up to the rigors of training and make it to the staritng gate. We'll boast a little here and note that Kenwood's record with ALL our two year old purchases in the last decade is far better than these averages. Over 85% of our purchases started at 2 (100% made it to the races by age 3), over 50% won at age 2 (over 90% reached the winner's circle by age 3), and from less than 50 horses purchased at the two year old sales we've had two stakes horses (both graded stakes placed at age 3). Without a doubt there are other capable people who are able to far exceed the overall averages on a regular basis, but looking at the above Blood-Horse statistics makes clear just how few two year olds actually make it on the racetrack. Some horses are naturally precotious and come out running early, but few of those end up to be the stars of tomorrow. With most two year olds it's a waiting game. If you can get them safely to the starting gate, get a race or two into them and have them mentally and physically sound going into thier three year old season, you are doing your job. Many of the better horses are late developers who given time and patience will go on to be stars as they mature.