Hospital treatment as a foal does not adversely affect future sales performance in Thoroughbred horses.

The research examines the prospective sales performance of Thoroughbred horses that received hospital treatment as foals and finds that such treatments do not negatively impact their value at public auction.

Methods

• The study focuses on Thoroughbreds treated in a hospital before they were 125 days old. These horses were born in Ireland in the years 2007 and 2008 and eventually presented for sale at public auctions. The records for these sales were taken from a publicly available database.
• For each treated horse, or “subject”, six controls were selected. The control horses were the three Thoroughbreds that were auctioned immediately before and the three auctioned immediately after the subject at the same sale.
• The study took into consideration the specific sale event and the gender of the subjects and controls. Similarly, the outcomes were also controlled for these two factors to ensure accuracy of the conclusions.

Results

• A total of 63 subjects were introduced at public auctions, distributed between the foal sales (19 horses), yearling sales (39 horses), and 2-year-old sales (5 horses).
• Of the 63, 45 subjects were sold at the auction. The average sale price for subjects was Euros 38,207 which was slightly higher than the mean sales price for controls at Euros 35,026.
• The percentage of subjects sold (71.4%) was slightly higher than the percentage of control horses sold (66.4%).

Conclusion

• No noticeable differences were found in the sales outcomes between subjects and controls, suggesting that hospital treatment as a foal does not negatively affect a Thoroughbred’s auction value.
• Such findings can aid breeders in making informed decisions about the necessity of providing hospital treatment to their Thoroughbred foals, knowing it won’t affect their market value at future sales.