Today's post is written by JOHN BAXTER

A home run horse, or a “big horse”, is one who succeeds at the highest level, a life changing horse - a Smarty Jones, a Sunline. Glenye Cain’s book “The Home Run Horse” is an interesting study in the lengths to which people will go and the fabulous sums they will spend to get a home run horse.

“Another Storm Cat son, Tasmanian Tiger, fared even worse. Closely related to a champion filly named Storm Song, he brought $6.8 million at a yearling auction in 1999. Two years later, his owners gave up on him after he had won just a single race in his first few starts. They sold him to Hong Kong, an equine hinterland populated by outcasts from America and Europe. Tasmanian Tiger had made just three starts, and might have come around eventually, but he must have disappointed his owners, Coolmore Stud, very badly in his short time at the races: Despite his sparkling pedigree, they gelded him before putting him on the plane. Alongside Tasmanian Tiger for the flight was another well-bred and expensive disaster from the Coolmore stable, a $5.5 million colt named Diaghilev, who won twice but then tailed off badly and was beaten by 11 lengths in his final start in England.”

It’s a throwaway paragraph, used by Cain to demonstrate the oft made point that spending lots of money on yearlings is no guarantee that they will run fast. Unfortunately for the author, she has made a couple of blunders which demonstrate the oft made point that one really should check one’s facts before going into print with them.

After he went to Hong Kong, Tasmanian Tiger was renamed “The Pioneer” and sank like a stone.

So far, so good.

The other “expensive disaster”, Diaghilev was renamed “River Dancer”, and he just happened to win the 2004 Group 1 Audemars Piguet QEII Cup at Sha Tin. The QEII forms part of the World Series Racing Championship, and any horse who wins a leg of the Championship is a home run horse by any measure.

Oops.

More important though, is the author’s ignorance of Hong Kong’s racing industry, demonstrated by her comment “…Hong Kong, an equine hinterland populated by outcasts from America and Europe”. Cain is the bloodstock business writer for the Daily Racing Form, the American horse racing bible, and she really ought to know better. The Hong Kong Jockey Club is recognised internationally as one of the most progressive racing administrators in the business. Prizemoney in Hong Kong is the envy of just about every other jurisdiction, with the exception of Japan. Hong Kong conducts 2 legs of the World Series Racing Championship, the QEII and the Hong Kong International Cup. The latter run in December, along with three other international races, on the 3rd richest race day on the calendar, behind only the Dubai World Cup and the Breeders Cup. There are lessons the rest of the racing world can learn from Hong Kong. Yet the reader is led to believe that Hong Kong is a racing backwater, a hinterland. Hardly.

And how about “…populated by outcasts from America and Europe”? The author appears to be unaware of HK’s owners’ and trainers’ practice of scouring the yearling sales and racing stables in the UK, Ireland, Europe, Australasia and even South America for promising racing prospects, and paying big money for them. And they are pretty good at it too. Home trained horses won 3 of the 4 big races on Hong Kong International Day in 2003. Outcasts? I don’t think so. Top class turf prospects from all over the globe would be more accurate.

Is it a case of the author giving credence to the popular view (myth?) that Americans don’t really know or care what happens outside their own backyard, or simply carelessness on her part ? More than likely the latter, but I’m not sure the HKJC or the Hong Kong racing public would be impressed whichever it may be.

Just goes to show that you can’t believe everything you read, even when it appears in the best written and most carefully researched works, and “The Home Run Horse” is certainly well written and researched - apart from one little paragraph on page 14!