[Post courtesy of John Baxter, Australia]

A foal is born. He starts growing and maturing. He continues growing and maturing until he turns 4 or 5. He then stops growing and maturing.

Thats about as basic as equine biology gets. And of course all horses are subject to it. Well, all but a select few it would seem.

Take Overlord, Lee Freedmans $2.2m purchase at the 2004 Easter Yearling sale. Shortly after registering the successful bid, Freedman was quoted as saying:

"He's a magnificent horse"

"He is a great type and the best international pedigree of any horse here"

"He is a lovely horse to have in the stable"

Overlord scraped home in a $7,000 2yo maiden on debut at the Sunshine Coast (a charming area, but hardly the SW1 of racetracks) on debut in May. He resumed from a spell with a distant 3rd in a Class 1 at Werribee the other day.

When Freedman was asked in a TV interview last week if he considered the colt to be worth $2.2m, he was not quite as upbeat as he had been at the Inglis saleyard. He responded perhaps with his tongue only partly in his cheek, "I'm sure he is to his owners".

Other recent descriptions of the $2.2m wonderhorse include "slow maturing".

What happened to the lovely, magnificent, great type ?

Similar puffery attended the purchase last year by Hideyuki Mori on behalf of Fusao Sekiguchi of the Storm Cat ex Welcome Surprise colt, who made US$8m at Keeneland.

Fusaichi Big Bucks as he has been christened by trainer Bob Baffert, remains unraced - he hasn't even been officially named. He is apparently 'immature'.

Musket, the $2.5m Woodlands Stud purchase at Easter this year is another 'tremendous athlete' who is nevertheless a slow maturer. He probably wont race until the back end of the season, if he races at all as a 2yo.

What is it with these extravagantly priced yearlings ? Do they defy basic equine biology ? Could it be that these horses have reached a level of maturity at sale time, only to regress subsequently ? Of course not. They were not great athletes at sale time. They were mere yearlings; callow youngsters.

So, at sale time, why talk about a high priced yearlings as if he were Pegasus himself ? My guess ? Self justification provides a healthy impetus if you've just spent several millions - or more likely, the millions of your patron, for it's usually the agents and trainers who do the spruiking - on an untried young horse in what can best be described as an economically imprudent investment.

Let's face it, no-one wants to blow millions at a yearling sale and then say to the media throng "I've deliberately bought a very backward, slow maturing nag".  

And what did John Ferguson, Sheikh Mohammed's consigliere, have to say about Storm Cat's latest magnum opus the US$9.7m colt ex Tranquility Lake ?

"This was a horse Sheikh Mohammed felt was the best Storm Cat he had seen"

"He was an outstanding athlete from a very good family and has the same (genetic) cross as (sire) Giants Causeway. From the moment Sheikh Mohammed laid eyes on this horse, he felt it was very important that he and his brothers race him in the Godolphin name. (We were) very keen to get him".

Gee that's a surprise.

I preferred consignor Alice Chandler's rather more enigmatic description:

"He's a colt with a lot of qualities"

For US$9.7m, he'd want to !

Let's see where this outstanding athlete is in 12 months time.

I reckon he'll be in a paddock.

Maturing.

Slowly.