| Astar Thoroughbreds, LLC Breeding News Even though Astar Thoroughbreds is heavily involved in racing, their study of pedigree and breeding theories compelled them to initiate a breeding program a few years ago. They built a broodmare band, acquired a stallion in Stormy Business and began selling their bred horses. These horses are just beginning their racing careers but already winning. |


| Did You Know? |
| Since I was a small boy betting races in Chicago, through my father and friends, there was always one constant in betting horses. It seemed, year after year that favorites won 1 out of every 3 races. With that knowledge I wasted many a day developing progressive betting systems knowing that the 33% favorite winning percentage would always come around. However, things seem to have changed. When reviewing track win percentages, it seems that favorites are winning more often than they once did. I looked specifically at Canterbury Park charts and found Canterbury must have one of the highest rated favorite winning percentages in the country. Over 40% of the favorites at Canterbury win! I have many good friends who refuse to bet favorites and I always tell them they should not consider the issue of betting favorites or not. They need to develop logic so they know which favorites to bet. In other words, if I believe a horse has a 50% probability of winning a race and it's a 2 to 1 favorite, it's a great bet and if you understand probabilities it's a 100% overlay. In fact, it's a much better bet than some horse where a bettor intuitively "likes the odds" and bets a 10 to 1 shot even though it only has a 10% chance of winning. With the shift in winning favorite percentages, and over 40% of favorites winning at Canterbury, bettors who refuse to bet favorites are likely winning on some occasions but often leave the track with a hang dog face. Good bettors who can reasonably predict probabilities, simply have to bet certain favorites to win over an extended period of time. Then again, I also have good friends who only bet on their neighbor's horses. Oh well. |

| How Do You Buy a Young Horse???? Are you tired of attending yearling sales with catalog pedigree pages that go to the 4th dam and still can't fill the white space? Do you find young horse sires whose success on the track, or in breeding, is ancient history? Do you talk to breeders who understand little about nicking, inbreeding or posess the breeding knowledge required to improve foal success probabilities? Do you really like inspecting young horses out of mares that never achieved any real success on the race track, or in the breeding shed? If you are like us and understand the economics of Minnesota racing, you are only interested in the best Minnesota bred horses, and know how fast both the mare and sire of that horse, ran on a racetrack. You look at the top speed ratings of both parents, or offspring of both parents if that data is available, and compare those to other available horses. You also want a pedigree and a nick that can compete anywhere, not just in Minnesota. You want a yearling to have a sire that won stakes races, had the heart to always be competitive and actually ran multiple triple digit Beyers speed ratings in this century. You want the foal to have a dam that raced and won, may have produced a winning foal and has a pedigree that includes a sires of some repute. If you are a smart buyer, you ignore young horses in Minnesota that do not have most if not all of the mentioned criteria. Then you, your trainer and or your advisors look at the young horses that meet your criteria to assure that conformation is adequate, or in some cases excellent. You then let others buy the young horses that don't meet your criteria for high success probabilities on the racetrack. Right now we still have one 2 year old, 1 yearling and 4 weanlings available for purchase. The 2 year old, yearling and one of the weanlings are out of YOUNG STAKES WINNING BROODMARES and all are by our TRIPLE DIGIT BEYER SPEED RATED sire Stormy Business. The other weanlings are all out of YOUNG WINNING BROODMARES with 2 of them already PRODUCING WINNING FOALS. Don't wait! As of today, October 4, 2011, we have SOLD 9 OF OUR SOLIDLY BRED HORSES to other Minnesota owners who look forward to racing these horses in the near future, in just the last 2 months! We keep our breeding operation at the Osborne Farm in Cambridge Minnesota. Joyce Osborne is always available to discuss the available Astar Thorouhhbred horses that remain available for sale. Those who visit their farm will not only see Stormy Business, but also Late Edition and Joey Franco, the Osborne's new GRADED STAKES WINNING STALLION they just recruited from Canada to stand in Minnesota. This is an unique opportunity to actually see both the stallions and mares that produce fine 2 year olds, yearlings and weanlings. Feel free to contact Rick or Joyce Osborne to schedule a visit. (Osborne's Number: 763-689-3661) |
For a FREE independent view of the resultant foal nicks/pedigrees, go to the Werk Thoroughbreds enick feature and enter Stormy Business as the sire, and the mares of your choice. |

