| INDUSTRY |
SHR EW D MOV ES IN THE
SA LES R ING Buying and selling high-end bloodstock at public auction takes preparation, serious due diligence, lots of passion and a dose of luck.
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loodstock agents all have a formula, a routine, pedigree preferences and conformation predilections, which must be weighed against current market conditions and trends as they approach every sale. Whether you are purchasing horses for resale, to race or breeding stock, buying (or selling) Thoroughbreds is an intense business. Choosing the right weanling or yearling to pinhook is every bit as precarious as picking the right 2-year-old to run. Adrian Gonzalez, founder of Checkmate Thoroughbreds, is no exception. The 41-year-old horseman was not born into a family with deep equine ties or historic roots. He does, however, have a family story that reads something like a cold war novel. Gonzalez’s grandfather, Roberto, was a Cuban orphan raised in the government system and became an Olympic-caliber gymnast. Roberto was a member of the Cuban National Olympic Gymnastics Team during the Pan American Games in Guatemala City, Guatemala. During the competition he met his future wife (a student at the university where the games were held), defected from Cuba and started a family. When Gonzalez’s father Erick was 12, the family immigrated to the United States. Adrian grew up around backyard horses in a small northern California town. While obtaining a degree in animal science at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, he paid his bills by breaking yearlings at Cardiff Stud. Team roping and cowboying on a 23,000-acre cattle ranch may not have prepared the young Gonzalez for his first foyer into Thoroughbred racing. RIGHT: Spiced Perfection was smaller “in a plain brown wrapper” when she did not reach her reserve as a 2-year-old; the multiplegraded stakes winner ultimately earned $1,224,705.
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 57