ABE Examples

I thought it would be interesting to look at some examples of ABE’s for auction buyers. These are from the 1999 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale. I only included the four buyers listed in the data who bought at least five horses at the sale. Several of these were acting as agents on behalf of other buyers. Keep in mind that the sample size’s here are microscopic. To draw meaningful conclusions from the data, you’d need to compile data across multiple sales. And even then, ABE suffers from the biases and problems I mentioned in the previous post.

Baden P. Chase- Horses:6, Total Cost:$1,190,000, Earnings:$279,759, ABE=0.24
Gatsas Thoroughbreds LLC- Horses:5, Total Cost:$282,000, Earnings:$364,099, ABE=1.29
John C. Oxley- Horses:5, Total Cost:$1,780,000, Earnings:$533,010, ABE=0.30
Todd A. Pletcher- Horses:7, Total Cost:$850,000, Earnings:$874,726, ABE=1.03

At some point I'd like to do a study across multiple sales looking at this data, and determining whether ABE is a 'repeatable skill' with predictive value...in other words, whether successful buyers are just getting lucky or not.