When John Ropes signed the $30,000 winning ticket on 12-year-old mare Happy Week at last year's Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, he could not have predicted that her colt, Happy Saver, would be an undefeated winner in 2020 with a top-level score in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) to his name. With the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale on the horizon, Ropes will be selling Happy Saver's weanling full sister, Happy Charger. BloodHorse MarketWatch spoke to Ropes about his breeding operation, what impressed him about Happy Week, and what he loves about the Thoroughbred industry.
MarketWatch: How long have you been involved in the Thoroughbred industry?
John Ropes: I started in racing in about 1981 and bought a farm in 1985. I was in both breeding and training at the time and built a track behind the farm but I got out of that and have been focusing on breeding for a long time. I was mainly breeding in Florida but started breeding more in Kentucky three or four years ago and decided to upgrade my mares last year.
I found who I believe to be a phenomenal agent in Kentucky, Marette Farrell, through Beth Bayer at Woodford Thoroughbreds. She's wonderful. She has a nice touch and she's very direct. I usually bring her 50 or 60 mares and she'll knock out 50 of them for me. When we saw Happy Week, who was one of the horses on my list, she went back to see her about four times and she said, "You have to have this mare. We have to buy this mare." She was one of the least expensive mares we bought but little did we know that her Super Saver colt, Happy Saver —who was at Saratoga with Todd Pletcher at the time—would all of a sudden just explode after his Belmont maiden special. What a terrific horse he has turned out to be. It was Beth and Marette that induced me to put (Happy Charger) in the Keeneland (November Breeding Stock) sale coming up. I'm a terrible seller. It's easy to buy but sometimes the hardest thing you can do is sell. But I have a good team.
MW: How many mares do you currently own?
JR: Right now I have about seven mares. I have three mares in Ocala, potentially a fourth, that I send to Kentucky to breed before I bring them back to my farm, Rosegrove Farm, to foal out. The three I have in Kentucky breed there and stay there. When the weanlings are ready to go I send them to Florida with the exception of Happy Charger who remained at Chesapeake ahead of the sale.
We also bought a mare that was a champion mare, named Island Sand. Niall Brennan, who helps train some of my 2-year-olds, actually trained her. She was in foal to Union Rags and we have a wonderful baby out of her. There are a number of people in Kentucky that don't like older mares, but I've always liked them. I've had some mares who produced their better foals in later years. I have no hesitation buying older mares as long as there have been no breeding issues. In the case of Happy Week, she had been bred royally but up until Happy Saver, nothing had really turned out. It was a unique combination. From what I can gather from those who knew Happy Saver when he was younger, his sister, my filly Happy Charger, looks just like him. We've had a number of people who have come and looked at her at Chesapeake Farm and they've just loved her. Hopefully she will do well.
MW: Do you also race or primarily just breed?
JR: I do race sometimes out of simple necessity. I have two 2-year-olds ready to go, one by Fed Biz and one by Daredevil . Both of them are pretty ready to go to the track. The Fed Biz is a little further along but the Daredevil colt we laid off a little to let him grow up because he's just huge. He'll probably go to the track in November. I also have a Daredevil filly that's ready to go to the 2-year-old sales as well as a Lea colt and a Girvin filly. I don't do training anymore so I send them out. Gayle Woods is prepping the three yearlings I have right now.
MW: With the market in a slump because of COVID-19, do you have any trepidation heading into the upcoming sales?
JR: I'm also in the real estate business and the best time to buy is not when the market is on fire. The time to buy is when everyone wants to sell and it's the same with the horse business. I plan on adding a couple of mares in November. I look at the market numbers and they weren't terribly good at the yearlings sales so it's been a hard year for the pinhookers. If you have a good athlete and it's well-bred it will sell. Anything below that is tough. I'm not afraid of the market but you have to pick where you're going to go carefully. It's important to have good people look at your horses and give you advice.
I don't believe in leverage in the horse business and it's the same in real estate. Excessive leverage kills the market in cycles. The same thing happens in this business—if you hit a bad cycle and you're highly levered, what do you do? When banks let you borrow money they do want it back. The horse business is too volatile for leverage. You can breed a horse well but anyone that's been in the business knows there is no guarantee that horse you breed will be conformationally correct. It's the luck of the draw. You just have to take your losses and move forward.
This year been very stressful for everyone involved. We hope for better next year but I don't think there is anyone who has not been impacted. This will go down in the history books as hopefully something we won't see again. I look for next year to get back to some sense of normalcy, whatever that may be. I'm delighted where I am in the business that it hasn't been as negatively impacted. The other thing I find interesting is what Spendthrift did in lowering their stud fees. I think they've recognized that breeders had a hard time this year and perhaps that will cycle through some of the other farms. I thought that was a bold move.
MW: Will you be attending the upcoming November sales?
JR: I will, yes, because you do have to sell some. You have to pay for the farm because those expenses go on. You learn so much during the sale. You learn a lot about what is changing in the business, the horses that are going up, down, or sideways, and if you're breeding you have to pay attention to that. You have to catch a horse going the right way. Especially younger stallions, you want to see what they've turned out and how their weanlings look. Everybody wants to catch a horse like Constitution , or Uncle Mo , or Into Mischief .
This is a great business. People ask me "Why are you in this?" and I say "The best way to make a small fortune is to start with a larger one." The only known cure once you're hooked on this business is bankruptcy so if you can prevent that from happening in this business you're doing good. You have to be a little humble as well. For example with Happy Week, people might say I was a genius for buying her but I wasn't. I have a good agent and it's turned out well. But what about the ones I bought that didn't turn out? When someone comes to my farm and sees the win photos on the wall, and there are a lot of them, I remind them that they don't give you pictures for a horse that doesn't win otherwise I'd have a whole lot more pictures. But what other sport has two of the best athletes in the world, one animal and one human, working together? It's a very exciting sport.
