This time, though, was different. Seder’s team came back to Zayat and told him they were unable to fulfill his request. They simply could not recommend that he buy any of the 151 other horses offered up for sale that day. Instead, they offered an unexpected and near-desperate plea. Zayat absolutely, positively could not sell horse No. 85. This horse, EQB declared, was not just the best horse in the auction; he was the best horse of the year and, quite possibly, the decade. “Sell your house,” the team implored him. “Do not sell this horse.”
The next day, with little fanfare, horse No. 85 was bought for $300,000 by a man calling himself Incardo Bloodstock. Bloodstock, it was later revealed, was a pseudonym used by Ahmed Zayat. In response to the pleas of Seder, Zayat had bought back his own horse, an almost unprecedented action. (The rules of the auction prevented Zayat from simply removing the horse from the auction, thus necessitating the pseudonymous transaction.) Sixty-two horses at the auction sold for a higher price than horse No. 85, with two fetching more than $1 million each.
Three months later, Zayat finally chose a name for No. 85: American Pharoah. And eighteen months later, on a 75-degree Saturday evening in the suburbs of New York City, American Pharoah became the first horse in more than three decades to win the Triple Crown.
What did Jeff Seder know about horse No. 85 that apparently nobody else knew? How did this Harvard man get so good at evaluating horses?
I first met up with Seder, who was then sixty-four, on a scorching June afternoon in Ocala, Florida, more than a year after American Pharoah’s Triple Crown. The event was a weeklong showcase for two-year-old horses, culminating in an auction, not dissimilar to the 2013 event where Zayat bought his own horse back.
Seder has a booming, Mel Brooks–like voice, a full head of hair, and a discernable bounce in his step. He was wearing suspenders, khakis, a black shirt with his company’s logo on it, and a hearing aid.
Over the next three days, he told me his life story—and how he became so good at predicting horses. It was hardly a direct route. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, Seder went on to get, also from Harvard, a law degree and a business degree. At age twenty-six, he was working as an analyst for Citigroup in New York City but felt unhappy and burnt-out. One day, sitting in the atrium at the firm’s new offices on Lexington Avenue, he found himself studying a large mural of an open field. The painting reminded him of his love of the countryside and his love of horses. He went home and looked at himself in the mirror with his three-piece suit on. He knew then that he was not meant to be a banker and he was not meant to live in New York City. The next morning, he quit his job.
Seder moved to rural Pennsylvania and ambled through a variety of jobs in textiles and sports medicine before devoting his life full-time to his passion: predicting the success of racehorses. The numbers in horse racing are rough. Of the one thousand two-year-old horses showcased at Ocala’s auction, one of the nation’s most prestigious, perhaps five will end up winning a race with a significant purse. What will happen to the other 995 horses? Roughly one-third will prove too slow. Another one-third will get injured—most because their limbs can’t withstand the enormous pressure of galloping at full speed. (Every year, hundreds of horses die on American racetracks, mostly due to broken legs.) And the remaining one-third will have what you might call Bartleby syndrome. Bartleby, the scrivener in Herman Melville’s extraordinary short story, stops working and answers every request his employer makes with “I would prefer not to.” Many horses, early in their racing careers, apparently come to realize that they don’t need to run if they don’t feel like it. They may start a race running fast, but, at some point, they’ll simply slow down or stop running altogether. Why run around an oval as fast as you can, especially when your hooves and hocks ache? “I would prefer not to,” they decide. (I have a soft spot for Bartlebys, horse or human.)
With the odds stacked against them, how can owners pick a profitable horse? Historically, people have believed that the best way to predict whether a horse will succeed has been to analyze his or her pedigree. Being a horse expert means being able to rattle off everything anybody could possibly want to know about a horse’s father, mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, brothers, and sisters. Agents announce, for instance, that a big horse “came to her size legitimately” if her mother’s line has lots of big horses.
There is one problem, however. While pedigree does matter, it can still only explain a small part of a racing horse’s success. Consider the track record of full siblings of all the horses named Horse of the Year, racing’s most prestigious annual award. These horses have the best possible pedigrees—the identical family history as world-historical horses. Still, more than three-fourths do not win a major race. The traditional way of predicting horse success, the data tells us, leaves plenty of room for improvement.
It’s actually not that surprising that pedigree is not that predictive. Think of humans. Imagine an NBA owner who bought his future team, as ten-year-olds, based on their pedigrees. He would have hired an agent to examine Earvin Johnson III, son of “Magic” Johnson. “He’s got nice size, thus far,” an agent might say. “It’s legitimate size, from the Johnson line. He should have great vision, selflessness, size, and speed. He seems to be outgoing, great personality. Confident walk. Personable. This is a great bet.” Unfortunately, fourteen years later, this owner would have a 6’2” (short for a pro ball player) fashion blogger for E! Earvin Johnson III might be of great assistance in designing the uniforms, but he would probably offer little help on the court.
Along with the fashion blogger, an NBA owner who chose a team as many owners choose horses would likely snap up Jeffrey and Marcus Jordan, both sons of Michael Jordan, and both of whom proved mediocre college players. Good luck against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They are led by LeBron James, whose mom is 5’5”. Or imagine a country that elected its leaders based on their pedigrees. We’d be led by people like George W. Bush. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)