Many punters saw Manhattan Rain as little more than a donkey, whilst bookies should build a statue to him. Figures of 40 and 50 million dollars were bandied around the industry when he showed initial promise. Someone said on the weekend that "you could drop a couple of the zeros off" those figures when assessing his value, after he ran fifth last Saturday. Wish I could buy him today for $400,000 or $500,000 - that's what 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 becomes when you "drop a couple of zeros".

The racetrack failures of the Gai Waterhouse trained 3YO Manhattan Rain has given the stallion prospect a barrage of negative publicity lately, culminating in the announcement yesterday that the colt is now officially retired.

Let’s examine the horse’s CV and see if that “barrage of negative publicity” was warranted.

To set the scene, if we go back to the start, Manhattan Rain entered the world on 3/9/2006 as a result of the union between one of Australia’s top stallions Encosta De Lago and the Canny Lad mare Shantha’s Choice. At the year of Manhattan's Rain's conception, 2005, Encosta De Lago stood for an advertised service fee of $176,000.

For her part Manhattan Rain’s dam Shantha’s Choice has already produced three Group winners apart from Manhattan Rain – and they are her 1996 foal which grew up to be named Redoute’s Choice. The colt became a four time racetrack Group 1 winner and upon his retirement he became the champion stallion in Australia. He has commanded a service fee as high as $330,000 during his stud career to date.

Shantha’s Choice also threw Group 1 winner Platinum Scissors who has had well documented fertility issues at stud, so much so, that he was retired from service officially on 15/7/09, just prior to the commencement of the current 2009/2010 breeding season. Platinum Scissors, a heavily raced stallion (29 starts) produced only 54 live foals across five breeding seasons, even though he stood at Heather Belle Pascoe’s Plaintree Farms outside Toowoomba. Heather Belle Pascoe’s husband David Pascoe, son of world respected Oakey veterinarian Reg Pascoe, is regarded as an expert in the field of stallion fertility.

Shantha’s Choice’s 2004 foal Sliding Cube was the other Group winner she produced - and she won the 2007 Group 3 San Domenico Stakes at Randwick as her best racetrack effort.

So we have concluded that including Manhattan Rain, that 1992 mare Shantha’s Choice has already produced four Group winners – undoubtedly making her one of Australia’s most valuable broodmares. She also has progeny on the ground from recent year’s stallion rendezvous with Rock of Gibraltar (2008) and Hussonet (2009) to represent her on the racetrack of dreams - and on 12/12/09 she was served by Encosta De Lago, the resultant live foal will therefore be a full brother or sister to Manhattan Rain.

Manhattan Rain’s grandmother Dancing Show, a daughter of champion stallion Nijinsky, produced two Group 1 winners – and both who went on to become sires were – Hurricane Sky (by Star Watch) and Umatilla (by Miswaki), so within its last two generations the family has already produced plenty of handy stallions, which is a good sign for Manhattan Rain.

As a consequence of the aforesaid, you don’t have to be any breeding buff to understand that Manhattan Rain is what I could call “a magnificently bred colt”.

The colt was entrusted to “champion” Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse to train and he was beaten on debut at Rosehill on 31/1/09 as an odds on favourite. After opening at $1.40 – following the cumulative hype that Gai Waterhouse and all those so called “good judges” who get excited over watching those boring barrier trials - had put on the colt, he eventually ran as the $1.90 favourite.

There is no question that Manhattan Rain’s consistent lifetime defeats when a short priced favourite, have been very financially rewarding to bookmakers all around the country and that statement would therefore mean that members of trainer Gai Waterhouse’s direct family would have been very pleased to see him fail to get to the post first numerous times, as I’d imagine her bookmaker husband Rob and satchel swinging son Tom, would have both reaped a bounty through not only the defeat of Manhattan Rain at his debut, but also in four subsequent short priced defeats, namely at Randwick 14/2/09 - $2.35, when he firmed from $3, Randwick 25/4/09 - $1.80, after firming from $2.15, Randwick 13/2/10 – at $1.70 when he eased from $1.50 and then last Saturday when he ran fifth as the $2.70 favourite, after being crunched late on course, from $3.10.

So the upshot of all that is that Manhattan Rain retired having had 11 starts for two wins, three seconds and four thirds – and his prizemoney tally is $1,311,200, which would take you a hell of a long way in bus.

To his credit and to be balanced, Manhattan Rain did not miss a place in his first nine racetrack appearances, meaning the only time he has missed a place has been at his two runs this time in, which in fairness has resulted in two lacklustre fifths.

Let’s now go through those first nine starts and see how many races the horses that finished around him have won since.

So from putting some time and effort into researching the form of Manhattan Rain properly, I can prove that the horses that ran the placings in his first nine career starts have cumulatively had 97 starts since – and they’ve recorded only 11 wins between them, which means that just 11.34% of the time that they’ve reappeared since clashing with Manhattan Rain that they’ve been able to win a race – anywhere - which is surely a disgraceful indictment on the ability of the batch of own age horses that Manhattan Rain met in his racing career. Even if you take the name Tickets out of the equation, as he appears multiple times – and use it only once (instead of three times) - we then have 83 starts (97 minus 14) for still 11 wins, which is a woeful 13.25% strike rate.

In an article attributed to Brent Zerafa in The Daily Telegraph of 13/9/09 part of the text read “Gai Waterhouse has labelled her $50 million galloper Manhattan Rain the best colt she has trained.” The article went on to quote Waterhouse as saying, “He is the best colt I have ever trained.” Jockey Blake Shinn typically got involved in the hype at the time, by telling the same journalist “It is a big call (Waterhouse’s statement)....... and on his work, I can see where she is coming from.” The article was written just days before the Group 2 Caulfield Guineas Prelude and Waterhouse told Zerafa “He will win so easy next Saturday it won’t be funny.” Naturally she was wrong - as she and many trainers invariably are when assessing their horse’s chances, as he didn’t win at all – the Peter Snowden trained Dermerit won the race.

Figures bandied around the media in respect of the value of Manhattan Rain of 40 or 50 million dollars when he showed early promise may seem stupid, given the benefit of hindsight, however one thing is for sure and that is that the colt is worth a veritable fortune due to his a) “magnificent breeding”, b) the fact that he’s a Group 1 winner of one of Sydney’s Triple Crown races, namely the Sires Produce, c) He’s also a Golden Slipper placegetter (third) and d) a Cox Plate placegetter (second) and e) he’s a half brother to champion sire Redoute’s Choice – so in essence he’s nice and easy to market.

As a guide to what sort of service fee Manhattan Rain may command in his first season, we can have a look at another recently retired stallion that won just one Group 1 race (from 15 starts) and that was Snitzel. By Redoute’s Choice, he retired to stud at Arrowfield Stud, the same stud where Manhattan Rain will stand - at a service fee of $33,000 in 2006.

Manhattan Rain’s half brother Platinum Scissors had 29 starts (18 more than Manhattan Rain) and earned only $982,800 ($328,400 less than Manhattan Rain), yet he retired to stud in 2004 at a service fee of $22,000. Platinum Scissors, like Manhattan Rain won only one Group 1 race (Spring Champion Stakes).

Manhattan Rain is the only recently retired Group 1 winning entire by Encosta De Lago. Whilst it is hard to estimate his first season service fee, let’s just use $33,000, the same as Snitzel – and at that point it should be noted that Snitzel certainly didn’t have three Group winning siblings like Manhattan Rain has. Assume Manhattan Rain serves 150 mares annually at a service fee of $33,000 – then that generates revenues of $4,950,000 per year – so if Manhattan Rain could produce “successful” results as a stallion from his first couple of crops to race, he certainly could well be proven to be worth $40 or $50 million in his lifetime.

The fact that numerous horses that have finished around him have failed to win races in their subsequent racetrack careers certainly doesn’t mean that Manhattan Rain cannot succeed at stud.

Broodmare owners can be a bit forgiving for two unplaced runs, but they may not have been as forgiving if that sequence of unplaced runs had stretched much further.

Whilst even Dolly Parton had her knockers, I bet the ones who have been bagging Manhattan Rain would love to have a yard full of horses that didn’t miss a place in their first nine racetrack appearances, eight of which were in black type races – and who were good enough to run a place in both a Golden Slipper and Cox Plate.

As racing devotees, we should again let Manhattan Rain also prove to us - yet again - what poor judges trainer’s are of an individual horse’s ability, as if Manhattan Rain is “the best colt” that Gai Waterhouse has ever trained, she may as well pull up stumps now, as the future is not looking too rosy.

Maybe she forgot about a colt she used to train called Nothin’ Leica Dane? He didn’t start at two, but as a colt aged three, he won six of twelve starts, as well as running one second and two thirds. So it is now a proven fact that he won three times more races than Manhattan Rain did when he was a colt aged two and three (a colt officially becomes a “stallion” at age 4YO) – and whereas Manhattan Rain only won one Group 1 race, Nothin’ Leica Dane won two Group 1 races, namely the VRC Derby and Spring Champion Stakes. Nothin’ Leica Dane also won a Group 2 Hobartville and a Listed Dulcify Quality in Sydney - and a Listed Norman Robinson in Melbourne. He also had the distinction of running a wonderful second in a Melbourne Cup as a lightly raced 3YO colt behind a seasoned 5YO galloper, with 21 starts under his belt - Doriemus - in 1995. To add merit to his performance, finishing behind Nothin’ Leica Dane that year were two previous Melbourne Cup winners, namely 1993 winner Vintage Crop (3^rd) and 1994 winner Jeune (15^th).

Oh how quickly you forgot “the best colt” you ever trained Gai - when you became besotted by Manhattan Rain.