Sovereignty was a horse in the recent Kentucky Derby and was in the middle of the pack in terms horses favored to win.
And I think there was an interesting lesson for us all to learn from the way that horse and that jockey ran that race. So when the gates opened and 20 horses came barreling out, the pace was fast. It had been raining all day. The track was muddy. And so I am sure that everybody was concerned about getting through the race as quickly as possible, but also as safely as possible.
But the pace was fast and our horse was about two thirds of the way back in the pack for about half of the race, and then started slowly coming up on the outside and ultimately actually won the Kentucky Derby.
But the lesson here for us is that had Sovereignty come out of the gate as hot as a lot of the other horses did, and had run as fast as early as some of those horses did, that by the time they rounded the final bend and hit the straightaway, those horses were fading back. They had run out of gas.
They had sort of burned through all of their energy too fast. And I think sometimes it’s easy for us as agency owners to watch what everybody else is doing and think we have to do it their way. We have to lean in and we have to go as fast as they are. We have to go in the direction that they go as opposed to having a game plan.
So in the post-race interview, they were talking to the trainer and the jockey, and what they saying is that they knew that they needed to go slower in the beginning of the race, because Sovereignty loves sloppy tracks, and he loves when he’s behind and he can try and catch up. And so they knew their horse. Just like we know our agency and our clients.
And they had a plan. And they didn’t get distracted by what everybody else was doing.
They just ran their plan. And for them, that was the winning game plan. And they put $25 million or so in their pocket. I think we have to be reminded sometimes that we know what we’re doing. We know our agency. We know our clients, and we have a plan. And that what other people are doing around us is interesting and we can learn from it, no doubt.
But it doesn’t mean we always have to defer to what everybody else is doing, as opposed to sticking to the plan that we believe is the best course of action for our agency, for us to win the race. So little lesson from Sovereignty for all of us today.
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Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Louisville, Kentucky. We are here for a peer group. And then we stuck around to watch the amazing Kentucky Derby, 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. So our horse, Sovereignty, was in the Kentucky Derby and was kind of in the middle of the pack in terms of favored to win. And I think there was an interesting lesson for us all to learn from the way that horse and that jockey ran that race. So when the gates opened and 20 horses came barreling out, the pace was fast. It had been raining all day. The track was muddy. And so I am sure that everybody was concerned about getting through the race as quickly as possible, but also as safely as possible. But the pace was fast and our horse was about two thirds of the way back in the pack for about half of the race, and then started slowly coming up on the outside and ultimately actually won the Kentucky Derby.
We didn't place a big bet, but we made a little more money than we spent, so that was good. But the lesson here for us is that had Sovereignty come out of the gate as hot as a lot of the other horses did, and had run as fast as early as some of those horses did, that by the time they rounded the final bend and hit the straightaway, those horses were fading back. They had run out of gas. They had sort of burned through all of their energy too fast. And I think sometimes it's easy for us as agency owners to watch what everybody else is doing and think we have to do it their way. We have to lean in and we have to go as fast as they are. We have to go in the direction that they go as opposed to having a game plan. So in the post-race interview, they were talking to the trainer and the jockey, and what they saying is that they knew that they needed to sort of go slower in the beginning of the race, because Sovereignty loves sloppy tracks, and he loves when he's behind and he can try and catch up. And so they knew their horse. Just like we know our agency and our clients. And they had a plan. And they didn't get distracted by what everybody else was doing. They just ran their plan. And for them, that was the winning game plan. And they put $25 million or so in their pocket. I think we have to be reminded sometimes that we know what we're doing. We know our agency. We know our clients, and we have a plan. And that what other people are doing around us is interesting and we can learn from it, no doubt. But it doesn't mean we always have to defer to what everybody else is doing, as opposed to sticking to the plan that we believeis the best course of action for our agency, for us to win the race. So little lesson from Sovereignty for all of us today.
