Vendors in Newmarket Monday were heartened by the presence of both Sheikh
Mohammed and his brother Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum ahead of the Tattersalls’
October Yearling Sale, which gets underway Tuesday morning. John Magnier and the
Coolmore team were also in evidence, along with buyers from countries including
Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey and the United States. Also on
the sales grounds were representatives of the likes of Sir Robert Ogden, Thomas
Barr and Dubai-based Dr. Jim Hay, who have been among the biggest non-Maktoum or
Coolmore spenders at the British and Irish sales over the last couple of years.
This year’s 676-lot Book 1 catalog — running from Tuesday through Thursday
— has 65 more yearlings listed than 12 months ago, and has the added attraction
of a series of eight attached sales races worth £1.75
million, something which sales company officials hope will bolster buyers’
enthusiasm.
“One thing everyone agrees is that this is the strongest Book 1 since we went
to this format in 2004,” Tattersalls Marketing Director Jimmy George said.
“We’ve got own of half-brothers to 65 Group 1 or classic winners, which is
something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the world’s leading buyers. One can also
draw a certain amount of cautious optimism from some of the sales that have gone
before us.”
There had been good traffic past the stables of Liam Cashman’ s County
Cork-based Rathbarry Stud, who has eight lots cataloged, including Lot No. 600,
a Medicean half-sister to One Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1) and Irish One Thousand
Guineas (Ire-G1) heroine Finsceal Beo (Mr. Greeley).
“We’d have to be reasonably hopeful and have had a lot of lookers,” Cashman
said. “The right people have been here, and we’ve been just as busy as in the
past. Goffs didn’t seem to be as bad trade as people were anticipating last
week, the clearance rate was good and horses were moving on, which is the main
thing. I think nice horses will sell well here, and people will be happy enough
with Books 1 and 2. But things could be tough once we get to the third catalog.”
Francois Drion of Taroka Stud, who has his lots stabled in Tattersalls’ newly
rebuilt wall boxes, is going into this week with a degree of realism.
“You’ve got to take a pragmatic approach and move the horses on, and I think
we’re going to see the same old story — absolutely everything must be perfect,
the conformation, sire and pedigree — and if not it will be a struggle,” Drion
said. “It seems that the English trainers don’t have the same number of orders
that they may have had in the past, and I think that will prove more of a
concern going into next week. But at the same time they have boxes to fill, so
do need to get horses.”
Agent Charlie Gordon-Watson believes that, although the overall spread
of horses is solid, the sale could just be lacking one or two superstars.
“At the moment, I’d be struggling to tell you who the sale topper or even the
top three lots will be, which is unusual,” he said. “But having said that, there
is a good spread of nice horses, it’s just missing one or two really outstanding
ones. I also think the catalog would benefit from being 200 lots smaller.”
Despite the size of the catalog, Gordon-Watson said he felt Book1 may be
light on blue bloods of the fairer sex.
“There is also a shortage of fillies with pedigrees, because I think a lot of
people have decided to keep those, but again there are still some decent fillies
there,” he opined.
BBA Ireland chairman Adrian Nicoll echoed Gordon-Watson’s views about
trimming the Book 1 catalog.
“There are a lot of very nice horses who are going to sell extremely well
here,” Nicoll said. “But it could be brought down by a good few that shouldn’t
be here. It would be much better to lose a day and have the sale on Thursday and
Friday. It would have also meant we could have all gone to the (Prix de l’Arc de
Triomphe [Fr-G1]), seen a great horse win and quite possibly picked up some
clients. As it is, we’ve gone straight from one sale at Goffs on to the next
without time to gather our thoughts.
“We were leading buyers at Goffs, I personally bought 16, and I think BBA
Ireland got 23 in total. It was still very hard to buy the good horses, although
I think vendors found it hard to shift the ones that didn’t come up to scratch.”
For the complete catalog and outs, visit tattersalls.com.