Hipodromos y caballos - Racetracks and horses BloodStockReview2013 | Page 59

YEARLING SALES

aggregate, the 87 per cent clearance rate
and 37,000gns median also raised the bar
for future renewals.
Arqana once again served as Europe’s
traditional curtain-raiser and put on quite the
show as young agent James Harron brushed
aside Sheikh Joaan to secure a daughter of
Dubawi for €1,500,000.
Boasting four seven-figure lots during the
sale – including a Galileo three-parts sister
to Irish Oaks winner Chicquita knocked
down for a square million – the Deauville
sale/party certainly helped buyers dust off
the cheque books.
Rising tide

And so the sales circus travelled from
Deauville to Doncaster. Different on many
counts, DBS has built a reputation for
tough, precocious youngsters, often at prices
that transpire to be on the bargain side of
reasonable. However, as would prove the
case right through to December, a rising tide
lifts all boats and figures were up across the
board with a soaring average and median
coupled with a 90 per cent clearance rate.
Many of the above buyers were bound for
Baden-Baden the following morning, jetting
to the BBAG sales complex for an auction
comprising a catalogue many hailed as “the
best ever”. It upheld the upwards trend as
the ball rolled on to Tattersalls Ireland.
The company’s September yearling sale
has never been billed as an Irish equivalent
to its Newmarket counterpart and as such
the hammer often falls on prices below that
of its European contemporaries. Less so this
year, however, when a €180,000 Yeats colt
helped the sale post its best returns since
recession crippled the country.
Ireland’s premier yearling auction, the
Goffs Orby Sale, also recorded post-2008
returns with the company rewarded for
persuading Irish breeders to offer some

The €2,850,000 son of Montjeu and Finsceal Beo who sold at
Goffs, the second most expensive yearling ever sold in Ireland

of their best produce at home rather than
abroad. A son of Montjeu and dual Guineas
winner Finsceal Beo added €2,850,000 to the
pot and became the second most expensive
yearling ever sold in the country, a price
driven skywards by the duel between MV
Magnier and Ross Doyle – who bought several
yearlings for Sheikh Joaan at Tattersalls. Team
Coolmore emerged victorious.
A session of 20 lots at the Goffs
November Sale was topped by a €50,000
Mastercraftsman filly, while a son of Rip
Van Winkle rerouted from Book 1 led the
way at the one-day Tattersalls December
Sale when knocked down to BBA Ireland’s
Patrick Cooper for 200,000gns. Average
and median here increased by 14 and 15 per
cent while the aggregate of 3,570,100gns

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was only marginally down despite 21 per
cent fewer horses being offered.
It seems nigh-impossible to imagine
the yearling sale season that dominates
the calendar throughout autumn actually
commences in July, but such is the case when
the Fasig-Tipton July Sale, the first major
event of the year, kicks off proceedings from
a balmy Kentucky, before swiftly moving on
to the company’s Saratoga sale.
A boutique sale that generally fetches
the first six-figures sums of the season,
Saratoga did not disappoint – a $1,225,000
Dynaformer filly topping the bill – with
a negligible dip in aggregate and average
compensated for by an 11 per cent rise in
median.
But if Fasig-Tipton lifts the curtain,
Keeneland provides a truly spectacular
opening scene. The sale swung into action
with a four-day Book 1 extravaganza
that brought in a total of $153,385,000,
$2,500,000 of which came from a colt by
War Front – whose winning progeny elevated
their sire’s status immeasurably on both
sides of the Atlantic – knocked down to the
increasingly familiar auctioneers’ staple: “sold
to MV Magnier.”
Many levels

However, amid the celebratory reflection
on a year that has surpassed all expectation,
let it not be forgotten King Kong was to be
found atop the Empire State Building and,
like New York’s most famous landmark, the
sales scene is one of many levels.
Buyers remained selective, and for
vendors aiming at the middle-to-lower end
of the market it was not the plain sailing it
appeared at the top – which itself at times
saw a notable dip in trad Rv