Back on an upward trend

Jocelyn de Moubray analyses the results from this year’s select European yearling sales

THE YEARLING sales season ended with overall figures which certainly at first sight appear overwhelmingly positive.

After the short sharp recession bought on by the COVID year of 2020, the market appears not only to have bounced back to its pre-pandemic levels but also to the pre-COVID levels upward trend.

IN dollar terms the major European yearling sales returned an aggregate of $378 million, up six per cent from 2019, and the $356 million recorded pre-COVID.

The Tattersalls sales of October 1 and October 2, as well as Arqana's three sales, combined, all managed an increase of 10 per cent in aggregate. Goffs Orby Sale also returned to growth over the period, while the Goffs Doncaster Premier Sale ha had a better year in 2022, it has been in relative decline since 2016.

It seems that neither a European war nor a global pandemic, or even the death of one of its major patrons, can slow the seemingly relentless rise in the value of the best yearlings offered at auction in Europe.

The late Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Estates spent $27 million on yearlings in Europe in 2019 and, although the family returned to the market in 2022 buying nine colts and a filly for a total of $4.1 million, this significant reduction didn’t dent the overall demand for the best yearlings.

Godolphin did, of course, spend far more on yearlings in 2022 than it had the year before and the total spent by Godolphin and Stroud Coleman Bloodstock was up from 77 yearlings bought for $28 million in 2021 to 94 for $55 million in 2022.

The other big change was the extraordinary spend of bloodstock agent Richard Knight who, in Europe alone, bought 35 yearlings for $18.4 million making his client the most important newcomer to the European yearling market since King Power Racing and Phoenix Thoroughbreds.

The world’s top-priced yearling of the year was by Frankel and out of So Mi Dar (Dubawi), bred and sold by Watership Down Stud for 2,800,000gns, bought by Godolphin

Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm continued to buy in Europe although this year the majority of the spend was done in partnership with Coolmore, and these two combined maintained the same level of investment they had done separately in 2021.

The dollar remains very strong, it has gained some 12 per cent against sterling over the last three years; and American buyers played a big role in the major sales in England, Ireland and France.

Klaravich Stables spent twice as much in 2022 at Tattersalls and Arqana buying a total of 17 yearlings for $4.3 million, while numerous American agents were active at the Goffs Orby Sale, including Jason Taylor, Ben West, Justin Casse and Ben McElroy.

The Arqana October Sale was able to maintain its upward trend, the aggregate up by almost 50 per cent since 2018, due in no small part to the activity of agents working for American clients.

If the yearling sales circuit ended on a positive note there, as always, some doubts about the future to be kept in mind before all of those concerned start to reinvest at the breeding stock sales.

The major European yearling sales recorded an aggregate six per cent higher than in the last pre-COVID year of 2019, but all of a sudden we are once again living with inflation and over the same period in Britain cumulative inflation was more than 10 per cent.

For breeders, or those who pay nomination fees with the aim of selling in the select sales, the rise in costs they have experienced has been a great deal more than 10 per cent as the fees of elite stallions have risen fast in recent years.

To give some idea of this – the 21 stallions represented by yearlings at the 2019 sales who stood at £35,000 or more in 2017 had an average fee of £61,000 and they covered, on average, 128 mares.

Fast forward three years to 2020, when the yearlings of 2022 were conceived, the 21 most expensive stallions with yearlings had an average fee of £80,000 and they covered on average 185 mares.

Between 2017 and 2020 the average price of elite stallions rose by 31 per cent and, as they were covering far more mares, the owners of elite sires saw their income rise by something in the region of 90 per cent.

The select yearling market may be remarkably strong, but at the moment it is the stallion owners who are making the most from this increased demand.

It is hardly surprising that they are also among the most important buyers of yearlings.

The HIT sales continue their international focus

IF THERE IS BOOM in the bloodstock market it is at the major auctions for horses in training.

The Tattersalls Autumn Horses In Training Sale and the Arqana Arc Sale both returned exceptional results for the second year in the row. This market has grown by 24 per cent since 2019 and is particularly strong at the top with the number of horses in training selling at these sales for 175,000gns or more going from 22 in 2019 to 54 this year.

The rise in elite stallion fees is less relevant in this domain as, of course, many of the top lots are not by elite sires, this year they included horses by Neatico, Pride of Dubai, Exceed And Excel and Time Test, as well as No Nay Never, Sea The Stars and Dubawi.

Auction sales are only a fraction of the overall market for horses in training but the demand from the Middle East, Australia, Hong Kong and the US for European horses in training is such that some of those who sell privately may be enticed into the sales ring.

In a boom market it pays to sell in public where interested parties have to compete directly.