PHEW!

ONCE AGAIN a European yearling sales season which started out clouded in doubts and trepidation ended with widely shared relief bordering on euphoria.

Inevitably the decent sales results have been followed by announcements of rises in stallion fees and ever-longer lists of European stallions who covered more than 150 mares during the last breeding season.

Despite the pandemic and the death of Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, one of the most prolific buyers of yearlings in the modern or any other era, the bull run in the bloodstock market and, above all, in the stallion market shows no sign of having reached its peak.

Looking at the European yearling market in dollar terms, the currency most buyers are probably reckoning in and in order to take into account fluctuations in exchange rates over the longer term, the results are remarkably stable.

In 2021 the major yearling sales in England, Ireland, France and Germany recorded a turnover of $356 million, up by 21 per cent from the COVID year of 2020, but more or less the same figure as in both 2018 and 2019.

During this time the turnover at Tattersalls October Book 1 and 2 Sales fell by about two per cent, which is, of course, something which would have appeared impossible without the support of Shadwell, which used to spend between $20 – $30 million a year on yearlings in Europe alone.

This rise in aggregate at the major French yearling sales is largely due to Arqana’s excellent October Sale in 2021, which was up by 46 per cent from the turnover recorded in 2018.

The Deauville October market was transformed by buyers who has been unable to purchase at the previous week’s Tattersalls October Sale, as well as by an October debut presence of several American buyers, headed by Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and Klaravich Stables.

If the market in Newmarket was not significantly affected by the absence of Shadwell, this, too, was largely the result of the busy American buyers.

Brant and Klaravich were joined in Newmarket by many others including Mike Ryan, Ben McElroy, Liz Crow, Solis/ Litt and Bridlewood.

They do not have exactly the same perceptions as the major European buyers and are not always looking for the same type of horse, which has helped to diversify the demand.

The more European-sold yearlings racing in the US the more likely it is their number will include major winners, which will in turn encourage others to come and try their luck at the European sales.

The strong results at the year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf races is a clear indication of the strength of the European horses on the grass surface in the US.

In the circumstances it is not surprising Arqana is considering moving its August Sale to the early September slot it used during the COVID year of 2020.

If it is the American buyers who are driving growth in the European market, it makes sense to hold its primary sale at a time between the Saratoga race meeting and the Keeneland September Sale when the major US buyers could be available for a trip to Deauville.

Goffs Orby Sale bounced back from its disastrous 2020 COIVID-affected English version, and its 2021 turnover of $47 million was only four per cent off its 2018 level.

The Orby Sale, at present, is not as significant for the European stallion market as the Tattersalls October sales and so future growth depends upon attracting buyers from outside Ireland, which means these days from outside Europe.

If, and when, the pandemic ceases to interfere with travel arrangements this will become a far easier task, and a Breeders’ Cup-winning graduate such as Twilight Gleaming will clearly help the cause.

The Goffs Premier Sale at Doncaster remains on a downward trend with its turnover in dollar terms falling by 30 per cent from 2017 to 2021.

Its problem appears to be that it has specialised in a sector of the market which is no longer growing. The European yearling market is maintaining the same level due to the export market, and the equine sectors doing the best are those which attract the greatest number of foreign buyers.

The listing of major buyers is more approximate than ever now that the Maktoum family is spending less and not at all through the Shadwell banner.

Al Shira’aa Farms returned to the market buying expensive yearling fillies after a break of a few seasons.

Otherwise the most significant aspect of these figures is probably the overall total. The major buyers spent less in real terms, only $110 million compared with between $130-$135 million in 2018 and 2019.

This trend can also be seen in some of the figures for stallion averages and median prices. Frankel, for instance, has become the champion European sire for the first time this year and has enjoyed an outstanding season becoming universally accepted as an exceptional sire, and yet his yearling average and median were both down on the figures he achieved in 2019.

If the European yearling market has succeeded in maintaining its level despite the difficult circumstances of recent years one part of the bloodstock market which is booming is the horses-in-training sector.

Many of these sales are conducted privately, and perhaps in the future a significant proportion will be done through on-line virtual sales, however, at the time of writing the two major European horses in training sales, Arqana’s Arc de Triomphe Sale and Tattersalls October Horses In Training Sale, have returned excellent results.

These two sales together have seen their dollar turnover rise by 25 per cent since 2018.

International demand from the Middle East, Australia and the US, in particular, is changing the value of proven horses in training. The listing of the horses sold at these sales in 2021 for €200,000 or more shows clearly that three and four-yearolds with a rating of 100 and above, or the clear potential to achieve one in the near future, are now valuable international commodities.

As an aside, the French market for horses-in-training continues to suffer from its lack of a commercial ratings system. More or less every buyer at the Tattersalls sales will have looked at either Timeform or the Racing Post ratings before making a decision, whereas in France there is no independent ratings system at all.

This listing also shows how different the horses-in-training market is from the yearling market. Of the 23 horses sold for Є200,000 or more, 75 per cent raced over 1m2f or further, and for half of them it was further. This is a listing of horses who are suited to racing over middle-distances and many are by stallions whose progeny are rarely, if ever, accepted into the select yearling sales.

The yearling market is focused on a small selection of fashionable and new sires, but value in the horses-in-training market comes from success and soundness.

When the bloodstock world gathers again for the breeding stock sales any such concerns will have been cast aside.

The yearling sales were good, many breeders and pinhookers made a profitable return on their investments, and all of them and many of those who didn’t, will be happy to return to the market.

This is the way the bloodstock market works, and it is a system which has worked over a number of years and has survived a succession of shocks.

We all tend to believe that the near future is likely to resemble the recent past, which more often than not it does.