Where was the value?

Tom Wilson crunches the numbers to see which stallions outperformed the market this autumn

WE NOW have the opportunity to reflect and analyse trends in the yearling market, whilst comparing against ontrack performance to assess whether certain sires may be being under-valued or overvalued based on sales ring returns compared to racing performance.

We aggregated sales results at Arqana, Tattersalls UK and Ireland, plus Goffs UK and Goffs and have converted purchase prices to sterling in order to enable comparison.

On my figures, Dubawi leads my top 20 sales list with an average purchase price across the 27 yearlings purchased of £495,037.

The average purchase price across all lots was £58,845 giving Dubawi a performance above the average purchase price of all lots of £436,191.

Kingman tops the list in terms of total purchase prices across all lots from the yearling sales so far in 2021, with 80 yearlings purchased for a total of £18,308,900.

In all, £309,646,312 was spent on yearlings sold in the sales ring at the above sale houses between August and November 10, and Kingman accounted for 5.91 per cent of all total sales, Lope De Vega for 5.44 per cent and Sea The Stars 4.84 per cent.

In terms of the lowest average and total value of purchases, of sires with more than 10 yearlings sold through the ring, Estidhkaar at £4,915, Hot Streak at £5,009 and Ivawood at £5,985 were the lowest purchase value performers.

As a side note, an interesting metric for breeders and purchasers may be the ratio of yearlings by sire who were returned unsold.

Of sires sending more than three yearlings to the sale, Finsceal Fior was the sire who returned the largest proportion of stock unsold, with all three yearlings failing to be purchased through the ring.

Of the sires with the fewest number of yearlings returned unsold, or the largest proportion sold if you may, Havana Grey translated positive buyer reviews with a strong performance through the ring, with only 1/85 (1.18 per cent) yearlings sent to the sales returning unsold.

For reference, across the entire yearling pool was 6.6 per cent of the lots listed in total returned unsold.

Frst-season sire Expert Eye was well fancied by purchasers with only 1/65 (1.54 per cent) of his yearlings returning unsold, while the older No Nay Never rounds out the top three.

Can we determine value purchases?

The question then becomes, are we able to determine which sires may be under-estimated by the market and could represent value based on the yearling purchases that we’ve seen in 2021?

in terms of track performance is this spend providing value to buyers?

In order to quantify this we will use a performance metrics of winners-to-runners ratio for the 2021 Flat season.

We will then compare these against the purchase prices of yearlings to assess potential value purchases.

Winners to runners ratio

Of horses with more than 30 individual runners competing in races across UK and Ireland in the 2021, Le Havre tops our performance list with 23 of his individual runners going on to win on the track, that’s a ratio of 44.23 per cent.

New Bay rounds out in second position with a ratio of 25/57 43.86 per cent.

Coolmore’s great big hope for the future Wootton Bassett rounds out the top three with a winners-to-runners ratio of 14/32 43.75 per cent.

In order to explore which sires may be offer value when compared to their on track performance, let’s now compare the average purchase prices of yearlings compared to the winners-to-runners ratio that they have achieved on the track this Flat season.

I ranked horses by winners-to-runners with their average yearling purchase price.

Despite seeing their yearlings increase significantly in value, I believe that Mehmas and Night Of Thunder still offer good value to purchasers.

Le Havre, New Bay, Gleneagles and Dream Ahead yearlings appear to offer great track returns for prices this autumn.

Havana Grey (top) and Dream Ahead: both looking good on the stats