Letter to the Editor: From Gut to Gavel. The Beautiful Madness of Bidding

[Wandering Eyes]

I love the yearling sales. There is something that just feels electric from the moment you set foot on the grounds. It's not just the horses; it's the people, the familiar faces you reconnect with, and the new friendships you strike up. It's the stories shared under the shade of a tree while you wait for your turn to look at a horse. And of course, nothing beats the thrill of the hunt, the grind and the search for The One; that special horse that stops you in your tracks. Because when that special horse steps out of his stall, it's not just something you see, it's something you feel. It's a whisper of potential that fuels one's imagination.

And from that moment on a journey begins: analyzing, vetting, and preparing as you edge closer to the ring. Then comes the moment you walk up to the auction ring, butterflies in your stomach and catalog in hand. It's the kind of thrill that you can never outgrow. When the bidding starts, the world narrows to the voice of the auctioneer, the rhythm of the nods, the rising tension of the bidding battle. If you're lucky enough for that hammer to drop on your side of the bid, at that moment you're on top of the world even if you've just left your budget miles behind.

And that's where the mystery for me began. Everyone in that pavilion is sharp and everyone's done their homework. Yet somehow, once that horse steps into the ring, logic seems to slip quietly out the back door. For a long time that concept baffled me until I found the answers in two concepts that live in the gentle chaos of behavioral economics.

System 1 and System 2

Our brains come in two speeds. System 1 is the impulsive, emotional sprinter that reacts without a pause, all gut and instinct. System 2 is the marathon thinker, slow, deliberate, and always trying to play the long game. In the auction ring, System 1 has the home-field advantage. The pace is too quick, the stakes too high, and logic doesn't stand a chance. It's all feelings and instant reactions. System 2 is pretty much left in the dust. You're not calmly weighing pros and cons; you're feeling the pulse of the room, the tension in the air, and the auctioneer's rhythm pulling you along. All the careful logic you walked in with is waiting quietly in the back ring.

Prospect Theory

And that's just the start. Once your hand goes up, your brain switches from “I want to buy this horse” to “I better not lose this horse” and that is when prospect theory kicks in. This theory that earned its author a Nobel Prize in Economics tells us that people don't evaluate outcomes purely by final results; they evaluate them relative to a reference point and, crucially, that losses hurt about twice as much as gains feel good. In the auction ring, this means that once you put that first bid in and made that first emotional investment it's no longer just about the upside. It's about avoiding the sting of loss. Even if you walked in with a clear cap, if the bidding ticks past that and your hand is still in the air, you're no longer trying to win the horse. You're trying not to lose it. You've invested not just money but hope, and hope is a powerful currency. That's why you'll find yourself grinning at a winning bid that blew your ceiling wide open feeling like you just won the Derby itself.

It's all part of the dance, the beautiful maddening irrationality that makes this sport what it is. Because in the end, it's not reason that pulls us back to the sales. It's that feeling. The one you get when that special horse steps out of the stall. That's not excitement. That's not instinct. That's the birth of a dream.

And the magic of the yearling sales is that this dream doesn't come with a price tag. The guy spending ten thousand and the guy spending a million can both walk away believing they've found lightning in a bottle. History's proven it. I've lived it. Mine That Bird was a ninety-five-hundred-dollar yearling when he ran past Pioneerof the Nile in the Derby. That's why this place is special. Because logic may take a backseat here, but dreams get to run free.

Sobhy Sonbol is the owner of Nile Bloodstock, a bloodstock and racing advisory service. He has been involved with such notable runners as American Pharoah, Pioneerof The Nile, and Vyjack.  

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