The Weekly Wrap: Hard To Fathom Fashion

[Wandering Eyes]

For many of us, the last few weeks have been spent with one eye on the sales ring and the other on the racecourse. It would seem that, other than for those who can continue to be predominantly owner-breeders, the days of being able to breed racehorses with the focus solely on their future days on the track are long gone.

It has long been a mystery that the type of horse most people would love to own is now infrequently the type many people set out to breed or to buy as a yearling. A Nathaniel (Ire) filly, anyone? Last year the median price for his yearling fillies was 26,000gns, roughly on a par with his covering fee this season. Yet who wouldn’t want to race Enable (GB)?

Similarly, try selling a small chestnut colt who is likely to be best at around two miles from his 3-year-old season onwards. Even if he is by the mighty Sea The Stars (Ire), many agents would convince their clients that they should be buying something that could be running at Royal Ascot less than a year later, with the tantalising possibility of being offered eye-watering sums from a buyer in Hong Kong. Longevity is now rarely a consideration.

With British prize-money dramatically off-kilter with most of the rest of the world and likely only to regress, it is hard to argue with such a business proposition—despite the obvious risks involved—except to say, where is the fun in that?

Fortunately for Bjorn Nielsen, he took the view that it was better to keep the diminutive Stradivarius (Ire) to race himself when bidding in the ring didn’t reach the required amount. The horse’s earnings of almost £2.5 million tell only part of the story as he has another £2 million in Weatherbys Hamilton bonuses to add to that tally.

It’s not really about the money at that level though, is it? For two glorious seasons Stradivarius has remained unbeaten. For all that Nielsen has publicly (and admirably) stated that his life’s ambition is to breed a Derby winner, it is hard to imagine that any other horse will bring him such a sustained level of joy as his wonderful staying champion. Now that we know this 5-year-old so well, equally importantly it is a joy in which all those who love racing can share.

Really the only upside to staying stallions being out of favour with commercial breeders is that we are likely to be given the chance to see Stradivarius race on next season. But it’s a strange old world in which horses who barely raised a flicker of public interest on the racecourse are suddenly flavour of the month at stud and at the sales—for one season at least.

A Tale Of Two Sales
On the face of it, the European yearling sales season has started in perhaps stronger fashion that might have been imagined, with improved figures at Arqana August and new records set at the Goffs UK Premier Sale and at BBAG. It is also likely that the sobering figures at the one-day Silver Sale in Doncaster give a better indication of what is to come in the lower tiers of the market.

The questions regularly asked are whether there are too many sales, too many horses being bred, too much racing or too few owners coming into the sport, and all of those could reasonably be answered with a boost to prize-money. But, just like Boris Johnson, despite his grandiose fiscal promises, British racing has no magic money tree. The situation could be eased, however, with a fairer spread.

As far as we are able to take any sale at face value when there are plenty of new sires to be promoted, the Premier Sale figures are encouraging, especially the clearance rate. The presence of a solitary Kingman (GB) colt, both at Goffs UK and in Baden-Baden, made a big difference to the overall feel, with a £440,000 record-breaker on Tuesday followed by a €700,000 top-priced colt in Germany—a sum which was overshadowed only by the sale of Gestut Brummerhof’s Sea The Stars filly at €820,000, which set a new high for the sale by more than €100,000.

Charlie Vigors, who consigned the Goffs UK sale-topper on behalf of his breeders Bob and Pauline Scott, said they took a chance that the colt would stand out in Doncaster, and so he did. With 51 yearlings by the young Juddmonte sire to come in Books 1 and 2 at Tattersalls October, it was a smart move.

For breeder Gestut Rottgen, which sold the Kingman colt at BBAG, it was the only time the operation had used the stallion. It probably won’t be the last. Agents representing four international entities went after him and, as is often the case, Sheikh Mohammed had the final say. The hard-working Matt Coleman did a pretty good Where’s Wally impression in Baden-Baden, popping up in his striped polo shirt among the crowd in varying locations all over the sales arena to bid on four horses throughout the day for Godolphin. The agent’s tenacity gave the sale a huge boost, with almost a quarter of the turnover coming through the exchange of those two fillies and two colts.

Similarly, Angus Gold at Doncaster on Sheikh Hamdan’s behalf accounted for more than 10% of the Premier Sale aggregate.

Australians Adjusting Focus
For a number of years, the pilgrimage for Australian buyers looking for European stayers was to Newmarket for the Tattersalls Horses-in-Training Sale. With plenty of private deals for such horses now commonplace throughout the season, a number of those buyers have taken a step farther back in the chain to buy middle-distance yearlings, and the BBAG sale, with its plethora of stock from proven stamina-led families, seems the perfect place to start.

As featured in TDN last week, this has been the method employed by Australian Bloodstock for some years now, and others, such as Brad Spicer, are following suit.

It is not a practice restricted to Australian buyers either. A shrewd syndicate of British owners has also targeted the BBAG sale over a number of years with the aim of finding value in the yearling market to race middle-distance horses in Britain for several seasons in the hope that they will achieve a level that is enticing to southern hemisphere buyers.

Whichever tactic is deployed—either finding a whizz-bang 2-year-old or a longer-term prospect—the aim remains the same: to sell that horse to the highest bidder overseas.

A successful outcome in this scenario naturally should mean reinvestment in young stock from those parties, but it is a situation which gives rise to mixed feelings.

In many ways, it is a source of pride that bloodlines in this part of the world are still so respected and in demand, but it is part of a precarious situation for the European countries as racing nations. The ‘sport of kings’ has perhaps never truly been accessible to those without vast reserves to call on but in Australia at least, it is the booming syndicate model which is king.

Rondinay Family Running Wild For Etzean
Shamardal already has one worthy advertisement of his potential as a sire of sires in Lope De Vega (Ire) and there could be more to come. Two of Shamardal’s sons have entered the fray this year with their first yearlings—Dariyan (Fr), and Bow Creek (Ire)—but French Navy (Ire) and Amaron (GB) are one jump ahead with a smattering of first runners already on the track.

The latter, bred in Suffolk at the Swinburn family’s Genesis Green Stud, was trained in Germany and made plenty of fruitful trips to neighbouring countries in pursuit of his nine victories from 22 starts. The classy miler, who has stood at Gestut Etzean at a fee of €4,500 since his retirement, has never covered more than 50 mares in a season. He has had two winners in Germany from his eight runners to date and a graduate of last year’s BBAG Sale, Run Wild (Ger), brought his tally of wins to three when making an extremely favourable impression last week. She posted a six-length victory on her third start for John Gosden and a group of owners which includes David Redvers, Barbara Keller and Ghislain and Henri Bozo.

Out of the Cadeaux Genereux (GB) mare Rondinay (GB) and bought for €160,000, Run Wild was bred by Ralf Kredel at Etzean and is her sire’s most expensive yearling to date. Even before she herself showed such promise on the racecourse, she was entitled to be given consideration. Her half-sister Rock My Soul (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}) was a treble listed winner in Germany for Uwe Ostmann and was later Group 3-placed in France. Her broodmare credentials include being the dam of three-time Group 3 winner Young Rascal (Fr) (Intello {Ger}), while another half-sibling is Augustin Stable’s Group 3 winner Rock My Love (Ger) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}), who has thus far raced in Germany, France and Canada.

Included in Rondinay’s offspring is the listed winner Rock My Heart (Ger) (Sholokhov {Ire}), who is now a broodmare in Japan and produced a Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) filly this year, while Rapido (Ger) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) was second to Sea The Moon (Ger) in the G2 Oppenheim-Union-Rennen.

Among the purchasers of Amaron yearlings in Baden-Baden last week was Shamardal’s former trainer Mark Johnston.

What A Caper
Whether it was her late cover, her covering sire, or the fact that she was already 14 when sold three years ago, the sum of 85,000gns still seems a little paltry for the well-bred decent performer Karen’s Caper (War Chant), particularly when she had unraced colts by Dubawi (Ire) and Frankel (GB) on the ground.

That was the sum that paid by Highclere Stud when she was let go from the Godolphin draft in December 2016, and the 11,000gns paid for the New Approach (Ire) colt she was carrying at the time when he was offered as a yearling didn’t necessarily offer much further encouragement. However, the colt’s buyer was Mark Johnston, famed for favouring pedigree over conformation, and whatever faults the yearling may have been perceived to have had last October, he is now a three-time winner named King’s Caper (GB). The colt brought up his hat-trick on Saturday just hours after his year-older Frankel half-brother Casanova (GB), who runs in Princess Haya’s colours, broke his maiden when winning by 4.5 lengths at Wolverhampton.

Karen’s Caper, whose first foal Kinglet (Kingmambo) won the G3 UAE 2000 Guineas, had no foal last year but delivered an Iffraaj (GB) filly foal on Feb. 3.

The Joy of Nugent
There are many reasons to appreciate Nick Nugent. In the press room at Goffs, the hearts of the sales correspondents lift a little as he takes to the rostrum at the end of a long day, knowing that he is the fastest auctioneer in the west, rattling out bids and quips at an equally high velocity.

Nugent also does a fantastic job of pretending to be a bit of a Victor Meldrew. Passing the press desk at Doncaster last week, he berated us for being far too cheery on social media.

“I’m fed up with people posting photos of themselves having a lovely time on holiday,” he said. “I want to see them sitting at home on their own having a miserable time and eating a Pot Noodle. I don’t have FOMO, more JOMO. I prefer the joy of missing out.”

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