“THE rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

It’s a line that was most likely used during the recent general election, but I’m using it when reflecting on the bloodstock market in 2024. It could refer to those selling – whether they received an eye-watering sum, or a paltry figure that won’t cover their costs - or it could refer to buyers, from those with seemingly endless reserves, to the smaller fish struggling to compete.

Appropriately, Merriam Webster’s 2024 word of the year is polarisation, which could vie for the bloodstock-specific title with ‘selective’, though they both hint at the same issues. In my opinion, there is some benefit to the market’s readjustment at the lower end, so that breeders realise their product has no place.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, and who are we to argue with a genius (Einstein, specifically). Yet many breeders continue to breed from mares, who have failed to produce horses with any meaningful talent - just look through the catalogues of less selective sales for evidence.

Some, you could argue, should never have been bred from in the first place. The same goes for some stallions, and it worries me every autumn, when there is news of yet another colt retiring to the ranks. Of course, plenty come with great merit, and are downright exciting, but when the stories coincide with those of stallions selling abroad, you must admit that the high turnover increases the challenge of breeding a commercial racehorse.

Unforgiving market

Even Territories got the boot this year – a stallion who has sired a Group 1 winner every year for the last four. How many can lay claim to that, for a covering fee of £10,000? He provided one of the pinhooking results of the year, when Oaks Farm Stables sold a colt for 750,000gns to Nurlan Bizakov’s Sumbe, the owner/breeder of the sire’s Group 1 winner Lazzat.

Unfortunately for those who want to breed a good racehorse, the market didn’t share my enthusiasm for Territories, his median yearling price this year coming in at £14,363. While the buyers would be the obvious ones to blame, maybe fault lay with breeders and the unsatisfactory mares they sent him?

Perhaps the best example of the sales results contrasting with racecourse success is Dark Angel. His 2023 yearlings yielded a median price of €61,919 at the European sales and, after a terrific season that saw him crowned champion sire, that figure only rose to €72,000 - disappointing considering his progeny’s performances and his covering fee of €60,000.

Respect your elders

The 2024 median price of his own sire, Acclamation, is similarly head-scratching at €44,443. Perhaps it is influenced by the myth surrounding older sires, despite the accomplishments of Acclamation’s Romantic Warrior or Prix de l’Abbaye winner Makarova.

Another respected elder to buck the ‘trend’ was the 23-year-old Kodiac, sire of Group 1 winning two-year-old Babouche and another three juvenile group winners this term. Buyers have seen more sense with him, producing a median of €63,848, which adds to the appeal of his 2025 fee of €25,000.

His older brother Invincible Spirit, who retired at the age of 27 this year, was responsible for 10 stakes horses in 2024. His twice Group 1-placed son Ghostwriter was conceived when the Irish National Stud stalwart was 23.

Holy Roman Emperor, who turns 21 on New Year’s Day, provided Coventry Stakes victor Rashabar, along with another eight stakes horses, yet his latest yearlings averaged a measly €19,683 and peaked at €70,000.

The soon to be 25-year-old Oasis Dream was responsible for another Group 2-winning juvenile in Aomori City, and Juddmonte reports there’s life in the old dog yet, with 93% fertility in 2024. While his yearling’s latest median of £38,248 is nothing to write home about, breeders have a good chance of turning a profit at his 2025 fee of £15,000.

Wootton Bassett is all the rage, and deservedly so, but his sire Iffraaj seems forgotten in comparison, despite siring Group 1 winners in both hemispheres over the past 12 months. Anyone who bought his progeny this term is likely to have nabbed a bargain, judging by his median of £27,188. The sire of 13 Group 1 winners will command £10,000 as a 23-year-old in 2025.

A sense of perspective

While I question their apparent lack of popularity, I can also recognise that the prices mentioned may be high from the prospective of the buyer. All horses cost the same to keep, no matter their breeding, so a €20,000 yearling stands you plenty by the time it gets to the track, never mind by the time it wins, if it manages to.

Most of the thoroughbreds produced in Britain and Ireland are destined for the UK, where I needn’t remind readers of the poor prize money on offer. Costs of having a horse in training are going up, as is everything in life, yet the rewards either shrink or remain static. It’s little wonder that many buyers can’t afford to pay the sort of price that would provide profit to a breeder.

In contrast with the ‘small man’, you have the big spenders. Some are commercial owner/breeders, with plans of breeding from their purchases after their hopefully successful racing careers, others simply dig deep into their pockets in the hope of enjoying their racing careers, or maybe it’s for the glory.

It wouldn’t be a complete review of the bloodstock year if I didn’t mention Kia Joorabchian, who spent over 32 million guineas in the space of two months at Tattersalls – and that’s only for those signed for by Amo Racing, ignoring those bought in partnership. At Book 1, Godolphin ensured they remained top of the buyers table by increasing their spend by 10 million guineas, while Blandford Bloodstock remained in the top three by spending an extra two million.

Yulong entered the leaderboard after spending just under four million, and returned to the venue’s mares sale to spend 3,445,000gns. John Stewart made sure he didn’t miss out and his spend of over six million guineas saw him second to only – you guessed it – Amo Racing.

Priceless potential

If any sale demonstrated the lack of logic to this year’s top prices, it was that sale. Take The Palace Girl, for instance. Kevin Coleman and Sean Grassick’s €30,000 yearling buy would have had many agents reaching for their phones after her debut second at the Curragh, but their offers must have increased when her half-sister Tamfana won the Sun Chariot Stakes just an hour later.

Coleman’s promising juvenile finished second to Ballydoyle’s Giselle, who had chased home Bedtime Story on debut, and would go on to claim third in the Group 3 Staffordstown Stud Stakes, her fourth upgraded after a stewards’ enquiry.

Despite the obvious promise, current pedigree, and presumably attractive physical, 1,550,000gns seems a downright obscene figure for The Palace Girl. If she was to never run again, or even win her maiden, or pick up minor blacktype, what would she be worth? For there is no guarantee in this wonderful game – horses get injured, luck changes – it’s part of the appeal, but also the pull-your-hair-out nature of the game.

Speaking of unpredictable millionaires, Joorabchian explained his team’s focus on Book 1 and Keeneland came after analysing where the best horses were sold. Seeing as he purchased five of this year’s 17 millionaire yearlings at Book 1, I looked back at those of the 2022 renewal, part of the classic generation of 2024. Of the 17 bought for an accumulated 25,350,000gns, two remain unraced, another seven have yet to win, three earned blacktype and one won a Group 1.

Go big or go home

Ironically, one of the maidens is named Go Big Or Go Home. She was “bought” by Richard Knight, acting on behalf of Saleh Al Homaizi, who it later transpired didn’t pay his bill of 10,455,000gns. Knight’s “spending” was the second highest of any purchaser at Book 1 that year, bought the €2.6 million Orby top lot, and is a reminder of how volatile the bloodstock market is.

Manor House Farm, owned by the now disgraced John Dance, ranked seventh at Book 1 with a spend of 2,675,000gns, while Joe Foley followed at 2,562,000 on behalf of Steve Parkin’s Clipper Logistics, the partnership now no more.

2024’s big shaker Joorabchian looks thoroughly invested in the sport, with three stallions now standing at Tally Ho Stud, and the acquisition of Sir Michael Stoute’s Freemason Lodge. However, Dance had also seemed a long-term investor, with his own private trainer installed at Manor House Farm and, while Parkin continues to stand stallions and own racehorses, his interests have drastically reduced.

Joorabchian has developed a reputation for changing his mind regularly, and drastically, whether it be regarding trainers, jockeys or bloodstock agents. Alex Elliott, who led this year’s spree, was back in the good books after King Of Steel’s exploits, with little involvement between purchasing the Group 1 winner as a yearling, and this yearling sales season. Another cause for concern is the involvement of Nottingham Forest’s hot-headed Evangelos Marinakis in some of his high-profile buys.

Punchy pinhooks

Judging by the strength of the foal sales, pinhookers didn’t seem as concerned as I regarding the chances of Joorabchian repeating his actions at the 2025 yearling sales. Increases at both Goffs and Tattersalls suggested that the pinhooking fraternity were focussed on purchasing the sort of pedigrees and individuals suitable for Book 1 and 2, or likely to make the most important shortlists at the Orby Sale, where Godolphin increased by over €2 million this year.

Perhaps the most telling figures from the foal sales came on the third day of the Goffs November Foal Sale, the session reserved for the highest quality lots. The average price €113,849 came close to the overall average price at the Orby Sale, when €128,594 represented a 5% increase on 2023. The median prices for each sale were a perfect match at €80,000.

Four days of foals returned increases in turnover, average and median, signalling a strength in depth in the market - not just reserved for the elite foals. Many applauded the high number of new faces investing and their involvement, along with their seasoned rivals, meant no stone was left unturned.

Those looking for value faced a stiff task, with certain results standing out to me personally, when I tried thinking outside the box.

The latest foals by Cotai Glory, a solid sire who stood for €12,500 when these were conceived, sold for up to €85,000, €72,000, €64,000 and €62,000. Saxon Warrior’s foals averaged €60,444 at Goffs, despite his latest yearlings commanding an average price of €38,067 in Europe in 2024. Good news for breeders, not so much for bargain hunters, and a headscratcher when predicting the 2025 yearling sales.

The demand at every level at the foal sales suggested that many had forgotten the earliest yearling sales, where many of these foals will be reoffered, as not all can qualify for the Orby, Book 1 or Book 2.

Selective memories

The Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale produced plenty of heartwarming results, most notably Paul Giles achieving a career-best result with the £350,000 sales topper. While the aggregate fell by 8% and both the average and median dipped by 14%, the clearance rate was pleasing at 82%, which suggested that vendors agreed, or at least accepted, the market’s valuation of their stock.

The consignors I spoke with concurred, most reporting that there were buyers there at all levels. It didn’t seem to be the case at the Tattersalls Somerville Sale, where the increase to two days saw the clearance rate suffer, dropping from an impressive 89% 12 months ago, to a sobering 74%. The average price fell by 11%, the median by 18.5%.

Tattersalls Ireland also increased their offering, but the average didn’t fare as badly at 7%, though the median dropped by 11%. Figures fell similarly at Part 2 of the Orby Sale, at 8% and 14% respectively.

Reality is biting at the lower end, buyers all too aware that the chancier specimens cost just as much to keep as the safer bets. Rising costs hammer that message home constantly, for both producer and end-user, while prize money remains static. That’s a debate for another day and, while some may interpret my reflections on 2024 as dismal, there is a sliver of hope that the authorities will see sense and act on something that affects every aspect of the racing and bloodstock industries.