WHEREVER you assemble more than one racehorse, you’ll find people willing to gamble on which is the best. The betting ring at Cheltenham has nothing on the high stakes and buzz around this ring, where the opportunities to win or lose a fortune are going off every three minutes.
This is high octane, 160 contestants each day, with bidding frenzies on the potential Derby winner of 2020 and bargains to be had if you’re “willing to forgive a small fault”.
The hammer falls and the winner in one corner gets a yearling colt for €16,000, while the loser in the other corner rues the €120,000 spent on the stallion fee.
DOUGHNUT
For a doughnut, Goffs sure has a lot of corners, mainly dark and filled with clandestine bidders. You thought gambling on racehorses only happened at the races? It happens before they’re even a twinkle in a stallion master’s eye.
The result could yet change in a year or two. Not even a mere €16,000 is a bargain for a horse that doesn’t win; but if it wins a classic, everyone’s a winner. Doesn’t the breeder still have the mare at home and the siblings for the next sales? The action might be going off every three minutes but you may have to wait two years for the full result.
STRESSFUL
“This is the most stressful time of the year,” trainer Ger Lyons confides.
“For a trainer, the day you buy is the day you sell and the next three seasons are dependent on today.” It’s the doughnut of dreams, bloodstock agents filling their order books, trainers hoping to fill their yards, and buyers fulfilling their dreams.
I look for interesting buyers – actors or supermodels or premiership footballers. I manage to spot Mick Channon and Michael Owen, do they still count? I couldn’t catch a Sheikh for a comment or any small change, but their presence is on everyone’s lips.
Seeing Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Maktoum viewing horses seems to have lifted spirits and generated a great buzz. “It was a big thing for us, the boss being here,” admits Eamon Moloney, Kildangan Stud.
“Having them here is fantastic,” Joe Foley, Ballyhane Stud agrees, “the number of buyers here is wonderful and full credit to the ITM team.”
SELLERS
The buyers are still bidding surreptitiously ringside, so I meet only sellers but I’m told they greatly outnumber the buyers anyway.
Maybe I’ll meet a new owner in the hospitality boxes, so I pop into each, plundering sweeties and cakes as I go. No buyers, but the catering folk warn of someone going from box to box plundering sweets and cakes. I do my bit and use this column as a community alert; you have been warned, whoever you are.
The Tinnakill House Stud team are enjoying a good sale and are happy to give Jack Cantillon some credit for the well-bought dam of one of the better selling yearlings. “He says he bought her while everyone else was having a sleep!”
Misadventures are absent from the perfect preparation of all who have made it to Goffs, but not everyone had a smooth run. David Stack travelled from Coolagawn Stud in Fermoy and relates the jeep that sped past him only to be caught by a speed camera, not once, but twice. The same jeep parked alongside him at Goffs. “I hope he got here in time for what he wanted and the six points were worth it!” reflected Stack. As Harry McCalmont reflected on the week, “it’s character building.”