Breeze-up horses must have breeze-up sales

THE European bloodstock sales industry’s focus is currently on the delay to breeze-up sales which merit considering in quantifiable terms. Approximately 970 horses will have been catalogued at sales in Ascot, Doncaster, Newmarket, Fairyhouse and Deauville where, in 2019, 677 lots sold for an aggregate turnover in excess of €40 million.

Approximately 850 of these horses are consigned from Ireland, including the top five lots sold at each of the three major sales, so this sector is a significant contributor to our economy.

One suggestion that all the horses in Ireland should be gathered together for a filmed breeze, then offered online, presents a logistical challenge that suggests that these numbers were not taken into consideration; this is, after all, almost twice the total of (457) runners at Cheltenham.

Breeze-up horses need breeze-up sales and those marketing our sport must prepare a message to quickly rekindle the enthusiasm of existing and prospective owners. They need to be reminded that life is for living and a ready-to-run two-year-old could be just the thing to help achieve that.

One sale that will be conducted online is next week’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale in Australia. This has also divided opinion about the merits of selling untried thoroughbreds online and the hugely prominent Arrowfield Stud have withdrawn all their lots (about 60 out of a catalogue of just over 500), preferring to sell them privately.

From a bidding aspect, there are two basic ways in which online selling can happen: timed sales, when all bidding is online with a pre-arranged conclusion time, and live sales, with an auctioneer calling the sale, with online bids coming alongside those ‘in the room’.

Inglis was initially to conduct a timed sale, but have changed to a ‘live auction’, though the only bids ‘in the room’ will come from their own staff on telephones to clients.

I believe that this is a preferable format for two reasons. Most bloodstock buyers are already familiar with monitoring the progress of a conventional sales from afar, while a timed sale format is confusing when the ‘end time’ for a lot can be extended if a bid is made at the last minute. This presents no problem with one or two lots but is very hard to manage when there are significant numbers.

The real challenge is not so much in the bidding mechanisms but in the inspections of the lots on offer. It is not unusual in Australia for agents and other buyers to go from farm to farm for a month in advance of the major yearling sales.

In the northern hemisphere, yearling sales start in August at Deauville and Doncaster, followed in September by Keeneland and then four consecutive weeks in Ireland and Britain. That leaves neither the window for buyers to travel around, nor the resources left on the farms to have daily yearling shows.

The internet is a solution to so many problems (and arguably a problem to so many solutions) but it is hard to offer a significant volume of unseen horses online. The Easter Yearling Sale is the southern hemisphere’s flagship catalogue and may be seen as symbolic of the future but it is the absolute cream of the crop.

Lower-level stock, like the scent of a flower, cannot be adjudged remotely and will not merit ongoing inspections farm by farm. Even the yards at closed marts this week are still being used for prospective buyers to view stock which is why the sale day experience, with stock assembled in one place, has provided a practical solution to the trading of bloodstock for centuries.