The average per-capita wealth of the few hundred people gathered in and around the sales ring here on Tuesday afternoon was probably the highest anywhere in the world, though for at least 95% of those present, the average did not tell the whole story. The richest of the rich gathered as they always do in Newmarket in early October, to buy the best of the best in bloodstock. For others it was a day of reckoning, an opportunity to start building for next season or simply a chance to enjoy the spectacle.
From some angles, or through a jaundiced eye, the eight-sided pagoda that contains the Tattersalls ring is little more than a Temple of Mammon, perched on a small hill in East Anglia. The sums that change hands here as some of the wealthiest people in the world buy hopes and dreams on four legs are simply extraordinary. Last year the total turnover over for the three sessions was nearly 80m gns, or £84m, a record for any bloodstock auction in Europe.
It is not just racehorse trainers who mill around the ring, hoping that some of the super-wealth will trickle down in their direction. Jobs in the breeding industry throughout Britain, Ireland and beyond can depend on the market at a top-end sale like Tattersalls. Breeders who pay six-figure sums to have mares covered by famous stallions like Galileo and Dubawi need to make a return in the ring, to pay the wages and overheads required to get a new-born thoroughbred foal even to this early stage of its career. A handsome profit or a painful loss over 12 months in the breeding business might depend on two or three minutes in the ring and whether the market is in the right mood.
“It can all come down to whether they [the biggest players] are feeling interested,” one veteran of the business said on Tuesday. “Last year Sheikh Hamdan [al-Maktoum of Dubai] just wasn’t buying on the first day. Then on the third day he was bidding on everything. You can just be unlucky that you are there at the wrong time.”
To sell, you need a buyer. To sell well, you need two, and if one of the interested parties is an owner like Sheikh Fahad al-Thani of Qatar, it could be a day to remember. A 20-something multi-billionaire in jeans and sneakers, Sheikh Fahad caused a shiver of excitement wherever he went here, inspecting yearlings and meeting breeders who were, on balance, more nervous and jittery than their horses.
David Cox, who runs the Baroda and Colbinstown Studs in Ireland in partnership with David Myerscough, a grandson of the great trainer Vincent O’Brien, is typical of the breeders and traders whose annual profit-and-loss account can depend on whether they sell well at Tattersalls. His main hope on Tuesday was a colt by Kyllachy, who was sold to race in Hong Kong for 200,000gns (£210,000), a handsome return on an investment of just under 70,000gns (£73,500) a year ago.
“We kept him all winter, and all summer we prepared him for the sale,” Cox said. “It’s all nervous times, even coming over there’s anything that could happen. He got here in one piece, showed himself [to prospective buyers] very well and sold really well to the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
“We’ve nine to sell here and sold one earlier for 82,000gns, so hopefully it will be a good day tomorrow as well. It’s 11 months, and at least the guts of €100,000 goes into them over that time. I’ve four guys working on the farm at home and Dave has another four, and their livelihoods are really in our hands and how we buy and sell our horses.
“Sometimes things start slow here, everyone’s watching each other and there’s two more days of horses. The second day things pick up and then on the third day they start thinking about next week’s sale [the less prestigious Book 2] and maybe slow up in the evening. And it’s all done alphabetically, you can’t pick what day your horse is going or what time, you need a bit of luck there too so that you’re not in the first lot or the last lot of the day.”
Cox’s colt will now be gelded before being sent to Hong Kong. Had Richard Hannon, the underbidder, put up his hand one more time, the same colt could have ended up living, ungelded, in Wiltshire. A few moments in the ring will change the lives and the destinies of these yearlings for good.
“The chain is enormous that makes up thoroughbred racing and breeding,” Harry Herbert, the figurehead of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing’s syndicate operation and also the racing manager for Sheikh Joaan al-Thani’s Al Shaqab Racing, said.
“Right here, for the breeding industry in Ireland and Great Britain, if you have a horse with a decent enough pedigree to get into this sale, this is where you expect to make good money. Because sure as eggs is eggs, for every one you’ve got that’s good enough to be here, there’s probably a whole lot more that aren’t but have to be paid for.
“For breeders it’s important that some of these make significant sums. It’s very international and there are buyers from every racing nation here. We just bought a Galileo colt and [South African trainer] Mike de Kock was gutted he didn’t get it for a South African client of his.
“It’s what makes the sport and industry such fun. Everyone aspires to race a good horse and, whatever the money being splashed around here, it’s a certainty that next week there will be 20, 30 or 40,000gns horses that end up being a whole lot quicker than some of these.”
Just two lots on the opening day of Book 1 reached a seven-figure selling price but the third-highest price of the day, 900,000gns, was paid by the China Horse Club, a sign of an important emerging market for the best bloodstock.
“It’s a very important sport and industry for this country and it’s absolutely vital for employment,” Herbert said, “whether that’s through trainers, stable staff, vets, the breeders or through the betting industry.
“This week is the one that you have to come to with a hefty cheque-book. It’s not often that you look up there [at the bid recorder] and it’s less than six figures. But like any marketplace, you’ve got your Harrods and your pound store, and it’s about where you want to shop.”
