Well-known breeze-up consignor Eddie Linehan of Lackendarra Stables agrees with Haynes and McGuinness that the value has favoured the buyer when it has come to shopping at the middle to lower tiers of the market due to the amount of choice in that sector.

However, Linehan, who admitted that a lot of consignors were forced to overspend on yearlings last year, reported the top end of the European breeze-up market to be as lucrative as it ever has been after selling a Land Force (Ire) colt at Arqana for €250,000.

Eddie Linehan | Tattersalls 

He said, “The top end was good but everything else was tough this year. The middle to lower end of the market is very selective because buyers have so much choice and people are gone so time-based that, if you are not in the top 20 times, it's very difficult to get paid for a horse no matter how well you recommend it or like it.”

Linehan added, “We'd a couple of nice sales, sold some nice horses and horses who I think will turn out to be nice for small money, and then we'd a couple in between. But from our perspective, it's definitely a numbers game. I worked it out, four horses have basically paid for our year. Four out of 14 made a profit so far.”

There have been eight juvenile winners in Britain and Ireland who have been sourced at the breeze-ups already this season. Of the eight, Haynes has been responsible for three, including her Royal Ascot bound Golden Arrow (Ire) (Havana Grey {GB}) and Majestic Beauty (GB) (Havana Grey {GB}). 

McGuinness is the sole Irish trainer to have registered a winner with a juvenile purchased at the breeze-ups this season with Tiger Belle (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}) successful on debut at Cork last week. 

One of three juveniles that McGuinness picked up along with his nephew and assistant trainer Stephen Thorne for a new commercial arm of the Shamrock Thoroughbreds syndicate, the £70,000 purchase from Con Marnane's Bansha House Stables will run at Royal Ascot if she's not sold beforehand. 

McGuinness said, “We've had someone come to look at her already and, if we can sell her to keep her in the yard, that would be brilliant. We also had a call about the Goffs London Sale before Ascot, and that's a great sale, so all options are open at the minute. 

“Stephen runs the Shamrock Thoroughbreds syndicate and it was his idea to set up an investments syndicate to target the breeze-up sales. We didn't buy many yearlings last year, purely because we haven't had much luck at that down through the years, whereas we were very lucky with the few breezers we bought last year. So there has been a bit of a change of plan.

“Out of the three breezers we bought last year, we won with two and got one [Ti Sento (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire})] away for an awful lot of money within a very short space of time.”

Ado McGuinness (left) and Stephen Thorne (right) | Tattersalls

He added, “We are looking for the very sharp two-year-olds and Donny and the Craven is where you'll find them. Everybody has the Ascot dream in their heads when they go to these sales and we're the same. 

“But we have a limit on what we are going to spend–like, €300,000 on a breeze-up horse, sure if he wins a maiden he might not be worth that. We haven't got the clients who are going to give that type of money for a horse where, win, lose or draw, it makes no difference to them. 

“We have to try and buy the horse that will be a realistic price and one we can sell on afterwards. When you set up an investment syndicate, you have to sell when the money is on the table and, if the next person makes more money than you afterwards, the best of luck to them.

“It's important for business because, say if you win a premier handicap worth €100,000, the trainer's share is only about €7,000. Then you have to go and pay tax on that. There's not a lot of money left over. We will still have our premier handicap horses and they are extremely important for our yard but selling is where it's at.”

While McGuinness admits that the backward three-year-old type is a much more valuable prospect in the long run, he described the earlier and speedier two-year-olds who are ready to rock and roll a much easier sell to owners.

He said, “In our situation, we want to get in and get out. That's our angle and it seems to be working so far. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a nice big immature horse for the backend, and you'd get well-rewarded if you can produce a nice horse that way, but it will take time. A lot of owners are not prepared to put in that time and money into a later developing type of horse and the Ascot dream is a much easier sell.”

Like McGuinness, Haynes goes looking for the horses who are ready to run at the breeze-ups. She also buys at every level and is therefore in the unique position to comment on the overall strength of the market this year. 

“It was nice to get Golden Arrow, who was an expensive breezer at Goffs UK for £200,000,” the trainer said. “You're not always that fortunate to get that type of an order. Normally I try to look at horses who haven't breezed as well as that because of the ground, or maybe they finished a little jarred up from the breeze, so I am usually finding a way in to secure a better price. 

“I find buying from the breeze-ups relatively straightforward and I like to buy the horses who are ready to go. That's been our policy and we've definitely done that this year, especially with our horses from Doncaster, with Hala Emaraaty (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) winning as well. 

“He was the opposite end of the spectrum to Golden Arrow given he cost just £14,000 and then we had one in the middle in Majestic Beauty, who cost £90,000 from that same sale.”

Alice Haynes | Tattersalls

She added, “Day one at the Craven felt like a good time to be buying. There were also a few bargains to be had in the first few hours of the Guineas Sale as well. I know that a few consignors were at a loss because they had spent so much money on the yearlings that the value probably was with the buyers. Looking back now, I think there were too many horses in the Craven and it was the nice horses who made the money.”

Given the success Linehan enjoyed at Arqana, the Cork native admitted that he would love nothing more than to recruit a team of Arqana-type horses, but he knows that is an unrealistic business model. However, Linehan has vowed to be more selective at the yearling sales this year.

He said, “We were happy with the year as a whole. Having said that, I was banking on Arqana going well for us. Whether we were to finish up or down for the year, it all depended on the Arqana horses selling well, and I was just lucky that one of them clicked. 

“But, to be honest, the Land Force was as good a horse as I've ever had anything to do with. He breezed well and he's a gorgeous-looking horse. I'd say he's very good.”

Linehan added, “You'd love to be buying Arqana types at the yearling sales every year but, if you did that, you'd have some amount of money on the line and it would only take one bad year to break you. 

“But looking back on last year, I think everyone overpaid a little for yearlings. We probably gave 10 or 15 grand for too much for some horses last year but, at the time, you probably thought that they were worth it because everyone else was doing the same. 

“The main thing I have in my head going forward with the yearlings is that you have to be very selective. You have to really want the horse and pay as little as you can for it. That's the basic law of it all.”

The year is far from over for a lot of buyers and consignors with the Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Breeze-Up Sale taking place at Fairyhouse this week and Linehan is expecting a good trade. McGuinness and Haynes also reported that they plan on being active.

Linehan said, “I think Goresbridge will be a good sale. I was speaking with Paul Harley, who works for Tattersalls Ireland, and he said that there will be a lot of buyers from Scandinavia at the sales. 

“They played at that sale last year, so hopefully they will be back again, and that should help the middle to lower level and ensure a good clearance rate, which is needed. 

“A few very good horses have come out of Goresbridge and we sold a very nice filly called Coralillo (Ire) (Havana Grey {GB}) so hopefully it goes well. I'm looking forward to it.”

The post ‘Top Strong But Everything Else Was Tough This Year’ – Breeze-Up Market Reflections appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Little did we know at the time, but that Cheltenham success was to be Walsh's last, as she bowed out on a winner at her beloved Punchestown Festival the following month.

A lot has changed in those five years since. Along with her husband Ross O'Sullivan, a prominent trainer in his own right and just about the friendliest person you could meet in any walk of life, Walsh welcomed daughter Stevie [three] and son Ted [one] into the world. 

Like her own father Ted and more recently her brother Ruby, Katie has proved to be a dab hand as a broadcaster and is now a regular contributor–along with her 2010 County Hurdle hero Thousand Stars (Fr)–on RTE's television coverage of all the major festivals. 

And then there are the breeze-ups. That same competitive spirit that saw Walsh win the Irish Grand National and three Cheltenham Festival races in total has been channeled into producing belters of breezers. 

There was a time where Walsh hummed to a very different tune. A helter-skelter soundtrack that came to a crescendo in the second week of March for over a decade. The buzz that comes with riding a Cheltenham winner will never be replaced but new dreams abound for the 39-year-old who will swap the Cotswolds for preparing her horses for the Dubai Breeze Up Sale this week. 

“It was crazy at one time,” says Walsh on a morning borrowed from the depths of winter at the family yard in Kill, County Kildare.

“When I was riding and doing the breezers, I would be riding at Cheltenham this week for example and then try and manage everything that was going on at home with the breezers. 

“Or, if I was riding at Aintree, you'd be straight into the car and driving down to Newmarket to the Craven afterwards. I'm still working at the big festivals but it's different to what it was.”

She added, “Back five or six years ago, the breeze-up business at home was getting going and the whole thing was getting bigger. I came to a stage where it made sense to retire. 

“Part of me wasn't ready to stop but it made sense. I wanted to have a family and it came to a choice between this or keeping on riding. And for what? Another two or three years at best? Driving all over the country to ride was great craic when you were younger. But that went.”

Katie Walsh with Relegate after winning the Champion Bumper in 2018 | Racingfotos.com

One chapter closes and another begins. Stevie, who was named after Nicks, not Wonder, and inspired Jamie Osborne to name a horse he bought off Walsh precisely that, arrived just in time for the yearling sale season in 2019. Not ideal timing you could say. But typical of Walsh, she made it all work regardless. 

“I had Stevie in September and obviously missed a lot of sales that year. I went to Doncaster and then Arqana in October that year and even that was hard. Stevie is used to it now but, at the start, I did find it quite difficult to leave her. But that's the way this industry is and that's the business I am in.”

She added, “The great thing about this job is that it's seasonal. I am gone from a lot of September through to October but then I'm at home for the rest of the year. Okay, Dubai is next week, but that's only a couple of days. 

“It's definitely more challenging with two small kids around. At night you find that your work is never done but I'm not the only mother in the country who is trying to organise kids and work. It can be difficult at times but I have great help and support. Mam, Dad and my sister Jennifer are brilliant.”

Concentrating fully on the breezers must be made easier when you have a track record like Walsh does. From these famous gallops, where Ted's war horses Commanche Court (Ire), Papillon (Ire), Rince Ri (Ire) and this year's Grand National contender Any Second Now (Ire) have all been trained off, Walsh has blooded her own big names.

Casper Netscher (GB) was the first to put Greenhills Farm in lights and, according to Ted, it was his sale that underpinned the success that followed.

“I'll tell ya how things turn around,” he started. “A good few years ago, we had what I thought was a nice horse and he worked well. We weren't getting enough for him at the sales so we brought him home. He ended up being a grand horse but he didn't go on and be a good horse. We'd have been as well off to have sold him. 

“The following year, we had a nice horse and I said to Katie, 'unless you get a good price for him, don't sell him because he's a good horse.' She says, 'we're selling him no matter what because I'm in the business of buying and selling. I'm not keeping any of them.'

“We arrived at the sales anyway with this little bay horse that I thought was too small but who Katie liked. By God he could fly. She got 65,000gns for him. Who did he turn out to be? Casper Netscher. He won the Gimcrack, the Mill Reef and the German Guineas. He was a great little horse and while she only got 65,000gns for him, she did the right thing in selling him, as it got the word out that she was a seller.”

After Casper Netscher there was Breeders' Cup runner-up East (GB) (Frankel {GB}), G2 Richmond S. winner Asymmetric (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}) and last year Walsh broke the record for the highest price ever achieved at the Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Breeze-up Sale when her Saxon Warrior (Jpn) filly sold on behalf of James Hanly to Stephen Hillen for €520,000. 

But for all the smiles this game generates, Walsh knows that the scowls can be just as plentiful, given the unpredictable nature of working with horses.

Walsh with her record-breaker at Tattersalls Ireland | Racingfotos.com

“I'm realistic,” she says. “I have been in this game for so long and I know the disappointments. Between horses getting injured, breezers going wrong and different things, that's just the way it is and I'm okay with that. I don't lose sleep at night over it. I understand the game and know the way things go. I've seen it my whole life with racehorses not going the right way or not working out as you hoped they would. Breezing horses is very easy compared to training them.”

She added, “I always had an interest in the breeze-ups. I just got the bug for this from the start and loved it. Okay, the next few weeks will be crazy again, but then I am at home with the kids for the summer. Ross won't be. He'll be heading off to Kilbeggan and Ballinrobe. That's why I said, training horses is much harder than doing the breeze-ups. 

“There's absolutely no let up as a trainer. You need to be a certain type of person to make a trainer. Ross is a very likeable fella and has a good bunch of owners there. I'm not saying I wouldn't handle it, but I do know that I wouldn't have the same patience as other trainers. I have built up a reputation with the breeze-up horses and have a good bunch of people here and some great staff as well. I have no problem calling a spade a spade and owners either like that or they don't. If a horse isn't good enough I'll tell the owners and I wouldn't be putting cherries on top of it either.”

“I'll never come out and say that I think I've an aeroplane. That sort of talk rubs me totally up the wrong way,” – Katie Walsh

What you see is what you get with the Walshes. They don't suffer fools nor do they care too much about what other people think. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but they've gotten this far just fine and Katie is a chip off the block. 

“I'll never come out and say that I think I've an aeroplane. That sort of talk rubs me totally up the wrong way. I'll never really believe it until they go and do it on the track. When you think a horse is going to breeze well and it doesn't, nine times out of 10, that horse will always let you down. But when a horse breezes better than you expected, that's the one who will always deliver for you.

“I think it's so much easier to keep expectations lower than start calling horses good before they have done anything. At the back of my mind, I might be thinking, 'this can bloody rubber,' but I'll never say it. You are on a hiding to nothing if you go telling people a horse is good until it goes and breezes well. If it clocks, well then you can say, he's after breezing like I thought he would, he's a good horse. It's only then that you can stand behind them because you know they are a good horse.”

With that in mind, it might be best to concentrate on what Walsh doesn't say about her Dubai Breeze Up Sale horses, colts by Into Mischief and Tonalist. She got well-paid for an Exceed And Excel (Aus) colt at the inaugural running of this sale 12 months ago and this year's representatives were bought specifically to go back to Dubai.

“They are very big horses so you are just giving them every chance you can. But you are not under as much pressure in Dubai because there are no clocks. The season finishes out there the following week at the Dubai World Cup meeting so that makes it easier. You want them to look the part and go up there in a nice style and, off the back of John Cullinane's Tapiture colt [Go Soldier Go] winning a Listed race at Meydan last week, he only cantered up the straight at the breeze-up. He is a fine big colt and clearly needed all that time. They are the types of horses that they seem to want over there. Obviously, you can bring a bigger, scopier horse to Arqana but you wouldn't be bringing a Craven or a Donny type of horse out to Dubai. I don't think anyone goes to the Craven with a horse for next year. The Craven is where you try to sell the Royal Ascot dream and Doncaster is the same.”

Regardless of how well this year's batch of breezers sell, nothing will come close to the days of Poker De Sivola (Fr), Thousand Stars, Relegate and Thunder And Roses (Ire), horses Walsh will forever be associated with. 

“It's very hard to replace the kick you get riding winners. If you have never experienced it, you don't know what you are missing. To ride a winner, wherever that may be, that buzz is unbelievable. When that stops, you look for something to replace it. I'm not saying it's the same buzz but I do get a great kick out of the breezers. I love finding out which ones are good and bringing him to the sales and for them to behave and breeze the way they should. Regardless of their ability, I take pride in the fact that it's professional. That means a lot to me. Listen, I'd love one of those horses of my own to go and make €500,000. That's the dream and who knows? Maybe some day it will happen. 

She added, “I always hoped and envisioned that it would grow to be as big as it is. I hope it gets bigger. I'd like more horses of my own. This week revolved around Cheltenham for a long time. I was lucky enough to be riding as an amateur for Willie [Mullins] and the whole thing snowballed from there really. 

“Every year, it was all about Cheltenham and trying to get a ride in the bumper and the amateur races over there. I was lucky enough to ride a few winners there, I'd great luck, but now it's different and things change. It's the same for Ruby, who's flat to the boards now with ITV and Racing TV, so it's been a big change for us all over the past few years.”

For all of the change the Walshes have seen in recent times, the results Katie has achieved through her Greenhills Farm operation remains a constant. 

The post ‘I Get A Kick Out Of The Breezers – But It’s Not The Same As Riding Winners’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The catalogue includes 20 2-year-olds out of group or listed-winning mares including a Frankel (GB) colt out of G1 Prix Jean Romanet winner Ribbons (GB) (Manduro {Ger}) (lot 79) and a Dubawi colt out of Stellar Path (Fr) (Astronomer Royal) (lot 95), a Group 3 winner in France and the U.S. There are a pair of colts out of American Grade I-winning mares: a colt from the first crop of Arrogate out of American Oaks scorer Funny Moon (Malibu Moon) (lot 11), and a Union Rags son of Alabama S. winner Careless Jewel (Tapit) (lot 145).

There are siblings to 32 group or listed winners catalogued, including Siyouni half-brothers to GI Jamaica H. winner Western Aristocrat (Mr. Greeley) (lot 135) and French listed and American Grade II winner Mrs Sippy (Blame) (lot 75). Other highlights include an Aclaim (Ire) half-brother to G1 Sussex S. winner Here Comes When (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) (lot 73); and a half-sister to the Group 2-winning and Classic-placed Laughing Lashes by American first-season sire Mastery (lot 120).

Other leading sires represented include Camelot (GB), Dark Angel (Ire), Invincible Spirit (Ire), Kingman (GB), Kodiac (GB), Le Havre (Ire), Lope De Vega (Ire), Mehmas (Ire), No Nay Never, Oasis Dream (GB), Pivotal (GB), Sea The Stars (Ire) and Showcasing (GB). Other American sires with progeny on offer include American Pharoah, Bernardini, Distorted Humor, Empire Maker, Hard Spun, Kitten's Joy, More Than Ready, Street Boss and Street Sense.

Sires with their first crops on offer comprise Aclaim, Almanzor (Fr), Ardad (GB), Caravaggio, Churchill (Ire), Cotai Glory (GB), Ectot (GB), El Kabeir, Galileo Gold (Ire), Highland Reel (Ire), Profitable (Ire), Recorder (GB), Ribchester (Ire), Time Test (GB) and Ulysses (GB), as well as the American-based Arrogate, Gormley, Mastery and Practical Joke.

“The combination of the new £250,000 Craven Royal Ascot/Group 1 Bonus and the £15,000 Craven Breeze Up Bonus makes the 2021 Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale a compelling prospect for owners,” said Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony. “We are committed to rewarding owners in as many innovative ways as we can and a quality Craven Breeze Up catalogue, well supported by Europe's leading breeze up consignors, as well as unprecedented bonuses provide the perfect ingredients for owners, especially in the current climate. The Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up has always been a prolific source of top-class 2-year-olds and they stand to be rewarded like never before in 2021.”

The post Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Catalogue Online appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Action at Park Paddocks has now moved on to the Tattersalls Ascot Breeze-Up Sale. A full report will follow.

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The world effectively went into lockdown on the eve of Tattersalls’s planned Ascot Breeze-Up Sale in early April, and a revisit of the timeline of events surrounding the rejigging of the sector’s calendar shows just how swiftly, completely and unexpectedly COVID-19 tightened its grip. Tattersalls quickly moved to combine its Ascot and Craven sales, and those have endured no fewer than four date changes to accommodate lockdown and national health protocols as well as the racing calendar and other sales. Goffs UK and Arqana officially announced their partnership on Apr. 18 with the sale slated for Ireland, but the latest amendment on June 4 saw the sale moved to Doncaster to allow vendors and purchasers to take in the Tattersalls breeze ups and the Goffs UK/Arqana breeze ups in one country, breezes included, within the space of 10 days and avoid the risks and quarantines required for moving between countries.

Through all the headaches of the past three-plus months, the key principals of the breeze-up sector have largely set aside their personal agendas and admirably worked together to put in place a plan expected to work best for the industry as a whole. Tim Kent, managing director of Goffs UK, recalled how seamlessly the collaboration with Arqana came about.

“We came to the conclusion that it made sense to try to work together,” Kent said. “It was a conversation that I had with Nick Nugent and Henry Beeby; the three of us were talking and said, ‘maybe we should think about combining with Arqana.’ I know that Henry then put in a call to Eric Hoyeau in Arqana and when Henry suggested it to Eric, Eric started laughing and said, ‘funny, because Freddy [Powell] and I were talking about the exact same thing this morning.'”

Freddy Powell said the decision was “a bit of a no-brainer” for Arqana.

“We had 165 horses catalogued and 132 of them were based in Ireland,” he said. “At the time when we started talking [with Goffs UK] it was obvious that Ireland was the place to go because the horses were there and the pandemic was not as bad in Ireland as it was in England, but we were not expecting the Irish authorities to be as strict on quarantine as what happened later in the spring. Now that we know that most of the buyers are based in England and they’d have to quarantine when they got home from traveling anywhere in Europe, it made more sense to do it in England. And we thought it was fair to vendors and buyers to be in the same country as Tattersalls so people didn’t have to travel as much. It was pretty simple in the end because everyone wanted to work for the benefit of the industry in general. We all had the same goals.”

At the joint Goffs UK and Arqana Breeze-Up, the Goffs UK 2-year-olds are catalogued as lots one through 165, and the Arqana horses 200 through 365. They will all breeze at Doncaster on June 28 and, after two inspection days meant to allow buying parties more time to coordinate and to spread out on the sales grounds, they will all go through the ring on July 1. Tattersalls has adopted the same spacing between its breeze and sale.

“The Goffs and Arqana teams were looking for the same things, and so far it’s worked out really well,” Kent said. “We’ve come together to put together a platform and we think in a way that we’ll be better together. Someone said to me the other day that it’s kind of like the Kelloggs advert-the original and the best. The Doncaster Sale was the first one in Europe so that’s the original sale and we’ve had great success on the track. Arguably the best breeze-up sale in Europe last year was the Arqana sale, and they’ve had a huge amount of success with horses like War Of Will and Channel (Ire). Hopefully it’s a good marriage; the original and the best.”

Powell concurred. “It will be fantastic on July 1 that potential buyers will have the choice between our more two-turn horses that we are usually selling at Arqana, as well as the sharp 2-year-olds that are usually sold at Doncaster,” he said. “Normally you’d have to go to two different places to see those horses, and now they’re all in the same place.”

Goffs UK and Arqana also worked closely with Tattersalls in coordinating sale dates and health protocols to ensure a seamless transition between sales.

“We’ve all been put in very similar situations and I think above all we’ve been acutely conscious that the consignors have been put in a horrible situation from the outset,” said Tattersalls Marketing Director Jimmy George. “They have big investments tied up in these 2-year-olds and to find your well thought out business plan completely undermined by events completely outside your control is unsettling at the very least. All the sales companies were very conscious of our responsibilities to our own businesses, but equally to the people that make our businesses, and that’s the consignors on the one hand, and also to stage sales that work for the purchasers. We’ve been working closely and trying our best to accommodate all concerned and I think that’s reflected well on everybody in the industry. It’s not just been Anglo-Irish cooperation; we’ve been working very closely with our French counterparts as well to make sure everybody gets a fair crack of the whip.”

“We’re no different to so many other businesses throughout the world in the last few months,” George reflected “Everything we’ve all been used to and the conventional approach to everything went flying out the window with the spread of the pandemic, and it was pretty well on the eve of what would have been our breeze-up sale season. It fairly quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t be able to stage those sales, either the Ascot Breeze-Up Sale or the Craven Breeze-Up Sale, either in a conventional manner or on their original calendar dates. We had to move fairly quickly on that, but I don’t think we realized quite how dramatic the changes would have to be, and I don’t think we’re alone in that; I think the world was taken by surprise and we were no exception.

In addition to greater spacing between the breezes and sales, Goffs UK/Arqana and Tattersalls will adopt precautions including limiting sale attendees to pre-registered vendors and buyers and mandatory health questionnaires, medical forms and temperature checks. Social distancing on the sales grounds and the use of PPE like face masks and gloves will be enforced, and hand sanitzer will be readily available throughout the sales grounds.

For those who are unable or choose not to attend the sales, online bidding and phone bidding will be available for all sales. For Goffs UK/Arqana, the Goffs UK platform will be used for the entire sale.

“We have a new online bidding system that we’ve trialled extensively and it seems to work very well,” Kent said. “There will also be a large team from both Goffs and Arqana and we’re very willing to take telephone bids on the day. You don’t have to be in attendance to participate in the sale. We’re also going to be weighing and measuring the height of each horse prior to their breeze and that will be displayed on our website. People can get more information than they normally would from the website. We won’t be doing official times but we will be able to provide times to people who want them. Anyone who is registered with us and needs more information along those lines, we can provide that. For people that can’t attend the sale, we can also put them in touch with vets and agents who might be able to assist them. We’re hopeful that the two viewing days, which is something we’ve never had before, will enable all purchasers, whether that’s owners, agents or trainers, enough time to get all the information they need to be able to participate in the sale.”

“One of the things we have had to do is explore as many avenues as possible to make it easy for buyers to participate at sales in the event that they’re unable to attend in person,” George added. “That’s something that we at Tattersalls have worked hard on, to get the technology up and running for the Craven and Ascot Sale. Live internet bidding will be a part of all Tattersalls sales from hereon in starting with the Craven and Ascot Breeze-Up Sale and we’ll also have phone bidding very much available to purchasers who are unable to attend. We’re conscious we need to pull out all the stops to make the sales accessible.”

Kent was outspoken in his praise of the vendors and buyers in their role in coming up with a workable solution for the sales calendar.

“The vendors and purchasers have all been really keen to do everything they can to ensure we can put the sale on,” he said. “We’ve certainly had plenty of opinions from vendors about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, but they’ve all been really constructive with their views. It’s been very much a team effort between the vendors, the purchasers and ourselves to try to find the best way to sell these horses.

“Everyone wants [the sale] to happen, needs it to happen, and everyone has been doing what they can to make it happen. Let’s be honest, it’s not perfect; the perfect solution was the original sale, which [should have been] two months ago. It’s not perfect but we’re very much trying to do what’s best for everyone and hopefully this provides a solution that suits the vast majority.”

At the end of the day, it is unlikely that anyone is expecting superlatives to be attached to these sales, given the state of the global economy, but Kent said a good result would be a satisfactory clearance rate; for the breeze-up vendors to move this crop along and be in a position to re-invest at the yearling sales.

“No one is predicting we’re going to match last year’s statistics; that would be naivety in the extreme to think like that,” he said. “I think a critical thing for us will be clearance rate–I think people need to get horses sold. These guys need to get some liquidity back in to pay the bills, so if we can get horses sold that’ll be a big success for us. I think if it feels like it’s a successful sale, if horses are getting sold and vendors are happy, we’ll be happy. And we’ll be even happier when they go and prove themselves on the track.”

George noted that the mood at HQ has noticeably soared since the resumption of racing.

“Being based in Newmarket and surrounded by 70-odd trainers and people who are professionally engaged in the sport, it was remarkable to see that perceptible lift in spirits when the starting stalls clattered open for the first time since March,” he said. “To have racing back in Britain, Ireland and France-albeit behind closed doors-is the tonic the industry needed. We’ve already enjoyed some fantastic racing and we’re looking forward to plenty more. We’re back up and running, albeit slightly differently, but there’s more of a feeling of optimism around everywhere.”

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In addition to a colt from the first crop of Awtaad (Ire) out of the well-bred listed winner Patience Alexander (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) (lot 153) from Meadowview Stables, the supplements include four new offerings from last year’s sale-topping consignor Tally-Ho Stud: a Kodiac (GB) great grandson of the G1 1000 Guineas winner Sleepytime (Ire) (lot 146); a Pearl Secret (GB) colt from the family of G1 Oaks winner and Group 1 producer Kazzia (Ger) (lot 150); a Kodiac filly out of a half-sister to Group 1-winning sprinter Maarek (GB) (lot 148); and a first-crop daughter of Shalaa (Ire) out of the listed-placed I’m So Glad (GB) (Clodovil {Ire}). Also among the supplements are Greenhills Farms Siyouni (Fr) filly from the family of German champion Lando (Ger) (lot 151) and Mocklershill’s Hard Spun filly out of the dual Grade III winner Lemonette (Lemon Drop Kid) (lot 152).

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