Europe | Horse Racing Free Tips

Miss Amulet Enhances Sicilian Dream

The final day of the Tattersalls December Mare Sale is usually a low-key affair. Take last year for example. That Thursday, 78 mares were sold for just shy of 280,000gns, a sum that wouldn’t come close to buying even one of the headline acts during the sale’s blockbuster Tuesday session. But Tattersalls prides itself on catering for all levels of the market and plenty of smaller breeders stay through to the end of the sale in the hope of finding a bargain.

That was indeed the case for Domenico Zammitti, a regular visitor to Newmarket from his native Sicily, who sat in the ring that Thursday morning and decided he liked the look of lot 2279, a scopey grey mare by Oasis Dream (GB) offered by Ringfort Stud. The fact that she had won four races herself and was already the dam of two winners makes it scarcely believable that she was sold for just 1,200gns, but it is an example of just how tough the market can be at the lower end. The then 10-year-old mare Shena’s Dream was carrying a foal by Haatef and was subsequently exported to Sicily to Zammitti’s residence, where she duly foaled a filly the following April.

Just over two months later, the pedigree of both mother and daughter received a boost when the mare’s 2-year-old filly Miss Amulet (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) broke her maiden on her third start at Cork in July. One update led to another, when Miss Amulet beat the evens-favourite Frenetic (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) in the listed Marwell S.at Naas in August, and so it went on. Just over a fortnight later she romped home on the Knavesmire to give Ringfort Stud a memorable York Ebor meeting when Miss Amulet’s G2 Lowther S. win followed the G2 Gimcrack S. victory of Minzaal (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}), providing plenty of reflected glory for her breeder in consolation for her having been sold as a foal for just €1,000.

Miss Amulet’s subsequent exploits for trainer Ken Condon, with Group/Grade 1 placings in the Cheveley Park S. and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, have not just enhanced her own profile, but that of her dam and her half-sister, who will be making a reappearance at Tattersalls this December. For Shena’s Dream, her daughter’s success means an instant upgrade in catalogue placing from Thursday to Tuesday, when she will be offered as lot 1602. She should know her way around Park Paddocks by now, as she will be stabled back in the Wall Boxes, just one row down from where she was last year but this time being sold by Luca and Sara Cumani’s Fittocks Stud, who will also offer her Haatef filly as lot 817 on the Friday of the December Foal Sale.

“We were contacted by Franca Vittadini, who is the Italian representative for Tattersalls, to ask if we would sell the mare and foal for Mr Zammitti and they arrived with us in early October,” said Sara Cumani.

“The owner’s normal modus operandi is to buy inexpensive mares at Tattersalls, take them back to Sicily and then race the foals they produce at Siracusa.”

Luca Cumani added, “Nico Zammitti was a top-class tennis player and he’s very excited about this. He follows all the racing and updates on the internet. He has about six acres and basically he keeps the horses in his back garden.”

The sales fortunes of Shena’s Dream’s offspring have already been lifted by the success of Miss Amulet. In September, Ringfort Stud sold her El Kabeir filly at the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale for £45,000, the fourth-top price of the one-day sale.

“The yearling has joined Michael Bell in Newmarket, which is great news,” said Sara Cumani. “Shena’s Dream herself is a very straightforward and attractive mare and is a great walker. We are very pleased to be bringing her and her foal to the sale on behalf of Mr Zammitti.”

Shena’s Dream, who wasn’t covered this year, is one of two Oasis Dream mares bred by Pat O’Kelly’s Kilcarn Stud to have produced a group winner this season. The Jim Bolger-bred Melbourne Cup winner Twilight Payment is out of the Kilcarn graduate Dream On Buddy (Ire), who also makes an appearance on one of the pages of the December Mare Sale as her daughter Bandiuc Eile (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) is being sold through Bolger’s grand-daughter Clare Manning of Boherguy Stud.

Fittocks Stud is also selling a homebred daughter of Oasis Dream (lot 1548), the 3-year-old Blue Dawn (GB), who is out of a half-sister to G3 Nell Gwyn S. winner Fantasia (GB) (Sadler’s Wells), and the Cumanis will offer just two foals at Tattersalls, both during Friday’s session.

The second to take to the ring will be lot 944, one of three Dubawi weanlings in the sale and a half-brother to Australian Group 1 winner Best Of Days (GB) (Azamour {Ire}), who also won the G2 Royal Lodge S. in Britain.

Out of the German listed winner Baisse (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), the colt is being sold on behalf of his breeder Gerhard Schoeningh, the owner of Germany’s Hoppegarten racecourse. His full-sister was offered as a weanling at Tattersalls two years ago and was the second-top lot of the sale when sold to Godolphin through Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 725,000gns.

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Douvan’s Brother Sets New Record PTP Price

Goffs UK wasn’t exactly breaking new ground as it has previously staged two select sales at Yorton Farm Stud, but the relocation of its November P2P Sale from Doncaster over the border to the Welsh farm while England remains under lockdown proved to be an inspired decision.

The sale set a new record for the most expensive point-to-pointer ever to be sold at public auction when Jonbon (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}), a full-brother to the outstanding steeplechaser Douvan (Fr), was bought for £570,000 by leading jumps owner JP McManus just four days after romping to 15-length victory on debut.

Trained by Ellmarie Holden and ridden in his first outing between the flags at the Dromahane meeting in Ireland by crack amateur Derek O’Connor, the 4-year-old gelding beat eight rivals in the three-mile maiden. Previously sold at last year’s Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale, Jonbon had been an expensive store at €140,000 when bought by Paul Holden and Michael Shefflin.

It is not the first time a pointer from Holden’s Coolmeen Stables has struck big in the ring. Last year she sold another maiden winner, Sir Gerhard (Ire) (Jeremy), for £400,000 after buying him from the Goffs Land Rover Sale for €72,000. That in itself had been a big mark up from the €17,000 paid for him by Peter Molony as a foal and, after winning his point-to-point by 12 lengths, the 5-year-old was equally impressive on his first start for Gordon Elliott in the Cheveley Park Stud colours when cruising to a 14-length victory in the bumper at Down Royal on Oct. 31.

Jonbon was one of six horses to sell for six-figure sums at the Potter family’s Yorton Farm on Thursday. Forty-two of the 63 lots offered found a buyer, amassing £2,910,000 in turnover for the day at an average price of £69,286.

Hamish Macauley went to £215,000 for Jim Key (Ire), a 4-year-old son of Shantou who posted an impressive time when winning his maiden at Lisronagh point-to-point last Saturday, again with the assistance of O’Connor in the saddle.

“I’ve bought him for a new client and he was very impressive when he won his point-to-point last weekend,” Macauley said. “I was particularly impressed with the way he quickened away from the back of the last [fence] and finished really strongly. He’s not that big, exactly 16 hands, but that doesn’t worry us as he’s all there. He looks like he has plenty of speed to be a top-class hurdler.”

At the conclusion of the sale, Goffs UK managing director Tim Kent said, “I have never known a horse to be as highly touted following its success in a point-to-point and, if social media polls are to be believed, then Jonbon was always set to make a significant price, but to achieve a record price for a point-to-pointer during these unprecedented times is simply incredible. We are extremely grateful to the Holden family for putting their faith in Goffs and sending him to Yorton where he certainly lived up to the hype following his brilliant performance on Sunday.”

Kent added, “Jonbon was the highlight of the sale but we were delighted with the trade achieved throughout the day. Whilst we are not pretending that it wasn’t selective at times, today was an opportunity to provide an outlet for these recent winners and the feedback that we received has been extremely positive. As such, we are indebted to James and Jean Potter, the Futter family and the Yorton team for hosting us today. They have done a fantastic to make room for us all and, once again, it has proven an outstanding facility which has worked fantastically well for vendors and buyers alike.

“We also want to recognise, and say a huge thank-you to, our vendors who took a leap of faith when agreeing to bring their horses to Yorton following the COVID-19 restrictions in Doncaster. The Yorton Sale only started last year, meaning some had seen the facilities in a sales environment but it was still new to many and we are extremely grateful for their support in this difficult year. In all, it has been a difficult few weeks as we juggled sale locations and lockdowns but we were determined to offer a vibrant market place where pointers could be placed in front of buyers from throughout the UK and Ireland and we have achieved that. We now turn our attention to our Doncaster December Sale on 4 December, in which we will offer horses-in-training alongside another top draft of UK and Irish pointers.”

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Adlerflug Earns Fee Increase to €16,000

German Champion Sire elect Adlerflug (Ger) (In the Wings {GB}) will stand for €16,000 in 2021, Deutscher Galopp reported on Wednesday. This marks an increase from €10,000 for the Gestut Schlenderhan resident. In 2020, the chestnut sired three black-type winners so far, among them G1 German Derby hero In Swoop (Ire) and G1 Grosser Preis von Berlin victor Torquator Tasso (Ger). The 16-year-old has sired 10 black-type horses in 2020 and 15 stakes winners overall.

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Sales Resilient, But Overall Profitability Suffers Amid Pandemic

In March and April, the bloodstock sales world stood on the precipice, or so it seemed, as the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale–the first major international auction to confront the social upheaval of COVID-19–was put under severe pressure. In the event, team Inglis rose to the challenge and showed a potential way forward for other sales houses with its innovative virtual sale. It didn’t, however, escape completely unscathed, and trepidation remained high for those with horses to sell all over the Northern Hemisphere.

Six months on, we can now report that the sales went ahead–not all in their chosen venues and dates and not all with their original lineups–but horses were sold nonetheless, cash flowed so that bills will get paid and future investment funds will be found.

Remarkably, Europe’s five big yearling auctions–Arqana, Doncaster Premier, Goffs Orby and Tatts Books 1 and 2–ended up with an average price just over 14% behind where it was 12 months ago. In essence, prices in 2020 are still ahead of where they were as recently as 2015. It’s a truly miraculous turn of events considering what we thought we faced six months ago.

It wasn’t good news for everyone, though. Confidence didn’t really return until Tattersalls staged their annual yearling sale during the first two full weeks in October. By then, both the Goffs Orby and Doncaster Premier Sales–shorn of some of their big investors and with the distinct disadvantage of having to change venue and open the calendar, respectively–had suffered sizeable setbacks, their averages shrinking by 35% and 27% respectively, while their clearance rates fell by about five percentage points. And although Arqana didn’t suffer quite so badly–its average 11% shy of last year’s figure–it was really Tattersalls that saved the 2020 European yearling market. Its Book 1 provided a gloss at the elite end, but it was Book 2 that really led the recovery that spilled over into Book 3.

Tattersall Book 1 was the place to sell if your yearling was among the top 45 to 50 at the sale. For this group, the average was down only 3%, but for the next two sets of 45-50 yearlings the average fell away markedly by 19% and 25%, respectively. In fact, it was so tough lower down the order at Book 1 that there will be plenty who wished their yearling had been in Book 2. For starters, Book 2 recorded a higher clearance rate–85.3% to 84.9%–than last year. Then there’s the fact that its top three deciles (225 yearlings) were down by only 4%, 1% and 6%, respectively. And for the rest of the sale, reversals in average were for the most part kept below 10% giving Book 2 an overall average just 3% behind last year’s sale.

But we cannot just talk about the elite market. So many commercial yearlings are produced these days that many spill over into other less lucrative auctions. It is interesting to note for instance that in a normal year 76% of all yearlings sold by sub-20k stallions in Europe are auctioned outside the five main sales. Even the 20k-plus stallions have significant numbers (31%) of their yearlings sold at the non-elite sales. No one yet knows what the final implications for the yearling and nominations market will be. It looks like we will have to wait until January before we get a complete and accurate sales picture.

Even before COVID-19 arrived on the scene, there was pressure on profitability building within the European yearling market. It’s not that stallion studs have individually been hiking fees recently; it’s the fact that the number of high-priced stallions on European rosters in the past six years is at an all-time high. Ten years ago only 13 of the top 30 stallions in Britain and Ireland assessed by book quality stood at £20,000/€20,000 or more. By 2019 that number had risen to 22 out of 30. The cheapest fee of the top 30 stallions in 2009 was £15,000 and by 2019 it had risen to £30,000.

To illustrate the point, we can use the elite European Sales. In 2018, 2,111 yearlings were sold at these five sales and 67% made enough to cover their sire’s advertised fee, plus £20,000 in production costs. A year later, the 2,133 yearlings sold included 65% that were profitable by the same criteria – down two percentage points. This year, whilst it is excellent news that as many as 1,973 found new homes from the five sales, the margins were squeezed so much that only 58% cleared the advertised-fee-plus-£20k hurdle. We can, of course, lay most of the blame for this seven-point drop on the COVID-19 disruption, but there’s a good chance that the number would have been down anyway.

There have been precious few silver linings to the COVID-19 cloud. For the bloodstock industry, it will surely hasten a fundamental review of the supply and demand of commercial young stock over the next few years, with implications for everyone in connected markets.

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