7 minute read
TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION Andrew Hawkins considers
by Inglis
By Andrew Hawkins
If ever there’s been a year that technology in the racing industry has been more prevalent and more important than ever, 2020 is that year.
Horse sales without horses. Yearling inspections without any travel. Purchasing of quality bloodstock sight unseen.
These all went from being a rarity to becoming the new norm.
And none of it would have been possible without the established technology Inglis had already installed, tested and proven prior to Covid-19 really hitting in March.
The history books are unlikely to look back on 2020 kindly, with the pandemic wreaking havoc on so many facets of life as we know—or knew—it.
However, it has also presented an opportunity for innovation, forcing changes in habits and opening new avenues for business-as-usual operations. If anything, once the world settles on a new normal, it may be seen as a year in which customer behaviours shifted for good across every aspect of life.
The Thoroughbred auction sphere is one of many areas that has been impacted throughout 2020 right across the world, with Inglis hit hard by the timing of the first lockdown in Australia on the eve of the Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
The global pandemic has continued to be a lingering presence throughout the year for Inglis—as it has for most businesses globally—forcing date shifts, format changes and a strict implementation of Covid-safe procedures, all in the shadow of a turbulent economic forecast.
However, the sales company has also been well-placed to respond to these challenges with Inglis Digital already the established market leader in the trade of bloodstock online, as well the industry-leading Ardex Technology, which provided the software solutions for the online bidding services and who also service trainers and breeders globally.
In the end, Inglis has been the only auction house worldwide to have access to, and to be able to implement, three separate platforms to hold sales in 2020: traditional live sales; the established Inglis Digital service, with bidding open for a set period, usually for five days; and virtual auctions, a hybrid in which telephone and online bidding are utilised while each lot is offered in catalogue order from the Riverside Stables rostrum.
“It’s been a challenging year but it’s also been rewarding,” Inglis’ General Manager of Bloodstock Sales and Marketing Sebastian Hutch said. “The idea of never letting a crisis go to waste has been paraphrased any number of times through the pandemic and evidently there are going to be a significant number of positives to emerge from the way people in bloodstock do business as a result of the difficulties of 2020.
“We have learned a huge amount in terms of things we can do to enhance our services to buyers and vendors and these are things we are applying to our planning for 2021 and beyond. There have been some very testing times, but it has been massively stimulating for the whole team in terms of innovation and concept development.
Mitchell Beer is a trainer who has embraced technology in his business model, as both a regular Inglis Digital client and popular social media personality
“Certainly the nature of the promotional work being done is evolving progressively and transparency appears to be a fundamental part of that. It has been very evident to us through the last 12 months that the more information that buyers are provided across a whole catalogue, the more inclined they are to bid and bid with conviction.
The virtual sales format was first used for the Inglis Easter auction, at a time when New South Wales was under its strictest lockdown. Despite a format that was unfamiliar to both vendors and buyers at that time, seven lots reached $1 million or more, with Coolmore’s Tom Magnier purchasing three of them, including the sale-topping Snitzel colt out of G1 winner First Seal (Fastnet Rock), who fetched $1.8 million from the draft of Sledmere Stud.
A month later, the Chairman’s Sale was also held as a virtual offering, with four seven-figure lots, headlined by two-time G1 winner In Her Time (Time Thief) selling for $2 million to Newgate Bloodstock.
The Inglis Digital platform, which has grossed in excess of $45.4m through 2020 to date, almost double the $22.9m turnover through all of 2019, struck its greatest
Henry Field is an Inglis Digital devotee
success this year when Bella Vella (Commands)—sold for $22,500 to prominent South Australian owner John Kelton in the 2019 April Online Sale—took out the G1 Robert Sangster Stakes at Morphettville.
As of mid-October, Bella Vella had earned more than $750,000 since her sale to Kelton, trainer Will Clarken and a group of his owners.
“We love the Inglis Digital service,’’ Kelton said. “In the past couple of years it’s really grown. We can sit in the luxury of our own houses and do the work from there, it’s a very easy platform to use.
“There’s a lot more good quality stock there now every month so we’re more than happy to keep buying online from Inglis, we’ll keep coming back for sure.’’
The Inglis Digital platform, headed by Nick Melmeth, has won praise from many leading players throughout the industry, with Newgate Farm’s Henry Field a devotee.
“We’ve been trading with Inglis Digital since day one, it’s obviously a great platform to trade stock through, it’s a true marketplace backed by simple but effective technology,” Field said.
“Put it this way—we’ve sold 80 horses on Inglis Digital for a 100% clearance rate, more than $2.6 million and most importantly, we’ve sold countless winners through the platform and nothing brings the customers back like results.
“The scope of this market is boundless; I’ve often said it’s the way of the future and that’s evident in how educated vendors have become with quality videos and photos now the norm.
This was a factor identified by Godolphin in its decision to offer its first ever tried horse and broodmare drafts through Inglis
Digital in June and July.
“Given it was our first time participating in the online platform we weren’t really sure what to expect but we had been monitoring the performance of the Inglis Digital sales for a number of seasons now and it’s proven to be very successful, so we had every confidence in the system,” said the outfit’s Racing and Bloodstock Manager Jason Walsh.
While Inglis’ main offering remains its headline traditional sales, technology will continue to play an important role into the future, even as buyers flock back to Riverside Stables or Oaklands Junction.
Not only will the 2020 experience likely expand the depth of the buying bench from sale to sale by bringing in more people who may not be ringside, but it also has shown the importance of using new forms of media to attract potential buyers.
Social media has been harnessed by vendors to an extent not seen before. While social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been used to catalogue the auction experience, more vendors are ensuring that they give their horses every opportunity to reach the price they deserve.
Whether that be through virtual 360-degree inspections or by creating quirky and different content that garners traction beyond the traditional audience, it is a world ripe for innovation that will change the sales experience forever.
“I think it would be impossible to overstate the significance that promotional media, in particular social media, is going to play in the success of bloodstock sales going forward.
“Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been hugely effective in engaging not just existing participants, but developing new ones, while the nature of the content being generated by industry participants has been of extraordinarily high quality.
“It’s been very encouraging to see how innovative people in bloodstock have been through this period with their promotion, and hopefully people recognise the value of that and continue to build and develop in it into the future” Hutch said.
OLE KIRK
