4 minute read
TED TALKS...
Value to be had at yearling sales
LAST YEAR’S BOOK 1 took a little while to get warmed up, but it has taken little time for the the crop of 2019 to be proven on the racecourse.
Lot 25 by Dark Angel ex Angel Vision made 40,000gns and was subsequently named Berkshire Shadow. He won the Coventry Stakes (G2) at Royal Ascot, while Lot 37, by Gleneagles ex Astrantia made 25,000gns, was subsequently named Velocidad and won the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the end of June.
Every major player in the industry inspected both as yearlings at Park Paddocks, but it was Andrew Balding and Donnacha O’Brien who stepped up to buy two great value yearlings at a sale in which the stock sells for an average of nearly a quarter of a million pounds.
October Book 1 yearlings are all qualified for a £20,000 bonus, irrelevant of the sex of the horse.
There are X-rays in the repository for 99 per cent of the yearlings and there is bags of time to inspect the already-inspected and graded pedigrees and individuals.
But it never ceases to amaze me that such value is available.
The two yearlings had different routes.
Berkshire Shadow was one of the Cheveley Park Stud draft, the Newmarket powerhouse whose 144 mares,106 horses in training and 87 yearlings dominate British breeding.
With Chris Richardson at the helm it is easy to see why Cheveley Park has churned out relentless group winners year on year given the attention to detail and the dedication of the former head of Niarchos Stud in the US.
Velocidad was raised at Bugley Stud, which is nestled away in the depths of the south-west British countryside, run by Anthony and Marie-Anne Penfold with a handson approach.
The former Newgate Stud empresario Penfold is familiar with the Prince Fahad family of Ramruma and Strategic Prince having developed it over decades, first for the Saudi Prince and then continuing with a branch of the family himself. We sold the colt on behalf of the farm.
Two Group winners sold close to each other at Tattersalls, trained and raced a country apart, picked up by good, shrewd trainers for below the production costs!
That, I am afraid, is the bloodstock business.
No piece this month would be complete without a mention of the late, great Galileo, whom I am guessing will have a place in the Coolmore museum next to his sire, Sadler’s Wells.
I was lucky enough to sell 10 yearlings by him at public auction and one of those for £1,000,000.
I only ever sold one mare in-foal to him, and she was the highest-priced in-foal mare sold in 2009 – Massarra who fetched 600,000gns.
He touched a lot of people in many ways through his sons and daughters. A lot will be written about his heir apparent as Derby victories beckon for the progeny of the next stamina-dominant sire.
On the face of it Frankel has the favourite’s chance of picking up the baton. From 2025 there will be no more Galileos to run against in the Derby and so, possibly, the decades of Coolmoore dominance in the English and Irish Derby’s created by that Northern Dancer vision all those years ago, will come to an end.
If Frankel is the one it will be handed down the line for another generation and Galileo memory will live on.
RIP Galileo.
As we transition out of Europe many stud farm owners will be looking at a future replacement to the Basic Payment Scheme.
From January 1, 2021 the scheme is to be phased out and the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) is to be introduced.
Farmers will be handed a responsibility to help government reach carbon zero in years to come and, as custodians of the countryside, will inherit the duty of care to pilot our farms encouraging native species of grass hedges and trees back into our lives.
The relentless mowing, strimming and chopping of wood to be replaced by rotations of the same over three-to-five year period seeing stud farms change in style and look in the coming years. It will be a challenge and a fascinating for those involved.
Jeremy Clackson’s series on Amazon Prime illustrates the complexities of making a farming profit.
It is no secret that the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association is working hard to gather information to help stud owners whose Basic Payments make the difference in profit or loss in the annual accounts.
There will be much advice in the coming months as people become creative in reducing carbon footprints, but it seems to me that replacing live covers with AI would minimise transport to and from the farm.
Even though this won’t happen in my lifetime it’s a glaringly obvious solution!
Ted is looking forward to re-wilding his stud paddocks
