ted talks
TED TALKS... The 2021 Tattersalls December Mares Sale top lot Waldlied, who fetched 2,200,000gns, was sold through Tuesday’s “golden” session. Voute believes that it is time a serious look was taken to cataloguing alphabetically, in a similar fashion to Keeneland November, to ensure that the sale’s quality is maintained
Photos courtesy of Tattersalls and by Laura Green
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The industry is in danger of becoming “merely a hobby” for many involved
Ted Voute discusses the need for change to that what has become a highly polarised racing and bloodstock industry, while he believes we should proactively act on sale finish times and cataloguing before Health and Safety, as well as employment law, insists on it
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ACH DECEMBER the Tattersalls Sales shows us many things about the widening gap and value of bloodstock
in the UK. The most popular sale days to be selling are now confined to Thursday and Friday of the foal Sale – Thursday is the most popular for vendor. In the breeding stock section, the “golden” afternoon of selling is on the Tuesday afternoon. Tattersalls has the unenviable task of juggling late finish times
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and bowing to the vendor pressures or demands to sell on each of the days mentioned above. I am not sure as to how it affects the logistics of stabling, but the December Sale remains the last of the “non-alphabetically” lotted sales of the year. Vendors follow the age-old tradition of selling by draft and are guided by the Tattersalls ever-helpful team of cataloguers, headed by Gavin Davies. There are many complexities surrounding changing to an automatically lotted sale
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governed by the alphabet rather than a complex combination of pedigree quality, which has been guided by years of support by individual support by a vendor and, ultimately, success they have when promoted to the lofty positions in the catalogue. Changing to an “alphabet system” would eradicate the tailing off in quality in the catalogue and a different set of purchasers arriving for Wednesday and Thursday of the mares’ sale. In theory this is a fair solution, but, in practice, purchasers like to have all the quality presented at
the same time. Wealthy owners for whom time is money aren’t available for a four-day sale, but can spare a few golden hours on a Tuesday afternoon. This very afternoon showcases the bloodstock industry as an industry in healthy state, but deep down the real barometer exists on the Wednesday and Thursday of the mares’ sale. As a comparison, and a half way meeting point, Keeneland sells alphabetically in their November Sale by day, which spreads the sale throughout the
