bloodstock sales
Now then and Jocelyn de Moubray assesses 25 years of bloodstock business He reviews price movements for international buyers in dollar terms, the growing influence of sire power, which has seen stallion owners become the real winners, and the ever-reducing distance of European stakes races
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WENTY-FIVE YEARS is a long time in any business, and particularly so for the world of bloodstock sales where the names on catalogue pages are always changing. The most sought after stallions at the yearling sales of 1998 have long since disappeared and, if like Sadler’s Wells they are still in pedigrees, it is these days likely to be in the third generation. Some things, however, seem to stay the same. In 1998, the top two yearling sales at Tattersalls were the Houghton and then the October Sale and at the two combined sales 1,006 yearlings were sold for 55 million guineas at an average price of 55,000gns and the two biggest buyers were the Coolmore partnership and Godolphin. Move forward 25 years and 1,017 yearlings were sold at this year’s Tattersalls October Book 1 and Book 2 sales for just over 149 million guineas and an average price of 146,876gns.The biggest buyers were the Coolmore partnership and Godolphin. Do these figures mean there has been a significant rise in prices over this period and the value of bloodstock?
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.. for those buyers whose income is in sterling, prices at the top of the yearling market have indeed risen significantly Have the prices really gone up?
Once you have factored in inflation – very slight until 2008 and rising since – and the decline of sterling, the value of the yearlings sold at the Tattersalls’ top yearling sales has changed very little, at least for international buyers. Few of the major buyers in either 1998 or 2023 receive income in sterling and it makes sense to put bloodstock prices into US dollars, which is still the major international reserve currency. Over this 25-year period sterling’s value has declined by 25 per cent against the dollar
and 16 per cent against the euro, it has not recovered from the post-Brexit fall in 2016. During the same time span cumulative inflation in Britain has been 18 per cent. So, in today’s US dollar value, turnover at the two Tattersalls sales of 1998 was $180 million. With the same number sold we are looking at about $190 million this year, or an advance of five per cent over a 25-year period. In dollar terms there was a significant rise in the value of yearlings sold at Newmarket between 1998 and 2007 when the combined turnover at October Book 1 and Book 2 reached $300 million, but since then inflation, the financial crisis of 2008, the covid year of 2020 and the decline of sterling, 40 per cent against the dollar between 2007 and 2023, has seen real values fall. The top of the market has dropped by more than 15 per cent on three different occasions in 2008, 2020 and again in 2023. At the same time for those buyers whose income is in sterling, prices at the top of the yearling market have indeed risen significantly. Once you have put the 1998 figures into 2023 sterling, the rise in the turnover and
