BLOODSTOCK SALES GOFFS ORBY SALE:WITH SO many millions being spent on so many dreams at Goffs, it might seem like lowering the tone to throw a laxative into the mix. But Ireland's most valuable yearling sale is currently the most visible expression of a bloodstock industry taking a grip and letting go.
What that industry is primarily letting go of is numbers. Not the six-figure financial sums that were routinely being flung around for yesterday’s sales-toppers but instead the raw materials for both racing and breeding.
“The foal crop in this country is going to fall from 12,000 to seven and a half thousand over the next few years. It has to,” Dermot Cantillon, a prominent vendor under the Tinnakill House banner, said yesterday.
“Mares are just not going to be bred because the supply is currently well ahead of demand. It is market forces, plain and simple,” he added.
Such a drop in fundamental supply would have been unthinkable at the height of the Celtic Tiger years. Then there seemed to be no limits to the numbers of horses being bred, bought and bundled up into ostentatious symbols of Tiger affluence. But as everyone keeps saying at the Kill Sales ring, we are in very different circumstances now. The system is being well and truly cleansed.
“There will be casualties but I think the core Irish breeder will be alright. There were a lot of what I could call hobby breeders that came into the game when things were good but a lot of them are gone already. Things need to get back in balance,” Cantillon remarked.
That balance always pivots on the fundamental ingredient which is the horses – and their cost – and there was a steady, if slightly unspectacular flow to the sales yesterday that fitted in perfectly with the “steady-as-she-goes” philosophy being adopted all round.
Certainly the scene in the pre-parade ring before the yearlings enter the ring would be instantly recognisable to any horseman from any previous generation with trainers poring intently over the cream of the 2009 yearling crop.
That included yesterday’s Lot 282, a colt by Pivotal supplied by the Moyglare Stud from one of its most famous families which looks like ending up among Sheikh Mohammed’s vast empire after Joe Osborne had the last bid at €320,000.
“He is a very good colt and we have been lucky with Moyglare before. We’re very fond of the sire who gets lots of good winners over a variety of distances. He has been bought on behalf of John Ferguson,” Osborne said.
Ferguson is the chief buyer for Sheikh Mohammed and his name also ended up next to a Dalakhani filly that fetched €220,000.
Denis Brosnan’s Croom House Stud sold a Galileo filly to the BBA agent Adrian Nicoll for €310,000 and Nicoll commented: “I thought she was reasonable value. She’s out of a very good racemare by a top-class stallion. I bought her on behalf of a syndicate being put together by Ben Sangster and she will go into training with David Wachman.”
The 2009 Orby Sale finishes today with another 240 lots on offer although there is general agreement the cream of the crop have already been seen. Yesterday’s average prices hovered around the €60,000 which everyone agreed was perfectly acceptable “in the circumstances”. And now the entire yearling sale circus folds up and goes to test the circumstances in Newmarket next week for the Tattersalls Sale.
LOT STUD SIRE DAM BUYER PRICE
L282 Moyglare Stud, c Pivotal-In Anticipation, John Ferguson, 320,000
L292 Croom House, f Galileo-Jewel In The Sand, BBA Ireland 310,000.
L399 Ashtown House Stud, Galileo-Parvenue, C Gardner 280,000.
L215 Middlelane Farm, f Dalakhani-Dievotchina, John Ferguson, 220,000.
L 280 Hawthorn Villa Stud, c Oasis Dream-Horatia, Badgers 220,000
L418 Airlie Stud, Good Reward-Princess Kris, J Ferguson 220,000.
L338 Oaks Farm, c Danehill Dancer-Luna Wells, Vidal Sylvain 210,000
L306 Ashtown House, c Holy Roman Emperor-Khamseh, Blandford Bloodstock 170,000.
L323 Oaks Farm, f Mr Greeley-Lahinch, David Redvers 160,000
L401 Airlie Stud, c Dalakhani-Penza, 160,000
L422 Tinnakill House, Pivotal-Karmifira, 155,000.
L232 Camas Park, c Danehill Dancer-En Garde, M Dods 150,000
L234 Ballylinch Stud, f Galileo-Ezilla, J Bolger 150,000
L310 Airlie Stud, f Galileo-Kincob, D O’Byrne 150,000.
L342 Cahermorris Stables, f Giant’s Causeway-Madaen, Vendor 150,000
L256 Glenvale Stud f Oratorio-Gilded Vanity, BBA Ireland 140,000
L321 Barouche Stud, Aussie Rules-Lady Windermere, J Gorman 140,000.
L358 Triermore Stud, f Holy Roman Emperor-Miletrian, D O’Byrne 140,000
L406 Ballylinch Stud, Dubawi-Phariseek, Shadwell Estates 140,000
L378 Ballykilbride Stud, c Dalakhani-Nanbanana, Shadwell Estates 130,000.
