Mysteries of the bloodstock world

If I appear more mystified than usual, please bear with me: it's sales time again and, as we've not got much going on in the stable just now, I've plenty of time on my hands to watch the world go by. I'm afraid that is what I am at the sales - a spectator, rather than a participant, because unfortunately there is no role there which I am required to play, and as I already have more money than I'd like tied up in bloodstock, it would be foolhardy of me to speculate further - but it still pays to pay attention to what is going on. I say it pays, but in reality it doesn't, except that one can only become wiser and/or more knowledgeable, and that can be justification in itself, even if it profiteth one naught. Here endeth the first lesson.

Anyway, I've been keeping an eye on the sales returns from Goffs and now from Tattersalls, which has the added bonus of taking place within walking distance of my home, so it is easy for me to see the embodiments of the pedigrees. So I must be becoming wiser - except that I just seem to be even more baffled. Just how much a lottery the sale is was brought home to me yesterday when I saw a son of Sadler's Wells sold for 140,000 gns. Well, nothing special in that, you might say. Can't have been a particularly nice horse, you would deduce, to be going for - what? half, maybe - of the covering fee, but must at the same time have been really, really nice to fetch so much money. So there we have a paradox straightaway. Anyway, this horse, a full-brother to Septimus, the best stayer in the world - or the best stayer outside Japan, anyway - was a really odd-looking animal. Under-developed to a worrying degree behind, there has to be a huge doubt over his future as an athlete, yet he was bought by one of the most successful yearling buyers (Charlie Gordon-Watson), and there presumably was an under-bidder too, so he can't have been alone in thinking him worth risking a six-figure sum on. And as, presumably, he was buying him for someone else, then that's another person sharing that view (and actually outlaying the money). My thought was, "How on earth could you risk so much money on so risky a proposition?". For sure, if he turns out as good as Septimus, he's been a bargain; but if he turns out as good as any one of the dam's other eight previous foals, one might as well just have drawn the money out in £20 notes and had a bonfire. And his physique makes it likely that he will fit in with the eight rather than the one. And yet ... this is the glorious uncertainty of buying horses, because, while it is unlikely that he will do so, this horse could emulate Septimus. In the overall picture, 140,000 gns isn't a large price to pay for a horse (unbelievable though that statement sounds), and there have been numerous seven-figure yearlings who have turned into racehorses of minimal ability. So, if one is operating at that level, it made sense to buy this horse because, if you are going to buy an animal about whom one can argue that there is a logical reason why he might be a champion, and yet probably won't become one, you're much better off buying this one for 140,000 gns than A.N.Other one for ten, twenty or even fifty times that amount. Anyway, our school project now is to keep an eye open and see what he goes on to achieve. He's a bay yearling by Sadler's Wells ex Caladira. The other horse for whom to keep an eye open is the colt who followed him through the ring. He's by Montjeu ex Aim For The Top and is a stunning horse. He fetched 160,000 gns, bought by John McCormack to race in Hong Kong - for the same connections for whom McCormack bought HK Derby winner Industrial Pioneer - and I will be very disappointed if he isn't very good. But, of course, he could turn out useless and the Sadler's Wells could turn out a champion, and therein lies the eternal fascination of this game.

On the subject of Sadler's Wells, he had me scratching my head last week too as I perused the Goffs Foal Sale catalogue. There was one Sadler's Wells weanling therein, and he was the result of a truly unpredictable mating. His second dam Christabelle is by Northern Dancer ex Oaks runner-up Where You Lead - dam of I Will Follow (dam of Rainbow Quest) and of Slightly Dangerous (dam of Warning, Commander In Chief and Yashmak) - but Christabelle is proof of the vagaries of breeding: she is now 24 (if she is still alive) and is the ancestress of no Group winners. The only Stakes winner of whom Christabelle, arguably the best-bred broodmare you could ever find, is ancestress is her grandson Win Legend, a Listed winner in Japan. Belle Of Honour, this colt's dam, must have been one of Christabelle's last foals. She never ran, and hasn't yet bred a place-getter. Her current two-year-old, by Catcher In The Rye, is unraced. Now this is my point: how on earth could you send your mare to Catcher In The Rye, who never won a Group race and whose fee is €3,000, and then send her to Sadler's Wells? The only possible solution is that the mare's owners won the lottery in the interim - because you'd need to have done, because you can be sure that Coolmore wouldn't have been giving any discount to entice this mare into Sadler's Wells, who would have been 25 at the time of conception. Anyway, this colt (a photograph of whom is on the Goffs website and who looks really nice, not that it's really possible to tell a 'good' foal and a 'bad' foal apart, despite what people tell you) sold for €145,000, which would be - what, €300,000 less than the cost of the nomination? The purchaser was Camas Park Stud, which could mean he was bought on behalf of Coolmore, which would make sense: it would mean that they had bought a horse who might, just might, be very good, but who probably won't, for minus €300,000 - which is a hell of a lot better than buying one in the same category for 140,000 gns. And that, as we know, is a hell of a lot better than buying one for 1,400,000 gns. Or more.

So do you see what I mean? The longer you spend studying what goes on at the top level, the more baffled you become. I'm much happier spending, or advising people to spend, much smaller sums on horses who might just, but probably won't, be champions. I'll stick with our Halling filly for 1,200 gns; I was very tempted to give her a mate yesterday when a son of a good stallion (Pentire) from a Group-winning, winner-producing mare (Lara) failed to attract a bid (and who had far less significant physical question marks than the Sadler's Wells), but common sense prevailed for once and, potentially wise purchase though it might have been, I somehow managed to resist the temptation to add to my already over-full bloodstock portfolio. But that again is the other paradox: if one could afford to buy the Sadler's Wells for 140,000 gns, where was the logic in not taking this (seemingly nicer) horse for 2,000 as well?

And the latest sales paradox is that, as some might recall, I received a savageing in the Racing Post three or four years ago for suggesting that it might be a good idea for steroids to be added to the (pathetically small) list of drugs proscribed by sales companies and tested for in optional post-sale swabs. The great and the good of the bloodstock world - most vociferously Henry Beeby - threw up their arms in horror that I could have been stupid enough and evil enough to suggest such a thing, listing 101 reasons why it was an insane and irresponsible suggestion. It wasn't even as if I'd raised the topic in the first place, because all I did was correct Rachel Pagones who, like most people, evidently assumed that they were already barred and who had written an article saying that America should follow Europe's lead in barring them - at which point, I just wrote in pointing out that following Europe's lead and barring steroids were mutually exclusive policies because they weren't actually barred, nor tested for, here; and I suggested that perhaps they should be. At then the s@*t hit the fan. But, of course, all storms in tea cups die down eventually, and this one has finally come to rest with a brief announcement in today's Racing Post under the headline 'Goffs-DBS to bring in steroid testing next year', and which includes a quotation from Henry Beeby explaining why it is a good thing to do it. All that was missing was, "And we would like to thank John Berry for giving us this good idea, and to apologise to him for taking so long to appreciate it"!

So that's enough of my meanderings. I must focus myself on what is actually happening here, rather than on issues which would have some relevance to me if I were a far more signficant player in the bloodstock world than I actually am. Last weekend we had a very pleasant Saturday when five of the ten share-holders in Anis Etoile met here for a pre-Peterborough Chase breakfast, reminding me yet again just how lucky I am to train for some really nice people, which was followed by a really cold afternoon waiting to watch a two-horse race. (On the subject of Saturday's racing, incidentally, I agree fully with Alan Taylor: steeplechasing will never be a safe sport, and watering it down too much - eg by using fences like the new ones at Haydock which the horses can brush through as long as they rise at least two foot off the ground - won't make it safe, but will significantly lessen its excitement). One had to feel for Huntingdon: it was its biggest day of the year and a combination of a match in the big race and really cold weather (plus the fact that there was excellent racing from other meetings on television) meant that they had a crowd which would not have seemed big at any run-of-the-mill mid-week fixture; but for the people who (fortified by hot chocolate) did brave it, it was a really fun afternoon.

So that was last Saturday, and next Saturday we have Polly's debut at Wolverhampton to look forward to. And I really am looking forward to that. Neil Pollard, a good and very industrious jockey, put her through the stalls this morning and she did that very well, so I am sending her off confident that, while she obviously is far from the finished article, she is more than ready for a debut.