Watching the wheels go round and round

One runner this week and we've had him: Das Kapital went to Pontefract on Monday.  Sussex Girl was meant to go to Yarmouth yesterday, but she was one of 11 horses eliminated from the race.  It's that time of year, when eliminations are plentiful.  It might have seemed strange running a horse rated 50 (Das Kapital) in a maiden race, but he'd run so badly under handicap conditions at Yarmouth that I thought that a maiden race - with a good spread of ability so that, although some of his rivals were clearly going to be significantly better than he is, some looked significantly less good - on a wet track and a big, spacious course ought to enable him to run a race, which hadn't been the case when he'd tailed himself off at Yarmouth.

And that was exactly what happened.  Although the first two favourites, who looked miles clear of the remainder on form, finished miles clear (15 lengths) of the remainder, we ran a nice race to finish fourth, so that was good.  It was a race in which, although it was clearly much harder to win than a full-field handicap, it was probably going to be easier to finish fourth than in a full-field handicap; and that's exactly how it turned out.  Now that he's at last run a proper race, ie travelled smoothly throughout and then finished the race off properly, we might give him another run, in a handicap, before the end of term on 10th November.  There are two options: Catterick six days from now and then Redcar the following week (although he would be out of the handicap at Redcar, which is never ideal).

What else has been happening?  Well, on Saturday we had a perfect illustration of the two-tier state of 21st century racing.  Saturday, of course, was QIPCO Champions' Day at Ascot, with God knows how many millions of pounds up for grabs. The same day there was a yearling sale at Tattersalls in Newmarket.  I'll repeat that: at Tattersalls in Newmarket.  Not at K-Mart or Lidl in Accrington.  (And I only say 'Accrington', I should add lest any residents of Accrington take offence, because of that great ad on the TV when the footballing children say, "Accrington Stanley" ... "Who?" ... "Exactly!").

Anyway, these are the figures for that day's sale (ie Book Four of Tattersalls' October Sale).  103 yearlings offered; 57 sold; average 3,142 guineas; median 2,000 guineas.  I'll repeat that: median 2,000 guineas.  Selling a horse for 5,000 guineas would have got you in the top ten for the day.  And don't be fooled, by the way, into thinking that Book Four (of four) means that these yearlings were the worst being offered that week.  Some of them will be among the worst, of course, just as some of the Book One (in which the average was 271,691 guineas and the median was 167,500 guineas) yearlings will be among the worst.

Three years ago the top price of the whole sale (2.1 million guineas) was paid for a Dubawi filly ex Loveisallyouneed who went to Aidan O'Brien, and who subsequently was retired to stud last autumn unraced.  Think about that for a moment: the most expensive yearling in Europe in 2015 turned out not to be good enough to race.  It is a common misconception to believe that Tattersalls put these yearlings into Book Four because they are the worst ones.  Just a moment's thought tells you, though, that that's a fallacy (a) because nobody, least of all Tattersalls' employees, knows which are going to be the good ones and (b) because a quick flick through the catalogue suggests that Book Four is sorted out by nationality, not prospects.

Look through Book Four, and you'll find that nearly all the yearlings have the (GB) suffix and nearly all the vendors are British. Does that mean that British horses and studs are worse than their Irish counterparts?  Of course it doesn't.  It's just common sense: tell an Irish vendor that his horse is going in Book Four, and he won't come, but will instead take the cheaper option of putting the horse in a sale at home somewhere.  Tell a British vendor that his horse is going in Book Four, and he'll come.  What else would he do?  Where else would he go?  Fairyhouse?  Kildare?  Accrington?

Anyway, you won't see a better illustation of the two-tier state we live in than this juxtaposition of QIPCO Champions' Day and Tattersalls' Book Four.  What I'll do, though, is keep watching RUK to see if they're still showing the TBA ad that has been telling us that we have an under-production problem.  And I'll also hold in my mind the thought that, of the first four home in the biggest of the big races on Saturday, ie the Champion Stakes which was worth something like £1.2 million, three of them were raced by their breeders and only one had gone through a sale.  That one horse (third-placed Subway Dancer) went through a sale in France, at Arqana.  His price?  3,000 euros.