Some Straws In The Wind In Deauville

The first two staging posts on the European yearling sales circuit could hardly be in greater contrast. And certainly some of those makin' whoopee at Le Drakkar last weekend may prove a little harder to find in downtown Doncaster next week. In the town's Victorian heyday, of course, the Turf's greatest achievers and characters would convene here with no less hilarity. These days, however, people move on from Deauville knowing that the party's over. No more calvados, no more langoustines: time to get to work.

And that fits well with the sleeves-rolled-up stock on offer at Goffs UK. Trainers love this sale, because they know they'll find businesslike animals. The sort that will do a job, the sort to crack on. Above all in the opening two sessions of Arqana's August Sale, in contrast, the catalogue has an aristocratic feel. These yearlings drive their sports cars along the seafront, smoking cigars.

As such, as with all boutique sales, it would be wrong to leap to dogmatic conclusions about any incipient trends. Yes, the third day and then the v2 sale together give a broader foothold. But the data, so early in the calendar, remains too contingent on incidental factors. Whether one or other among the big players happens to be in town, for instance; and, above all, just the relative standard of the sample selected from this year's crop.

Certainly it would be invidious to read too much into the performance of the first yearlings presented to market by new sires. Simply to have a physical admitted to the weekend sessions should be considered a feather in the cap. And if one or two more commercial types happened to have a presence, later in the sale, then they really won't begin to reach their core market until next week and beyond.

That said, the industry's fatuous obsession with first-season sires–despite the fact that almost all of them will never again stand at so high a fee, nor achieve so high a sales average–is such that it feels necessary to record at least how they dipped their toes into the water.

That exercise is more likely to prove deceptive, however, if you rank the rookies (as is conventional) by average sale price. Because one of the first imperatives, going to market, is obviously to shift your stock. Discounting those lots that fail to meet their reserve, then, distorts a sire's performance.

True, from time to time the failure to sell might reflect the reluctance of a breeder to part with a cherished prospect, and the posting of an extravagant reserve. But not very often. If you're trying to get an early handle on the market's receptivity, it's surely more instructive to include the rejects.

It might seem unfair, equally, to combine results from August and v2 sales. Clearly you're not comparing like with like. But for what it may be worth, let's just rank them according to the way they were received, at whatever level of the market–that is, by the average achieved per animal presented.

The guy at the top is a case apart. American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile)'s sales debut in his homeland has already been spectacular, from his weanlings last year to Saratoga this month. Of the pair of fillies sold here, one–from a deep turf family–was bought by her sire's owners in a fascinating gesture of faith in his potential to overcome transatlantic parochialism; the other, however, is to be exported back to the land of her father.

Muharaar (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), similarly, maintained his pitch from the foal sales this side of the water. Those who were able to get a mare to him continue to reap the benefits of the conservative fee set by Shadwell.

The most expensive sire of the intake was Golden Horn (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}), who has to pay his way at twice the fee. Three of his eight yearlings here did not meet their reserve, but one of those reached €370,000, so let's not be in any hurry.

Having said that, Coolmore wasted no time in moving the tee closer to the hole for Gleneagles (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), giving him an immediate cut from €60,000 to €40,000. He looked after himself pretty well, in that context, moving on seven of eight while punching on level terms with Golden Horn.

To show how fragile all this data is, in fact, you need only consider Free Eagle (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}): of his pair, he shifted one for €200,000, while the other raised only €15,000.

Very early days, then, one way or another–and everything still to play for.

As for the market overall, a lot of vendors felt that even hefty sales were made on thin ice: that there were very seldom more than a couple of hats in the ring. On the face of it, that might seem consistent with a couple of conspicuous absences. Last year, for instance, Sheikh Hamdan was in town and headed the buyers' list with nine at €2.4-million. This time Shadwell didn't play at all. The well-documented difficulties of Markus Jooste, meanwhile, also took something out of the equation compared with 2017. Conversely, however, Al Shaqab bounced back from anonymity last year to divide MV Magnier and Godolphin on the buying podium.

A look at those spending €1-million or more shows not only that there were more of them–11, compared with nine last year–but also that they accounted for more of the market, at 47% of ring sales. This table shows that the elite spenders achieved almost exactly the same footprint as 2016; and that it was actually last year when the equivalent sector accounted for fewer lots (47, compared with 66) and for a lesser share of the market (38%).

Having already cautioned against reading too much into a boutique sale so early in the calendar, we should resist treating slippage in the overall indices as evidence of a European plateau in the bloodstock boom. Nonetheless it is worth adjusting those figures already published, based on ring sales, and incorporate the “amiables” transactions recorded separately by Arqana. That improves the effective clearance rate, for one thing, and of course the aggregate.

But the table below, covering all years since the introduction of the V2 sale, shows that this is the first time that both August and v2–between them measuring a wide spectrum of the market–recorded a simultaneous drop in average. Nor was it a marginal one in the case of v2, perhaps the first of many sales to share the pain of burned fingers among breeze-up consignors this spring. If so, it will provide a wholesome reminder of the help those guys have been giving yearling values.

Again, it's early days. But for both sales to take a step back together is a curious straw in the wind.