Sean Woods

NEWMARKET, UK -- "Trickledown" felt rather too contentious, given what was meanwhile happening to its proponents out there in the real world. In this environment, after all, the original label of "horse-and-sparrow economics" would always have conveyed the theory rather more intelligibly. Some alternative word was required on Friday, then, to describe how a rampant market at the front end of the Tattersalls October Sale was filtering somewhat more quietly into the base of the pyramid. In the end, the second half of Book 3--in which momentum reliably ebbs relative...

NEWMARKET, UK-the middle market has flourished at the yearling sales transatlantically thus far in 2021, and that trend proved out again on Monday during the first of three sessions of Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, where figures were not only well up on the remarkably strong 2020 renewal staged in the midst of the pre-vaccine pandemic, but at this stage also trending ahead of 2019's record edition. The first day of Book 2 saw records for turnover, average and median for a session at Book 2. Of...

If there was a lesson to be learned in the last week, it is not to issue press releases on April Fool's Day. The great news that the Derby has a new multi-year sponsor, after being dropped by Investec last year as the pandemic took hold, was sidetracked by its release date. It can be hard to tell real news from fake news these days but Cazoo, an online car dealership with an amusing name but serious credentials, is indeed the new sponsor of the 'Derby festival' (if we must—I...

In straitened times for British racing's finances, there has already been one trainer leave Newmarket for Kentucky, but the balance has been restored somewhat by the return to the town of Sean Woods, some 20 years after relinquishing his licence in the UK. The trainer bought the historic La Grange Stables at the age of just 26 and, 10 years later in 2002, left British racing's headquarters to train in Hong Kong where, among his rival trainers, was his cousin Caspar Fownes. There he remained until 2016, but in the...