yearling market

If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it still make a sound? We'll leave their old teaser to the philosophers, to debate whether noise still qualifies as "sound" if it doesn't reach anyone's ear. But for a long time now our own industry has been puzzling over a still more perplexing version: if a tree falls in the forest, or indeed if a war breaks out in Europe, or a pandemic sweeps the planet, or central banks have to douse the fires...

It's a long time now, some 40 years or so, since Nelson Bunker Hunt's notorious observation that "a billion dollars isn't what it used to be". Which presumably means that today it's no longer even quite what it was, back when it wasn't what it used to be. After all, we've just seen the dispersal of a single art collection--assembled by the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft--realize $1.5 billion. Nonetheless it feels as though the transatlantic yearling market, in 2022, has reached a pretty historic landmark in tipping 10...

I guess the whole point is that ours is a world apart, a sanctuary from the cares of the "real" one. But it still feels unnerving, to see a new cycle of the sales calendar open with such blithe indifference to a wider consensus that the global economy is scrabbling along the top of a precipice.

In March and April, the bloodstock sales world stood on the precipice, or so it seemed, as the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale--the first major international auction to confront the social upheaval of COVID-19--was put under severe pressure. In the event, team Inglis rose to the challenge and showed a potential way forward for other sales houses with its innovative virtual sale. It didn't, however, escape completely unscathed, and trepidation remained high for those with horses to sell all over the Northern Hemisphere. Six months on, we can now report that...