Monday Musings: An Expensive Game geegeez.co.uk

Last week’s Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 1 in Newmarket highlighted the extravagant cost of owning a high-class racehorse, writes Tony Stafford. Top price was two million guineas – yes, Tatts are still in the Dark Ages financially speaking – which actually pales in comparison with some double digit million-dollar sales in Keeneland, Lexington, Kentucky in the1980’s.

It’s still steamy enough, though, even when the Frankel colt in question is shared out between the Coolmore partners and Peter Brant, of whom I spoke last week.

Of course, they didn’t buy only one, but the thought’s just the same. Add up to £100 a day (or more) to that initial investment for their young horse after initially breaking and pre-training, to inhabit one of the premier yards in the business and you begin to understand the extent of the investment.

Then, when this routinely “beautifully bred” individual eventually arrives in his yard, the top trainer is liable to say, “He [or she] will need time. If he/she runs as a two-year-old, it will be in September or October, or we may even have to wait for the all-weather in mid-winter.”

I watched on Thursday in the buffet dining room – no, if you were wondering, I’ve only ever in all my 55 years at this sale been invited once into the posh dining room. Thus, it’s dish of the day (at 18 quid!) for me and John Hancock, bloodstock insurance man extraordinaire, but he couldn’t be there last week due to dog minding duties. He’ll be in his usual spot today onwards though for Book 2 when the prices will have cooled more than somewhat, but not for Dish of the Day!

So, we gathered by the screen, watching the second run of my friend’s horse (he was invited to lunch) at Salisbury. We thought he would win but a combination of soft ground, a longer trip and different and, as it proved, less judicious riding tactics, brought disappointment.

That’s an aside. My point is that this race was worth £5,400 to the winner – the owner gets around 70% of that - second prize was £2,535, third £1,268 and fourth £634. That works out as around two months’ keep being retrieved for the winning owner, without of course the additional fees for the extras needed during his training at home and the now excessive diesel costs of getting the horse there.

Luckily for the winner, another successful project for the Goodwood Owners Group, he was trained nearby at Guy Harwood’s Pulborough stables by David Menuisier. Gail Brown has headed up the now 30 years of the group and this representative of the 2023 intake, Goodwood Odyssey, has 140 members to defray the cost. He was a £50k buy.

Runner-up Sea The Thunder was also trained relatively close at hand, by Ralph Beckett near Andover, Hampshire. This horse was bred and is owned by John and daughter Tanya Gunther, who bought back their son of Kingman for 200,000 guineas last October.

I met the Gunthers later on Thursday at Newsells Park Stud’s cosy entertaining facility adjacent to the boxes where the yearlings from the farm that topped Book 1’s aggregate of sales were housed. I must thank Gary Coffey of Newsells for that invite.

The Hertfordshire nursery recruited the Gunthers’ Without Parole to join their stalwart sire Nathaniel (Enable and Desert Crown, no less) three years ago, and the couple were marking time waiting for the last of three of his yearlings to go through the ring.

In realising 120k, their colt out of Midnight Hush, who looked the part beforehand, was an excellent result for a first-season yearling whose sire stands for only £7,000, so this was a cause for celebration. Six more Without Paroles will be offered this week in Book 2.

Before the Gunther colt’s sale, as I munched a second piece of carrot cake and sipped a follow-up cup of Newsells’ excellent coffee, Tanya kindly gave me a Without Parole keyring, a substantial metallic piece that will help me avoid further losses of my keys. I said to John, “Without Parole probably describes life in any sphere of racing, breeding, training and even writing about it”. He agreed, saying he’d been involved since his mid-20’s. I’m up to more than 55 years now and there’s no sign of it ending and rarely ever a day off.

Back to that Salisbury race. The horses following the runner-up went through the ring for 60, 150, 150 again, 13k (bought as a foal as usual by the shrewd Julie Wood), 170, 78 and 70 while the last horse home never went through a sale ring. That’s an average of a little over 100k – not looking the most equitable of investments all round, so far, you might think. Then again, those that do well, can expect big bids, usually from overseas. That’s the crock of gold at the end of the UK racing rainbow.

The average sale price on the three days of Book 1 was almost 250k. I expect this week’s numerically bigger three days of Book 2 might come close to a six-figure average. In that context it might not be too churlish to suggest owners deserve to be treated generously by racecourses when they do go to the races.

Gail Brown, who also entertains the winning owners in her room within the owners’ bar at Goodwood meetings, will no doubt ensure a good number of “her” syndicate members can get in to see their horses run. Some tracks nowadays have syndicate rooms as well as the normal owner entertainment areas.

Newmarket on Saturday staged a meeting which featured the £165k to the winner Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes for fillies and mares and was won in brilliant style by the favourite Inspiral, trained by John and Thady Gosden for the Cheveley Park Stud, and ridden by a delighted Frankie Dettori.

Earlier on the card, the Tattersalls October Auction Stakes offered a guaranteed £150,000 total prizemoney. Entry in this was restricted to horses that had not been bought in either Books 1 or 2 last year, but for those recruited from the two lesser sales, Books 3 and 4, which will occupy Thursday to Saturday in Park Paddocks and some other lesser Tatts sales through the year.

As ever, it attracted a big field, so it was surprising that more of the owners and their friends did not take the opportunity to enjoy the excellent facilities and greatly improved food offered in the Al Basti Equiworld Owners Lounge, situated in the grandstand on the corner of the track where the horses come out. From there you can watch the races on several screens and even see the finish by looking through the large rear window.

Over the years, Al Basti Equiworld, from Dubai, has been instrumental in doubling the area of the facilities both on the Rowley Mile and during the summer on the July Course. It has been thanks to Michael O’Hagan, Al Basti’s representative in the UK, and Lynda Burton, the energetic, efficient, and very popular manager, that standards (and staff proficiency) have risen sharply over the past couple of years.

Now they compare with those on most major tracks, although they do not have the scope of, say, Chester or Ascot. On Saturday, some friends of a friend were looking for a day’s racing close to Cambridge where the three brothers were meeting for a rare weekend get-together.

When one, the eldest, turned up in shorts, I was horrified, probably still traumatised a dozen years on after my wife and a friend were excluded from the Members’ enclosure (they had the correct badges) for a Friday night meeting on the July Course because they were wearing designer jeans. We left in a huff and went to Cambridge for dinner.

It seems though that anything goes nowadays at the HQ of horse racing and he and his identical younger twin brothers were warmly welcomed, both into the track and the Al Basti room. The brothers (one medical doctor, the other a scientist in Cambridge) were less acquainted than Mr Shorts, otherwise known as Rowan, with racing but, having enjoyed the day, they promised a repeat should not be long delayed.

They all backed the last winner – always the best one - about half an hour after they got a family picture taken with none other than Frankie, now in relaxed mood in the room after his big win. The photographer? No, not ham-fisted me, but another Derby-winning jockey in Willie Ryan. Frankie and Willie, like me, will both have enjoyed yesterday’s result from the Emirates, as did my son and grandson, the latter having a rare treat on his birthday weekend.

Space will be more at a premium in the Al Basti Equiworld room next Saturday when hopefully City Of Troy, the colt I believe is the best two-year-old I’ve ever seen, will cement his reputation in the Dewhurst Stakes. He’s a 4/7 shot. The day before, Ollie Sangster will be hoping that Shuwari, slowly away when runner-up in the Al Basti Equiworld Rockfel Stakes on the Friday of the Cambridgeshire meeting, when Al Basti sponsored the whole day’s racing, will make amends in the Fillies’ Mile.

As to the Cesarewitch, Hughie Morrison runs two strong candidates in last year’s runner-up Vino Victrix and the three-times placed in the race 10-year-old Not So Sleepy. I would love the latter to win but it will be tough under his penalty.

- TS

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