So it Begins…

Written By George Allen

Newsletter #54

George talks…

The ebb and flow of the racing and bloodstock season seldom changes.

We have Cheltenham and Punchestown to see out the jumps and Royal Ascot to really usher in the top class summer flat racing. We are now in the latter half of the flat racing season. The beginning of September, the leaves are starting to fall and more importantly the yearling sales season is in full swing.

The annual sales circus starts in Europe, at Deauville, France.

If you haven’t been, it’s certainly worth the trip. A seaside town with a plethora of character and appeal. It’s a wondrous scene, perfect to take somebody new to persuade them to buy a racehorse!! The kingpins of that sale are Ecurie de Monceaux, operated by the Bozo’s, this French stud farm boasts a regal list of top sale prices and top class runners, check out their history here via their website.

Arqana,who run the majority of the major French sales, are always willing to go to spectacular lengths to attract the right clientele to their marquee sale. They chartered a plane from the Saratoga sale in New York to Deauville. This made sure that there was plenty of American capital available to take advantage of the unique currency situation the U.S Dollar has right now versus the Euro. That’s exactly what happened, read it here via The Bloodhorse.

After Deauville, the circuit heads to the North of England, Doncaster. While Arqana Part 1 boasts the best of the best of bloodlines from Europe, Doncaster is a working man’s sale. This was probably more pronounced a few years ago, but now the sale isn’t as polarised towards the cheaper 2 year old types of yesteryears. The sale has produced top class horses, consistent runners, winners. Vendors bring their hardy early type yearlings to this sale hoping to get cashflow positive at the start of the sales season. This years sale was a stellar success, read it here.

The next sale in line is Osarus, a small yearling sale of around 100 odd horses, lower end type quality. This sale is based deep into France. It’s a sale I've never been to myself, but there have been a lot of shrewd Irish breeze up consignors who have had great success with horses purchased there. One that springs to mind is Sands of Mali, a horse by Panis who was bought for just €20,000 by breeze up maestro, Con Marnane. He made £70,000 to The Cool Silk partnership as a breeze up horse and earned over £700,000 in prize money.

The Sommerville sale at Tattersalls commences this Tuesday, Park Paddocks will be wedged with breeze up men looking to unearth value. This is a sale we felt, pound for pound was the most competitive to purchase yearlings at in 2021. There are 300 odd yearlings catalogued and we are out in force over the next 3 days in search of buying our first yearling of 2022.

As I write these words we are taking a breather for lunch, while we trim down the catalogue into our shortlist. While I digest and guzzle my 18th coffee of the day, I’ll explain how we approach the sales.

When we are buying yearlings at our budget, we cannot disregard any horse. We take our time with a small team to look at every horse in the sale. We are looking for exceptions that others with bigger budgets automatically strike off. Unlike bloodstock agents who have to sell their reasons for buying horses. I.E. conformation, stallion, mare etc. etc. We are our own judges. We are happy to take risks and chances that we see as value while others see as problems.

If you came to the yearling sales with an unlimited budget, it would be easy to pick out the best horses. They don’t always turn out to be successful but your probability of success increases. When you are on a strict budget, it’s more challenging, yet much more rewarding. I would much prefer the pressure of taking a chance on a cheap Cityscape filly and unearthing talent compared to hoping your expensive Kingman colt costing half a million can win its maiden.

We start by looking at the athlete, that’s an easy thing to say and a hard thing to explain.

This “athlete” is very subjective to the individual looking at it. Two perceived expert horsemen could define “athlete” as completely different. An athlete to Tally Ho is very different to an athlete as defined by the Bozo’s of Monceaux. But there are some crossovers, or fundamentals as we could call them. These fundamentals would be easier explain in video than through words. The fundamentals are more so what we definitely don’t want rather than what we need to see in the horse.

To summarise, we all had that classmate that just wasn’t athletic. With all the training, diet and encouragement they still wouldn't be deemed “sporty”. You must avoid those yearlings at the sales, at all costs. Vendors can make these types of yearlings look like Cristanio Ronaldo on sales day. As the sales season trundles on, we will return more to this subject by way of video.

Like a lot of endeavours in life, it’s limiting the amount of disastrous mistakes that enables success more so than the pot shot lottery pick. Avoiding the type of classmate above has you halfway to success when purchasing horses in my eyes. When you work with trainers like Kevin and George, they will find success with a horse even if their ability is limited but the horses are able and willing to train!

The perfect horse doesn’t exist (except Sea the Stars of course!) and many horses that are turned out perfect at the sales, grow into imperfections. Thomas and myself both prepped yearlings in the best stud farms around Ireland (Tally-Ho Stud), America (Dromoland Farm) and France (Ecurie de Monceaux), we have seen what can be doctored by the farrier and how to find it. We have worked for world class trainers, Jim Bolger and Willie Mullins, we know with a degree of probability, what can stand up to training and what can’t.

That’s a little insight into what we are unto over the next few days. Heading into this years yearling sales, last years crop are in good shape.

2021 September Yearling sale purchase ATTRAZIONE, ran with huge credit last night. Still very green, she boxed on admirably over an inadequate trip. She reminded me of how I felt running my first 5 km road race last month after training for a marathon. George, Thomas and Josie Gordon were all very pleased, she is one we are very much looking forward to over a longer trip. As when we bought her, a 3 year old campaign is her forte.

CANADIAN FIRE is entered to run next Saturday 10th at Chelmsford. See her piece of work from last week here. While we expected her to be our first 2 year old runner, she met with the typical niggly set backs you get with race horses especially 2 year olds. Now with a clear run, we hope she can show us what she has done for Kevin at home.

We had just two 2 year olds to go to war with this year and both are still in the mix for the rest of the season.

Next year we want to double our numbers.

Before we dive head first into purchasing the horses that we want, we must hear what you guys would like.

If you have 30 seconds, we would appreciate if you could take this anonymous survey. This will help give us an indication of what type of horse, budget and trainer you guys would be most interested in us purchasing for you.

P.S. A follow on from yesterdays newsletter.

Should we start a petition to push connections of BAAEED and FLIGHTLINE to run in a match race together over 1m2f?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about check this video out. This horse looks like an absolute monster. FLIGHTLINE trained in the States by John Sadler demolished a Grade 1 field by 19 lengths last night in Del Mar, California.

This will never happen, but just imagine if we could get both horses to line up and race each other to see who really is the best in the world?


All the best,

George

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George Allen https://www.Brownsbarnthoroughbreds.com
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