Quality check
Robin Oakley
The clatter of hooves in the stable yard, the smell of the work riders’ bacon butties drifting in the air. Warmly wrapped trainers and bloodstock agents scratching at their catalogues. Horses breezing in pairs down the Kempton straight in the misty early morning. When CNN sent me out last Friday to see what effect the recession was having on horse-racing I have rarely had such a concatenation of work and pleasure.
With some people it is boot sales. Others trot regularly along to Crufts or watch the Antiques Road Show every weekend. In my case, I fear, I am becoming addicted to horse auctions. Which has led to more than a little debate with the normally indulgent Mrs Oakley. We had, for example, discussed improving our lifestyle by trading down from the four-storey Château Oakley in a leafy London square. Can’t be done. Tumbling house prices. What about realising some of those savings which have so far been kept out of the clutches of the Tote and Messrs Hills and Coral? Sorry, the markets are so low it would be crazy. Oh, blow it then, let’s go for a good holiday. Now? With the pound in shreds against almost any currency you care to name ...
The financial gremlins really have got us by the short and curlies in every way. Which brings me back to horse sales. The breeders and consignors’ faces at Kempton were almost uniformly glum, though not perhaps as glum as the faces of those trainers who had dived in and bought on spec at early summer sales in Deauville and Doncaster and still haven’t got an owner for their yearlings.
One friend on Friday night picked up for £10,000 a horse which had been through the ring a few months earlier for £30,000, the seller virtually in tears.
The likes of Graham Wylie and Howard Johnson were still there to pay top dollar for the cream, an athletic-looking Old Vic and a much-envied gelding by Flemensfirth, the sire of their Tidal Bay. But time and again rapid-fire auctioneer Henry Beeby’s hammer was going down with the terse final comment ‘Not quite’ or ‘Not sold’ as lots failed to reach their reserve.
It was the same story all round. Henry is the managing director of Doncaster Bloodstock Sales and he had explained to me at Sandown that afternoon, ‘The trouble with the bloodstock industry is that we’ve had a double whammy this year. Overproduction has been looming for a number of years. There have been more and more foals born and people have been talking for some time about somewhere down the line supply is going to outstrip demand. That came home to roost this year.’ The bloodstock industry has had sustained growth, he pointed out, for ten years. ‘The party had to stop sometime, but as long as we can keep the wheel turning I think we’ll come out the other side.
‘I’m involved with Goffs in Ireland and we sold a yearling this year for the highest price in Europe, a million euros. That’s a lot of money for anything. It still shows you there’s money out there for the good stuff. The quality horses are selling well and always will because they’re almost like collectors’ items. They’ll never go out of fashion.’ Anthony Bromley of Highflyer Bloodstock, the buyer of so many good horses like Master Minded, Kauto Star, Twist Magic and Binocular, says that things are all right at the top for the quality horses, but that the pain is being felt lower down, a sentiment echoed by former top jockey and now horse-trader Mark Dwyer. Anthony reckons that more trainers will be putting syndicates together rather than hoping for individual big owners to come in and buy a number of horses.
‘My reading of it is that the owners who have got a horse are sticking with it. They’re not necessarily wanting to buy a new one, an extra one.’ Long a specialist in French jumpers, he warns that the French are not yet dropping their prices enough to allow for the pound’s decline against the euro.
Trainer Paul Webber, who has also been in the sales business, said, ‘Last week in Newmarket three horses made over £1.5 million, three fillies either to continue racing or to go to stud. Sheikh Mohammed supported the market very strongly. Coolmore supported the foal and yearling market very strongly and between the two they’ve held it up pretty well. The top 10 per cent of the market is not too bad or maybe down 10 per cent itself, but then the next part has been hit about 40 per cent. As trainers we are going to find it more difficult to refill the stables that become empty in the next four or five months.’ And that is where the debate with the saintly Mrs Oakley comes in. With so much gloom and doom about, with beautifully bred animals failing to make their reserves and pinhookers and horse-traders looking desperately to keep their cash flow up, it seems to me that there are real bargains to be had.
It was Anthony Bromley who provided the note of hope when he told me, ‘The middle market is looking very weak at the moment. But that probably isn’t a bad thing. It might even make racehorse ownership accessible to more than we think.’ Forget savings. Forget holidays. Now is the time to be brave, I am urging Mrs Oakley, who does look magnificent on the racecourse in assorted fur hats and should be seen there more often. Ownership, I feel, would suit. ❑
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