From the Desk of Bill Oppenheim: Oasis Dream Day

A decline of 23% in gross and 11% in average from the corresponding opening day of Tattersalls’ October Book 1 yearling sale yesterday shouldn’t be taken at face value as signaling some sort of dip in the market. Last year’s first day was particularly strong, and the universal consensus among theatre-goers this week is that today and tomorrow are considerably stronger sessions than yesterday’s; it’s alphabetical by dam over the three days, so it’s just luck of the draw that way. Also there are 8% fewer catalogued this year than last year; if anything, the likelihood is more that at the end of the three days the gross could be down by about that 8% and the average would remain level. The average was 207,501 gns. last year. 

On the other hand, it is true that there is a shortage of buyers below the 200,000-gns range. There were 40 yearlings sold yesterday for 200,000 gns and above, and there were probably more bidders for those than for horses which sold for much less. Basically, if you had one of those, you were fine; if you didn’t, it was a battle. To some extent, yes, that is the nature of a select sale, but another factor can be the expense of the stud fee paid to breed the horse. The more mares better sires attract, the higher the investment in stud fee the breeder has, and the more difficult it is to make a profit when selling, say for under 100,000 gns. If you have £25,000 in a stud fee there’s a lot more pressure to have a six-figure yearling than if you have £10,000 or £15,000. Better access to better sires is generally a good thing, but in any market thin on buyers having access to better sires can backfire because of the cost of doing so. 

One horse who didn’t have any issues in that, or any other department yesterday was Juddmonte’s Oasis Dream, who had nine sell yesterday for an average of 379,444 gns, including the session-topping 775,000 gns colt bought by the session’s leading buyer, John Ferguson (who bought 11 in all). Oasis Dream does always carry the reputation as being a good sales horse, but they were appearing one right after another yesterday. Coolmore’s Galileo only had four catalogued yesterday (two sold, average 400,000 gns), but has 25 catalogued today and tomorrow, and will, of course, finish the week as the sale’s leading sire. But Oasis Dream has another 15 to come himself, and the word from the trenches is the standard of his stock doesn’t fall off at all. Of his nine sold yesterday, five brought 400,000 gns or more; not only was his average 379,444; his median for Tuesday’s session was actually higher, at 400,000 gns. He had a really big day, and he’s going to continue to have a really big sale. 
Of course, one of the highlights of Tattersalls’ October Sale is the very high standard of hospitality afforded potential buyers (and assorted sales workers, such as this columnist) by the big outfits. Once again this year, despite great competition from Highflyer consignors like Watership Down, Highclere, Castlebridge, and Ted Voute, the Newsells consignment at the top of the hill, in Somerville Barn O, are the champions. Newsells’ GM Julian Dollar’s missus, Georgia Dollar, has produced the killer carrot cake, the brownies–well, I sure try and get there most sale days for breakfast, that’s the best way I can put it. It’s the perfect way to gird yourself for that march down the hill, or reward yourself after marching up it.