By Kelsey Riley
The bloodstock sales market proved extraordinarily resilient in the face of the global pandemic last year, and one of the true highlights was the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale staged for the first time at Park Paddocks. A move from the sale's traditional home at Ascot Racecourse that was necessitated by public health restrictions appeared a truly inspired one at the close of trade last Sept. 7, when 81% of the 250 youngsters offered changed hands for an average of 11,533gns that was up 13% on the year prior. Making that rise all the more extraordinary was the fact that the catalogue was up 56% in size due to the switch to the larger venue. The Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale staged at Park Paddocks grossed 2,341,350gns, while the median was likewise up 5% to 8,000gns.
The Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale was incorporated in 2017 as a boutique auction laser-focused on the type of sharp, precocious youngsters that were gaining so rapidly in popularity, and it turns out the desire for that kind of animal has not waned one bit. Off the back of last year's excellent results-which built on the year-on-year gains the sale had achieved since its inauguration–heads went together at HQ and it was announced that the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale would be permanently relocated to Park Paddocks and re-branded the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale. The first edition of the sale under its new guise takes place on Tuesday with 292 catalogued.
“The success of the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale at Park Paddocks last year posed the question to everyone here, “should we hold the sale here permanently? And I think it was a pretty straightforward decision to do that,” explained Tattersalls Marketing Executive Bobby Jackson. “And moving it here, we felt it would need a new name and its own identity.”
It was decided the sale should honour Somerville Tattersall, the last member of the Tattersalls family to lead the firm, he having done so through another very turbulent period in history, the first half of the 20th century.
“Tattersalls is all about innovation and moving forward, but also tradition, and Somerville Tattersall encompassed all of this, and it felt right to give the sale that name,” Jackson said. “Somerville Tattersall shaped the modern Tattersalls as everyone knows it now. We felt you could compare his story to the Ascot Yearling Sale, and how in a short space of time it has been thrust into the limelight and come quite a long way.”
One aspect of the Ascot sale that endeared it to its loyal vendors and buyers was the personal service offered by the Tattersalls Ascot team, and Jackson noted the Tattersalls team is committed to maintaining that. Jackson and fellow Tattersalls marketing executive Chloe Pitts have joined forces with Tattersalls Ascot's Matt Hall and Shirley Anderson-Jolag as the dedicated team working on the Somerville Yearling Sale, with Ollie Fowlston doing the yearling selection.
“Something people liked about the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale was the personal touch that the Tattersalls Ascot team had,” Jackson explained. “That's something we wanted to keep going with the Somerville Sale. Even though it's now called the Somerville Yearling Sale, we're keen that it still has that personal touch that the Ascot Yearling Sale had.”
Jackson was likewise keen to stress that the move to Park Paddocks does not mean that the Somerville Yearling Sale will become amalgamated with the two-week October Yearling Sale that begins four weeks later. Helping keep that identity separate is the fact that the sale has produced so many big-name graduates in its short history-10 stakes winners in the last two years alone, led by the G2 Lowther S. victress Miss Amulet (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) and the G3 Molecomb S. winner Steel Bull (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}), graduates of the 2019 sale at £7,500 and £15,000, respectively. The second renewal of the sale in 2018 proved a bumper edition, producing group winners Shadn (Ire) (No Nay Never) and Liberty Beach (GB) (Cable Bay {Ire}) as well as listed winners Summer Sands (GB) (Coach House {Ire}) and Flippa The Strippa (Ire) (Outstrip {GB}). Summer Sands, bought for a mere £2,000, evolved into an 85,000gns breezer and six months later was hammered down for 625,000gns at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training Sale after winning the Listed Redcar Two-Year-Old Trophy and finishing third in the G1 Middle Park S.
Last year's sale has already produced three stakes winners among its 41 winners thus far: 17,500gns purchase Windstormblack (GB) (Brazen Beau {Aus}) won the G3 Premio Primi Passi in June, while 10,000gns purchase Chipotle (GB) (Havana Gold {GB}) scaled some of racing's highest peaks the same month when winning Royal Ascot's Listed Windsor Castle S., having already taken the Brocklesby Conditions S. and the Royal Ascot Two-Year-Old Trial Conditions S. for trainer/purchaser Eve Johnson Houghton. Saturday marked the victory of 12,500gns purchase Eve Lodge (GB) (Ardad {Ire}) in the G3 Sirenia S. at Kempton.
Jackson said horses like Chipotle are exactly what the Somerville Yearling Sale has, and will continue to, target.
“We were conscious as a team that we wanted the Somerville Yearling Sale to remain about the precocious, early, athletic 2-year-olds that had been known to come from the Ascot Yearling Sale, and that's definitely what has been catalogued in the Somerville Yearling Sale,” he said.
Steadfast supporters of the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale have gotten behind the Somerville Yearling Sale with some of their more precocious yearlings: Tally-Ho Stud brings 19, Barton Stud and Rathasker Stud 11 apiece and Trickledown Stud 10. And some of the circuit's leading vendors are bringing drafts to the sale for the first time, like Yeomanstown Stud, Lynn Lodge Stud and Castledillon Stud. The catalogue includes half-siblings to stakes-winning graduates Windstormblack (lot 2, a filly by Adaay {Ire}) and Flippa The Strippa (lot 222, a colt by War Command). Other siblings to black-type horses catalogued include a Cable Bay (Ire) half-sister to Chilworth Icon (GB) (Sixties Icon {GB}), winner of Italy's Primi Passi and Epsom's Listed Woodcote S. (lot 144); a full-brother to Listed El Gran Senor S. scorer Sweet Gardenia (GB) (lot 71); a Jungle Cat (Ire) half-sister to G3 Renaissance S. victor and G1 Commonwealth Cup third Ventura Rebel (GB) (Pastoral Pursuits {GB}) (lot 271); a colt by Unfortunately (Ire) who is a half to three stakes-placed winners including this season's G2 Coventry S. third Vintage Clarets (GB) (Ardad {Ire}) (lot 261); and a Kodiac (GB) filly (lot 105) out of the Listed Chalice S. winner and multiple Group 2-placed Sahool (GB) (Unfuwain), whose Laraaib (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) won the G3 Cumberland Lodge S. Another daughter of Sahool has produced Alnaseem (GB), stakes-placed in the U.S. this year, and it is also the family of multiple group-winning juvenile and productive young sire Gutaifan (Ire). The stakes-winning and Group 1-placed Baileys Jubilee has a colt by Twilight Son set to sell (lot 206).
“There are half brothers and sisters to 44 group and listed performers catalogued,” Jackson noted. “And there are 108 siblings to 2-year-old winners and 80 out of 2-year-old winning dams. It's still definitely the early, precocious 2-year-olds, which is what we wanted to keep in the catalogue going forward.”
The aforementioned daughter of Sahool is one of four by the ever-popular Kodiac in the book, and other proven Group 1 sires represented include Showcasing, Night Of Thunder (Ire), Dark Angel (Ire) and his sire Acclamation (GB), Ardad (Ire), Dandy Man (Ire), Holy Roman Emperor (Ire), Mehmas (Ire), Oasis Dream (GB), Starspangledbanner (Aus) and Zoffany. Currently popular young sires like Cotai Glory (GB), Galileo Gold (GB), Profitable (Ire) and Ribchester (Ire) are also represented. First-season sire Havana Grey is the most represented sire in the book with 21, and other first-crop sires with progeny on offer include Cracksman (GB), Expert Eye (GB), Harry Angel (Ire), Kessaar (Ire), Sioux Nation, Tasleet (GB) and Zoustar (Aus) with his first Northern Hemisphere crop.
The Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale begins at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. All yearlings offered are eligible for the £150,000 Tattersalls October Auction S. as well as the new £100,000 Tattersalls Somerville Auction S., which will be held five weeks apart in 2022 with the Tattersalls Somerville Auction S. taking place over six furlongs on the Newmarket July Course in late August, with prizemoney paid down to 10th place.
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