'Gai Is Very Audacious – She Will Hopefully Buy A Half Dozen At Tattersalls'

With over 100 horses boasting Timeform ratings of 100 or greater in a catalogue that includes high-quality drafts from Coolmore, Juddmonte and Shadwell, is it any wonder that buyers flock from all over the world to get in on the action at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses-In-Training Sale?

If there is one jurisdiction that has flexed its buying power more than any other at this sale in recent years it's Australia. And it's easy to see why. In the past decade alone, 13 Group 1 races have been won Down Under by horses who were sourced directly at this sale. 

Just Fine (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) is one of those. Sold for 300,000gns by Sir Michael Stoute's Freemason Lodge Stables on behalf of the Queen in 2022, he landed the Group 1 Metropolitan for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. Bigger things could yet be to come for Just Fine, who is on course to run in next Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, and the stable will be busy trying to unearth the next quality import at Tattersalls this week. 

Speaking about the appeal of the sale, Rob Waterhouse, giant of the bookmaking industry in Australia and husband to the legendary trainer, said, “The reality is that Europe–in particular Britain and Ireland–is much better at producing stayers than we are here in Australia. That's the long and the short of it. I am sure that it is all to do with climate–it's easier to produce sprinters in a hotter climate. Europe produces great stayers and we're dreadful at it!”

Neither Rob nor Gai will be in attendance at Tattersalls but the team will be in safe hands in the shape of Claudia Fitzgerald, bloodstock manager for the stable, and leading bloodstock agent Johnny McKeever. 

“We're lucky to have Claudia Fitzgerald who goes over there on my wife's behalf,” Waterhouse said. “She does a great job at inspecting the horses and is assisted by a good Irishman in Johnny McKeever. They do a great job for us. We're lucky enough to keep a significant database of British, Irish and French form, which is a bit different to Timeform and Racing Post, but similar. We go through that database and try to find the ones that are of a certain standard. From there, we target the ones we like on type.”

Using Just Fine as an example, that horse arrived at the sales off the back of three wins for Stoute, in races that carried winning purses of £5,175.20, £6,442.50 and £7,851. The winning cheque for the Metropolitan came to a cool £245,762.71 while the same horse provided his connections with another major payday when winning a Group 3 that carried winning prize-money of £160,427.81 earlier this month. 

That is far from an isolated example of a horse providing its owners with a return on investment in Australia. Fellow sale graduates Fawkner Park (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}), Herman Hesse (GB) (Frankel {GB}), Royal Patronage (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), Future History (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) and more have done similarly well for their connections this year alone. 

With such riches on offer, it would be easy to forgive the Waterhouse and Bott team for stretching the budget every now and again. So how will the outfit be approaching bidding on prospective stars this week?

Claudia Fitzgerald | Tattersalls

“Very sensibly,” comes the reply from Waterhouse. “Gai tries to be conservative in what she spends at the sales. Unfortunately, she is beaten far more often than she is successful and we try not to get involved in bidding wars. By the same token, she can be very inventive. We knew of a particular horse who was very much in demand a few years ago and we loved this horse. Our competitors also loved this horse. We knew the vendors wanted 300,000gns for the horse and we surprised the auctioneers on the day because, when they called for an opening bid of 20,000gns, we bid the 300,000gns. They were a little flummoxed by these unusual tactics and initially refused to take the bid. They said, 'we're only asking for 20,000gns'. But we bought it for 300,000gns and, after the sale, our competitors told us that they were going to go to the 300,000gns mark so it had the potential to make a lot more. Gai is very audacious in what she does.”

He added, “We're looking forward to running Just Fine, who came from this sale, in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday week. There are a lot of valuable races in Australia but there has to be a limit on what you spend at the sales if you want to get your money back. The way we approach it is, we'd rather buy more horses at a lower average than less horses for a greater sum. There are 104 races with prize-money of a million Australian dollars or more every year. That is a huge number. 

“I'm not sure what the figures are for this year, but last season there were 724 horses imported from Britain, Ireland, France and more. That number will definitely be over 800 this year so there are a lot of horses being bought to continue their careers in Australia. The majority of those would be mile-plus horses, too.”

This week's sale will take place off the back of a record-breaking October Yearling Sale and, while it's hard to draw too many parallels between the that and the H-I-T market, Waterhouse says it can only be a positive that so many wealthy people have had their interests piqued by the game in recent times. 

He said, “It's not apples and apples but, by the same token, the rich people in today's world are spending a lot of money on horses in recent years. There is a lot of money about. But Gai normally has no orders. She will hopefully buy half a dozen horses at Tattersalls and then offer them to clients. That's the way it works. But we love shopping at Tattersalls and I must say Jason Singh is always a great help to us.”

Waterhouse concluded, “Claudia and Johnny know the types of horses that Gai likes to buy. She likes horses who are a bit taller and leaner than average. Of course, they have to be sound. They have had great success buying that model and hopefully they can find some more this week.”