PRIVATE AUCTIONS HIT THE HIGH BARS
- By Vivek Jain
If the sales figures at private auctions of yearlings at two stud farms, are taken as a barometer of the state of the sport, it appears that racing is seeing a sharply resurgent phase. After covid struck, and even insiders predicting that its days were numbered and that it was “game over” for the sport, the meteoric prices obtained by breeders, indicates either a shortage of quality bloodstock or a renewed confidence on the game’s future or both.
The North India Sale, held jointly by four stud farms at the Usha Stud on the outskirts of Delhi, broke the record for the highest price ever fetched at a thoroughbred horse sale in India, with the very last foal for sale of the multi classic winning sire, Multidimensional, fetching a mind boggling 81 lacs! Perhaps the buyer assumed he was to be the proud owner of a Ferrari on four legs!
44 of the 50 “lots” were sold in well under three hours, in a swiftly conducted auction. The average could well be in the mid 30 lacs, another record for any sale- private or public. The previous private sale at Kunigal was perhaps the harbinger of these prices, with the sales topper fetching an astronomical 60 lakhs! And with the Poonawalla Farm sales to follow on its heels in December, the “sold out” sign for the top horses is on the cards.
Where does that leave the RWITC Auction Sale, which for decades was the only venue to sell the young bloodstock? The Club could request these bigger farms, to ensure at least 10 % of their stock is sold at the club’s auction to support the club sale which was their bread and butter for years. The Club could also experiment with a “breeze up” which is a sale of horses in training and even of broodmares, as some of the big establishments in the UK/ Ireland do, to add variety.
The free entry to members has not exactly set the turnstiles clicking, if the visual attendance at the races is any indication. The reality is we have gone from an era of an entertainment starved society to an entertainment saturated one, with racing vying for footfalls from a surfeit of live and streamed sport, OTT platforms, and oh yes! even Bollywood! Live circuses were big once, they barely exist now. To expect racing’s audiences to grow, is chasing a utopian dream. Unless interest in the sport is revived, these measures are only scratches on the surface.
