When it comes to bloodstock sales companies in the UK and Ireland the pool may be very small but the competition is very fierce.
The two sales houses, Goffs and Tattersalls, run the show between them on both sides of the Irish sea, with various different branches of both organisations operating a whole range of sales from the crème de la crème in the flat world to the mixed online sales at the other end of the spectrum.
Both companies cater for every trading need and both are always trying to adapt with the ever-changing market desires.
They both invest a lot of time and money into incentivising buyers to spend at their sales and there is no more obvious example of this than the various sales races that take place during the year.
Big money sales races intended to incentivise owners
Putting a large amount of prize money in the pot and restricting the race for horses sold at specific sales is a simple and effective way of not only marketing the sale itself but also incentivising owners to purchase horses who have been through the ring rather than buying privately or via other means.
Agents and trainers can then purchase a yearling who is eligible to run in the specific sales-sponsored race and the horse is a much more attractive proposition for a potential owner.
The most long-standing example is the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Stakes run at York during the Ebor meeting.
As the name suggests, the race is restricted to two-year-olds sold at the previous year's Goffs Premier Sale in Doncaster. Over £200,000 worth of prize money is put up by Goffs and it's an ideal race to be aimed at for the type of horse the sale generally produces - precocious, sprinting two-year-olds - as well as being a perfect race for syndicates to targets with so much prize money on offer.
This was showcased in this year's running of the race with the first four horses home all being owned by either syndicates or group ownership.
Newmarket get in on the act
The newest example of a race of this nature is last weekend's Tattersalls Sommerville Auction Stakes over six furlongs on Newmarket's July Course.
The race is for those horses sold at the new Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale which is held in September and is a restructured sale from the original Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale.
In similar fashion to the Goffs equivalent, the yearlings that are selected for the Somerville Sale are generally precocious types whose breeding and build both point towards a type to flourish as a two-year-old, hence a late-summer race with a £100,000 pot was always going to be a popular new addition.
In 2021, the Sommerville Sales inaugural venture, 232 horses sold for an average price of 21,345gns.
Of the horses catalogued there have already been 39 winners and five Group or Listed performers.
One of those winners includes Amichi who went on to win the first running of the Sommerville Sales Race and was an apt winner having been brought for owner Laurence Bellman who has been an owner for many years and a long-time supporter of trainer Ed Walker.
Bought at the sale for just 15,500gns, well below the sales average price, the son of Gutaifan has now already won his purchase price back three times over and could add to that further if he was to run in the £150,000 Tattersalls October Auction Stakes - the second of the Tattersalls sales races - where he would have to meet horses also sold in Book 3 and Book 4 of the October Yearling Sales held in Newmarket.
The Sommerville sale itself has produced enough winners at realistic prices to guarantee plenty of returning customers will attend Park Paddocks in Newmarket for the second running of the sale next week.
But the addition of the sales race adds an extra incentive for trainers and agents to persuade their clients to part with their hard-earned cash at this particular catalogue.
Ultimately, most people who own horses, or who are involved in the buying and selling of horses, are optimistic by nature and so sending them home from the sales with a fluffy lottery ticket for a £100,000 sales race can be no bad thing - just an extra thing to dream about!