FEATURE STORY
THROWING THEIR HAT IN THE RING BY MICHAEL MANLEY
Look around at any yearling sale and among the trainers, strappers, breeders, owners, auctioneers and more are some of the most important people in the room: the bloodstock agent. They are the ones who ultimately buy the horses, looking to set them on a path to glory. With around 5,000 yearlings being sold each year in Australia, the pressure is on for bloodstock agents to pick the eyes out of the catalogues and find the best horses. Doesn’t sound easy though does it? It’s not, and for bloodstock agents, their mission to find the best yearlings usually begins months before the sales when they receive their catalogues. They will then go to work on the pedigrees. Then they will inspect and assess any prospective buy thoroughly. Then, when they have decided a yearling is worth bidding on, they won’t necessarily come home with it as they might be outbid, or it goes beyond their valuation. Each bloodstock agent has their own special recipe. They will either buy for a trainer, a syndicator, or for themselves to syndicate. It’s a high pressure time for them, and their business lives or dies by their selections. There’s a constant theme coming through when talking to the bloodstock agents that the only way they will find the horses they want is through painstakingly hard work. Bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills said the yearling sales period is five months of hard work and pressure. All agents have their own formula, but the key factors for them all when purchasing a yearling involve conformation, pedigree, and then value. Mills, who has purchased the likes of Odeum and Night Raid, said for him it’s all about narrowing down the horses he likes. When he has decided on a yearling he likes, he will constantly return to it looking at its strengths over and over again. Mills said he’s a fan of successful broodmare sires and that’s one of his criteria. “I’m really big on broodmare sires, that’s important to me. Usually, if a yearling is not out of a successful broodmare sire I tend to overlook them, but I can forgive that a little bit if the dam could run.”
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