Six days ago Sheikh Mohammed paid three million Guineas for a yearling at Newmarket, a new European record. In contrast yesterday's top price at the opening day of Goffs' Orby Sale was only 600,000 Guineas. Only racing's peculiar perspective allows such a figure to be sniffed at.
"Overall the standard is iffy. There's no hype, no buzz," said one bloodstock agent before whispering conspiratorially: "Keep an eye on Lot 105. A nice horse."
As he spoke, Lot 105 hove into view before entering the sales ring amphitheatre. The catalogue said the fidgeting dark bay colt with the three white socks is by the prepotent Sadlers Wells out of a mare called Rain Queen who never raced. As Lot 105 shied, the eye said the horse doesn't like anyone running behind him.
"Hey," shouted the Newmarket trainer John Gosden at the rushing restaurant worker. "Walk!" 600,000 Guineas demands a certain decorum.
On entering the ring, Lot 105 strode around with a suitably patrician air and two of racing's heavyweights sent the price clock spinning. Sheikh Hamdan of Dubai and John Magnier of Tipperary did their own bidding, not that you would have known immediately as the bids were made with barely perceptible nods. Magnier's Coolmore operation makes a habit of winning such duels, but this time the Sheikh nodded last.
When the hammer came down Sheikh Hamdan casually left as if spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a one-year-old horse, who has never had a rider on his back and could have the speed of an asthmatic snail, is an everyday occurrence. Considering his multi-million pound spending in the past at Goffs, it probably is. Yesterday, the Sheikh paid out over 1 million Guineas in his bid to find another Salsabil or Nashwan.
Lot 105 was submitted to the sale by Abbeville and Meadow Court Studs, owned by Eimear Mulhern, the daughter of the former Taoiseach Charles Haughey. However, the colt was the property of a syndicate which included Goffs managing director Philip Myerscough.
"He's a very nice, athletic individual who on pedigree could be anything," said the Sheikh's racing manager Angus Gold of Lot 105. "He's an absolutely beautiful colt, a pleasure to have anything to do with," enthused Mulhern. "I knew he'd sell well."
Yet, with the likes of Magnier, who later paid 360,000 for a colt by Lure, the Sheikh and the Florida-based software magnate Satish Sanan in attendance, the market for the best horses was limited. "There is money about but there are only three or four people who have it," said one resigned and outgunned Irish trainer.
However the sales ring is as influenced by the global financial atmosphere as any other business. With the current uncertainty in the markets, investing in such an uncertain commodity as an unbroken, untested one-year-old racehorse requires a certain faith.
Whether this year's figures eventually compare with the 1997 total of £25,054,000 or whether the world markets have had an effect, the root of the whole affair is still the horse. And as such there is a reassuring earthiness about the whole thing.
Lot 75, a colt by Lammtarra, was described over the public address as having "a left testicle that is fully descended and a right one that is palpable." God knows what that did to Lot 75's self-esteem, but he still made 55,000 Guineas. "Cheap," declared an agent. That peculiar perspective again.
