Bill's Columns

In the major 2018 “second-half” (calendar year) mixed sales, in other words the sales featuring foals of 2018 and mares covered in 2018, a total of 7,217 horses were sold, which grossed US$ 537-million and averaged US$ 74,457. The combined gross was up about 3% from 2017, and in fact had fluctuated between $504-million and $533 million over the four previous years. So there wasn’t much reason to expect any kind of spike in demand at the Keeneland January Sale – even given the usual disclaimer that the quality of mixed sales catalogues is always eligible to vary widely, for example Abel Tasman 2019, no Abel Tasman 2018. When it’s one horse like that, it’s relatively simple to account for it – just take the top lot both years out (in 2018 it was another broodmare prospect, Mrs McDougal, for $1.6-million).

So it came as a pleasant surprise to, well, just about everybody, that demand was so strong at the sale, which took place Jan. 7-10 in Lexington. Including Abel Tasman and Mrs McDougal, the January gross was up by 33%, from $34,996,000 to $46,759,600, and the average up by 32%, from $38,499 to $51,048. Even taking out the two tops, which in this case is probably a more accurate gauge of the market, the gross would be up by 25% and the average by 24%; so it’s probably more accurate to say the January market was up by a quarter than by a third. It’s still, relatively speaking, a massive leap; so why?

In the January 11 Blood-Horse Daily, Bloodstock Editor Eric Mitchell ran a couple of interesting pages covering market sectors. The average for ‘short yearlings’ barely moved, just 2%, from $39,054 last year to $39,755 this year. But the average for broodmares and broodmare prospects, even taking out Abel Tasman, increased by 19%. So it’s clear that the growth in the January market was, in fact, in breeding stock, not in yearlings. It’s the first time in a few years there’s been such an appetite among breeders to acquire breeding stock.

Australasia’s yearling sales season also kicked off the week of January 9, with the Magic Millions Book 1 Yearling Sale, which concluded on Jan. 12, with new records for gross (A$169,865,000, +9% from 2018) and average (A$238,910, +5%, for 711 yearlings sold) in a sale which saw 11 yearlings sell for A$1-million or more, and nine stallions average A$250,000 or higher with 10 or more yearlings sold. More details on that important sale in my column next week, but Magic Millions Book 1 is Australasia’s highest-grossing yearling sale, so the fact they have sustained the phenomenal growth in the Australasian yearling market is further good news, in the first two weeks of January, for the international auction marketplace.

APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings index) ratings were developed by my team at the old Racing Update some 30 years ago as a way to dilute the distortion in the average-earnings index caused by one huge earner. There are actually 17 different ratings (by class, age, and region) but the signature tune is the APEX A Runner Index, which measures the frequency with which stallions sire runners who are among the top 2% of earners each year or (Southern Hemisphere) season. Two restrictions are that the numbers are calculated for a rolling seven-year period (2012-2018 in this case), and only sires with 10+ three-year-olds of the last year covered (in this case, 2015) are assigned ratings. The seven-year period catches once-great sires who are on the downgrade, and the 10+ foals restriction eliminates the bottom one-third of sires and 20% of foals who will never figure on any but very local radar, but whose inclusion in statistics has the effect of inflating sires’ ratings.

Galileo is the most prolific top sire in history, at least in terms of average crop size. His own sire, Sadler’s Wells, sired 2,180 foals in 23 crops, an average of 95 foals per crop, and Danehill, who died at age 17, sired a total of 2,410 foals in 27 crops, counting both hemispheres, an average of 89 foals per crop. Galileo has sired 1,984 foals in 14 crops of racing age (through 2018), an average of 141 foals per crop – almost 50% more foals per crop than Sadler’s Wells. Yet, in his crops racing in 2012-2018, Galileo scores a massive 5.78 A Runner Index, which equals (multiply x 2) 11.56% of A Runners/year-starters (‘runners’).

In terms of A Runner Index, however, Frankel, the best son of Galileo or any other sire, surpasses even Galileo in his ratio of A Runners/year-starters (a horse counts as one year-starter every year it runs, because the calculations are done on an annualized basis). From 316 year-starters 2016-2018 Frankel has 42 A Runners, which translates to a 6.65 A Runner Index. That makes him the king of APEX sires, though he obviously has just 15% the number of year-starters as his sire. Galileo’s 241 A Runners 2012-2018 is over 100 more than second-ranked Dubawi (136). Only Tapit (125), Kitten’s Joy (107), Medaglia D’Oro (105) and War Front (103) also have more than 100 A Runners over the seven-year period.

Dubawi (4.89) ranks third by A Runner Index, meaning the top three sires are all European. They are followed by three American sires: War Front (4.68); Uncle Mo (3.87); and Medaglia D’Oro (3.50). Then two more Europeans, Galileo’s half-brother Sea The Stars (3.36) and Dansili (3.30), and two more American round out the top ten: Ghostzapper (3.29) and Tapit (3.11). The top 15 are rounded off by German sire Adlerflug (3.02); Into Mischief (2.86); Curlin and Fastnet Rock (2.84 each); and Quality Road and Scat Daddy (2.79 each). The biggest mover among the top 50 sires in the second half of 2018 was Union Rags. He had one 2018 A Runner when we ran the Mid-Year 2018 statistics, and ranked 119th with an A Runner Index of 1.36, but ended up the year with nine A Runners, jumping to rank 36th with an A Runner Index of 2.23.