Racing continues its nervous wait for next month\u2019s budget and the potential impact of changes to the tax regime around gambling, meaning the sport\u2019s senior figures may hope that the chancellor\u2019s attention is elsewhere when the Book 1 sale at Tattersalls, Europe\u2019s most exclusive yearling auction, gets under way at the firm\u2019s historic sales ring in Newmarket on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
You can explain until you are blue in the face that breeding and racing are not the same thing, or that the elite top tier of the yearling market, like the market for limited-edition Ferraris or 1,000-acre country estates, has always been wholly detached from what the rest of us would call day-to-day reality. The simple fact of it is that the numbers flying around at Tatts this week will be jaw-dropping, both for the average individual on the Clapham omnibus and the average politician in Westminster, many of whose constituents are still gripped by the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n
A total of 345 yearlings were sold at last year\u2019s Book 1 sale, generating a record turnover for the three-day event of 127m guineas (\u00a3134m), a 33% increase on the previous year\u2019s figure of 95.3m gns (\u00a3100m). A significant factor in the total was an astonishing spending spree by Kia Joorabchian and his associates in the Amo Racing operation, including Evangelos Marinakis, the Nottingham Forest owner, and the Qatar-based Al Shaqab, which eventually ran to 22.9m gns (\u00a324m) and saw 25 lots led out of the ring to join Amo\u2019s ever-increasing string.<\/p>\n
The results of the Amo splurge at last autumn\u2019s Book 1 have \u2013 as yet \u2013 been decidedly mixed. The sale\u2019s top lot, a 4.4m gns (\u00a34.62m) Frankel filly subsequently named Partying, was initially sent to Ralph Beckett and then moved to join Kevin Philippart De Foy at the historic Freemason Lodge in Newmarket \u2013 another big-money purchase by Joorabchian and co \u2013 in July. She has yet to see a racecourse.<\/p>\n
Also unsighted thus far is Alpinara, a 2.5m gns (\u00a32.6m) full sister to the 2022 Prix de l\u2019Arc de Triomphe<\/a> winner, Alpinista, although she could hardly be said to have a two-year-old pedigree, while Poker, by Wootton Bassett and the 2024 sale\u2019s 4.3m (\u00a34.5m) second-top lot, started favourite for his racecourse debut in a Haydock novice a couple of weeks ago \u2013 and finished sixth of the nine runners.<\/p>\n Venetian Sun \u2013 on the way to winning the Albany Stakes on day four of Royal Ascot in June \u2013 was picked up for 240k gns. Photograph: John Walton\/PA<\/p>\n There were five seven-figure lots among the Amo buys 12 months ago, and Ancient Egypt, who cost 1.1m gns (\u00a31.15m), is the only winner as yet (and he then ran a shocker when upped to Group Two company at Newmarket last month after two wins in minor company). There have been winners from Amo\u2019s cheaper purchases, including Lyneham, who repaid \u00a311,000 of his 425k gns (\u00a3446k) purchase price in a Newmarket maiden on Saturday, but so far, they seem to be learning the lesson that it is not necessarily the size of your bankroll that matters at Book 1 \u2013 all the buyers, after all, are loaded. It is what you spend it on that counts.<\/p>\n It may not have escaped Amo\u2019s attention, for instance, that Venetian Sun, winner of the Albany Stakes at this year\u2019s Royal Ascot, was picked up for 240k gns (\u00a3252k) \u2013 below the average for the sale as a whole \u2013 to race for Marinakis\u2019 Premier League rival in the Brighton hot seat, Tony Bloom.<\/p>\n Quick GuideGreg Wood’s Tuesday tipsShow<\/p>\n Leicester\u00a02.00<\/b> Portoro (nb) 2.30<\/b> Koffee And Kale 3.00<\/b> Maasai Mata 3.30<\/b> Oh Yes You Do 4.00<\/b> Lillie Margo 4.30<\/b> Smart Vision 5.02<\/b> Sovereign Sea 5.35<\/b> Holbache (nap)<\/p>\n Brighton<\/b>\u00a02.15<\/b> Antiphon 2.45<\/b> Starsong 3.15<\/b> Ciarrai Abu 3.45<\/b> The Dark Baron 4.15<\/b> Stintino Sunset 4.45<\/b> Gone Rogue 5.15<\/b> King Of War <\/p>\n Huntingdon<\/b>\u00a02.37<\/b> Settle Down Jill 3.07<\/b> Carlton 3.37<\/b> Midnight Jewel 4.07<\/b> Lyness Dancer\u00a04.37<\/b> Casting Aspersions 5.07<\/b> Bankatary<\/p>\n Southwell<\/b>\u00a04.57<\/b> Nova Centauri 5.28<\/b> Zarinca 6.00<\/b> Noel Fox 6.30<\/b> Unico 7.00<\/b> Colors Of Freedom 7.30<\/b> Tamaris 8.00<\/b> Shamardal Star 8.30<\/b> Create<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n Distant Storm, the likely favourite for Saturday\u2019s Group One Dewhurst Stakes, also slipped through the net. He was knocked down to the bloodstock agent Cormac Farrell for just 90k gns (\u00a394.5k) \u2013 pin-money by Book 1 standards \u2013 before giving his temporary owner the profit of a lifetime when he was resold to Godolphin at this year\u2019s breeze-ups for \u20ac1.9m (\u00a31.65m).<\/p>\n The best news of all for Tattersalls \u2013 since they take the spare shilling in every guinea \u2013 is that Joorabchian and his Amo associates show every sign of returning for a repeat performance at Newmarket this week, for what seems certain to be a concerted \u2013 and somewhat surreal \u2013 flaunting of mega-wealth across the three-day sale. The fuse will be lit when the first lot enters the ring at 11am, and the serious fireworks may well begin moments later when Lot 3, the first of 26 Frankel yearlings in the catalogue, goes under the hammer.<\/p>\n Betting tax turnover \u2018rebalancing\u2019 urged<\/p>\n Back in the real world, meanwhile, there was a timely contribution to the debate over racing\u2019s future funding on Monday from a somewhat unexpected source.<\/p>\n Plumpton racecourse is familiar to National Hunt fans as one of the most pleasant and picturesque jumping tracks in the country, but it has also been owned by Peter Savill, the former chairman of the British Horseracing Authority\u2019s predecessor, the British Horseracing Board, since 1998.<\/p>\n It could therefore be said to have a view on racing\u2019s complex internal politics from both sides of the divide between the Thoroughbred Group \u2013 owners, trainers, jockeys and so on \u2013 and the racecourses, and it launched a detailed report on Monday titled Securing Racing\u2019s Future which proposes a \u201crebalancing\u201d of the overall taxes on betting turnover to \u201cprovide fair funding for a sport that delivers \u00a34bn to the economy\u201d.<\/p>\n The report\u2019s author is Tom Savill, Peter\u2019s son and a director at Plumpton, who has picked up and run with an idea that was initially floated by the Social Market Foundation earlier this year.<\/a> The SMF proposed a \u201cflip\u201d in the rate that betting firms pay on their gross profits to General Betting Duty and the Horserace Levy, with GBD reduced from 15% to 5% and the Levy raised from 10% to 20%, which would leave the overall charge on racing profits at 25%.<\/p>\n Savill argues that while the UK Treasury\u2019s headline tax-take from bets on racing would inevitably drop, the long-term deficit that would result from an irreversible decline in an industry that supports 80,000 jobs would be far more significant.<\/p>\n A rebalancing between tax and Levy, he suggests, alongside an extension of the Levy to bets on foreign racing, could generate an extra \u00a3130m annually for racing without adding to the overall rate imposed on operators\u2019 racing profits.<\/p>\n