We are scarcely a week into 2023 but Tattersalls, the venerable Newmarket bloodstock sales company, has already supplied a strong contender for the racing world’s Understatement of the Year, after it emerged over the weekend that 17 yearlings which were knocked down for an average of 650,000 guineas (£68.3k) at the showpiece October sale last year have not – as yet – been paid for, and may need to be resold. “Obviously,” a spokesperson for the firm commented in a brief statement, “this is a regrettable situation.”
It is, in all, just under £11m-worth of “regrettable” at Tattersalls alone, after an individual who was described at the time as a “mystery buyer” went on a major spending spree at the world’s most prestigious yearling auctions last year. Richard Knight, a Newmarket-based bloodstock agent who was bidding on the mystery buyer’s behalf, also signed for five lots worth a total of €1.98m (£1.74m) at Arqana’s Deauville sale in August; three more that added up to €2.92m at Goffs’ Orby sale, including the €2.6m top lot; and six at Keeneland in September, worth $4.875m. Exchange rates were, as you may recall, somewhat volatile last autumn, but however you choose to add it up, the overall spend comes to around £20m.
