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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Sore Loser

- As the bidding passed the $9 million mark [on the $11.7 million colt purchased by Sheik Maktoum], Coolmore Stud owner John Magnier turned from his perch behind the staging area and stalked off. [AP]

Poor guy.

Posted by Alan Mann at 7:19 PM  

1 Comment:

Anonymous said...

My guess now is that Magnier walked away "in disgust" because he was trying to hide his laughter. Very revealing are a few stats from Bill Oppenheim, the founder/editor of Marketwatch, in a column for Thoroughbred Daily News.

Sheikh Mo and his associates (Hamdan, Ferguson, et al) purchased 56 yearlings during the first two days of KEESEP. They were by 32 different sires. How many were Ashford/Coolmore? NONE!

19% of the 1st book yearlings were by Ashford/Coolmore sires, and Sheikh Mo managed to stay away from every one of them and find his "best in sale" horses from 81% of the catalog.

Oppenheim, while reminding his readers that officially, "There is no boycott" reasons that the Coolmore folks figured this out and proceeded to bid up the non-Coolmore yearlings because the knew that Sheikh Mo was locked into his strategy.

He was locked into these horses all the more because the other very select yearling books in Europe are about 80% Coolmore. Thus he will severely restrict himself later this year.

My guess (based on Oppenheim's analysis) is that you will see a Pivotal colt go for at least $5 million this year...he's making his mark as the best non-Coolmore sire in Europe.

2:41 PM  

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