There can’t have been too many occasions when the Tattersalls October Books 1 and 2 Sales stumbled and all other major auctions made significant progress, but that is exactly what transpired at the yearling sales this year.
But while Tattersalls’ two premier sales saw their average and median prices unable to match last year’s highs, both were considerably stronger than their respective 2023 returns. In fact, if we swapped the 2024 and 2025 figures around, we would be judging the market in a more favourable light. Ultimately, the trajectory is still upwards, and it may eventually transpire that the trendline runs through 2023 and 2025, leaving 2024 as a bit of an outlier, particularly given the unusual circumstances in which Amo Racing added £27 million of new investment.
Using Europe’s six select sales, consisting of the Arqana August, BBAG September, Goffs Premier, Goffs Orby 1 and 2 and Tattersalls Books 1 and 2 auctions as our market barometer, we see an advance in the average yearling price from £124,225 in 2024 to £128,413 this year – a small but significant 3.4 per cent increase given the negative numbers at Tattersalls.
Dividing the prices of select sales into five equal groups in descending order of price gives us real clarity. The average price in quintile 1 fell by 3.6 per cent this year compared to last term, but it had already increased by 20.8 per cent from 2023 to 2024, so most of the 2024 gains still exist.
However, the big positive this year were found in quintiles two to five, which all showed big increases over last year of 11.7, 23.3, 23.9 and 23.8 per cent respectively, thus restoring them to 2023 levels – except for the bottom fifth average, which is still some £5,000 lower than in 2023.
This modest overall increase of 3.4 per cent will be welcome news for all involved in the production and selling of yearlings, even more so given that the equivalent average in the Covid year of 2020 stood at £86,000 and at £102,000 the year before.
In the last five years, the average price for this basket of select sales has risen by a whopping 49 per cent.
Less welcome is the rise in production costs – namely stallion fees. They have skyrocketed in the same period. The average advertised fee for stallions represented in the six select sales in 2019 was 28,352. but that has risen to an all-time high of £43,032 this year, an increase of 52 per cent. The average fee this year was also up 14 per cent on 2024. We can conclude, therefore, that most year-on-year yearling price increases are typically swallowed up by increased fees, thus maintaining considerable downward pressure on profits for vendors.
In all, 2,633 yearlings were sold at this year’s select sales and 1,627 (62 per cent) made a profit, defined as advertised stud fee, plus £20,000. Last year, 2,639 were sold and 1,500 (57 per cent) made money for their vendors. So it seems that despite the regression at Tattersalls in October, trading conditions were generally better at the2025 select sales when considered together.
No prizes for guessing that Night Of Thunder was the highest climber this year, his average for all yearling sales to the end of the Goffs Autumn Sale increasing to £480,000 from £310,000 last year. This chestnut son of Dubawi has enjoyed a breathtaking year, delivering his best seasonal counts of 30 stakes winners and 15 Group winners. The Timeform 130-rated Ombudsman was his headline act together with 1,000 Guineas heroine Desert Flower and more importantly his two-year-olds featured Dewhurst Stakes scorer Gewan, Timeform’s top-rated European juvenile at
118, plus other Group winners Bow Echo, Distant Storm and Hankelow. Moreover, Night Of Thunder will be crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland this year and will stand for €200,000 next spring.
Among our elite £50,000-plus category, Night Of Thunder boasts not only the highest percentage of profitable years at 91.1 per cent but also the best yearling average to fee multiple of 5.4. Frankel, Dubawi and the recently deceased Wootton Bassett also recorded in-profit percentages of 70 per cent and better. Meanwhile, the Aga Khan Stud’s Zarak marked his entry into the £50,000-plus club this year with 3.3 average/fee multiple, just ahead of Wootton Bassett’s 2.9.
Just as they had done a year ago as third year-sires, Darley’s Too Darn Hot and Blue Point, both with their fourth crop of yearlings at the sales, head our £20,000- 49,000 group of stallions. Too Darn Hot’s daughter Falling Angel added two further Group 1 triumphs in the Matron and Sun Chariot Stakes, while his son Tornado Alert landed the Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr Preis. Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes winner Fitzella became the first Group winner from his third crop.
Blue Point, meanwhile, sired 12 stakes winners in 2025, including his first third-crop Group winner Samangan, who scored in the Group 3 Critérium de Maisons-Laffitte. Blue Point’s best offspring Rosallion also performed well with four Group 1 placings, beaten a nose, neck and short head in three of them.
Too Darn Hot’s and Blue Point’s averages were slightly down on last year, but they were the only two in the group with £100,000-plus medians and the only two with profit percentages above 80 and average/fee multiples of over four. Blue Point remains at a fee of €100k next year, while Too Darn Hot has earned and increase from £90k to £100k.
Havana Grey is finally a member of the £10-19K cohort with his first crop of yearlings produced after his sensational first year success. With a conception fee £18,500, his current yearlings were in great demand and he’s the only sire in the group with a £100,000-plus yearling average and median. Besides the Whitsbury Manor Stud stallion also has the best in-profit percentage at nearly 93 per cent – second only to Night Of Thunder among all stallions – and shares the highest average/ fee multiple (6.9) with the latest freshman sensation, Starman. 2025 can be counted as a transition year for Havana Grey with more success anticipated next season with his best-bred crop to date to represent him.
Starman, meanwhile, deserves a lot of credit for having posted five stakes winners, four of them at group level, among his first set of runners. The significance of the achievement is that, assessed against all first-season sires of group winners this century, the Tally-Ho Stud stallion lies second to only the great Frankel, who sired six group winners in his first year back in 2016.
Among the sub-£10,000 group of stallions, the clear leader by average price is Sands Of Mali, whose first-crop daughter Time For Sandals put up a season-defining performance at the highest level this year when winning the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup. He’s also responsible for Group 3 scorer Copacabana Sands and has already posted his first second-crop stakes winner in Ipanema Queen. He’s the only stallion with ten-plus sold and a £50,000-plus yearling average that has average and median fee multiples higher than ten, albeit from a small group of 12 yearlings.
Alongside Havana Grey (92.8 per cent), Night Of Thunder (91.1), Lope De Vega (84.7), Too Darn Hot (84.0), Blue Point (83.3) and Starman (81.2), Sands Of Mali is the only other sire with a percentage sold number higher than 80. He will move to stand next season alongside Dark Angel and co at Yeomanstown Stud at an increased asking price of €22,500.
Among the stallions with their first yearlings this year, it was Sea The Stars’s Timeform 137-rated son Baaeed who posted the best average at £190,000 from his initial £80,000 fee, followed by Minzaal (£78,000) and Blackbeard (£76,000). There is no doubt that given his sale results, Baaeed will represent a far more attractive proposition at his new fee of £55,000 next spring and should his first crop fire it could well be a real bargain.
The award for the highest in-profit percentage goes to another son of Sea The Stars, none other than his outstanding stayer Stradivarius (Timeform 130), who counted 75 per cent of his yearlings as profitable after we add £20,000 to his £10,000 fee. Minzaal was the only other freshman with an in-profit percentage above 70. And both Minzaal and Stradivarius also delivered the best average/fee multiples of 5.8 and 5.6 respectively.
