Tattersalls Book 2 opens with $252K toppers, decline in average and gross

A pair of $252,000 colts led selling Monday as the four-day Tattersalls October Book 2 yearling auction began in Newmarket, England, with declines across the board.

Gross fell 20 percent, due partly to a smaller catalog which offered 235 yearlings as compared to 248 last year. The opening session sold 183 horses for about $11,702,040, for an average price of about $63,946. Compared year-to-year in the local auction currency of guineas, the average price was down by 8 percent. The median price, about $50,400, was 3 percent lower this year.

Buybacks also climbed this year to 22 percent, up from 15 percent at last year’s Book 2 opener.

The two colts bought for $252,000, or 150,000 guineas, were by Kyllachy and Exceed and Excel. The first, the Kyllachy colt out of the Danehill winner Maugwenna, sold to Saeed Suhail, who already owns two stakes winners bred on a similar cross: multiple Group 2 winner Arabian Gleam and Awinnersgame. Corduff Stud sold the Kyllachy colt, who is a full brother to group-placed Bould Mover.

Agent Peter Doyle, representing John Connolly, bought the other session-topper. The Exceed and Excel colt is out of the unraced Selkirk matron Merle and is a half-brother to 2012 dual stakes-placed Ominous. John Cullinan of Horse Park Stud sold the colt.

the Book 2 portion of the October yearling sale was to continue through Thursday.