Tattersalls sale ends with average down but median level

The slimmed-down Tattersalls autumn horses in training auction in Newmarket, England, ended Thursday with declines in gross and average, but the median held level with last year, prompting Tattersalls’ chairman, Edmond Mahony, to call it “a good, solid sale” despite the downturns.

The four-day auction sold 848 horses for about $27,862,128. The average price in U.S. dollars was $32,856, and the median was $15,120. Compared year-to-year in the local auction currency of guineas, gross fell 6 percent from last year, when a larger catalog sold 865 horses. The average price was down 4 percent, but the median was the same.

Buy-backs overall were 17 percent, down from last year’s 20 percent.

Upper-market results were broadly comparable with last year. Eight horses, including sale-topper Measuring Time, brought 200,000 guineas (about $336,000) or more, as compared to nine last season. Twenty-nine sold for 100,000 guineas ($168,000) or more, also one fewer than last year, when the catalog was larger.

Agent Anthony Stroud, the auction’s leading buyer with more than $1.68 million spent, bought Measuring Time for about $520,800 Wednesday on behalf of an undisclosed client. A 3-year-old Dubai Destination colt, Measuring Time is out of the stakes-placed Barathea mare Inchberry.