The two-day Tattersalls sale at Newmarket in 2006 broke all records for a European sale of this type, with 147 lots sold for 10,736,000 guineas, a rise of 70 per cent on 2005, and a Green Desert colt going for 625,000 guineas. The average and median both rose 43 per cent to 73,034 guineas and 50,000 guineas respectively. Doncaster Sales pioneered the breeze-up concept in Britain back in 1977.
The success of two-year-old breeze-up (two-year-old in training) sales in Britain has prompted Irish sales company Goffs to enter the market there for the first time.Goffs made the announcement at a 150-strong party at Home House, London, on Tuesday, June 13 co-hosted by Goffs and Bernard McNamara, owner of the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, which is to sponsor the Goffs Million at the Curragh on September 19.Goffs, headquartered in Ireland and with an offshoot in France, is making its debut in the British market with an early breeze-up sale next year on March 9 at Kempton Park racecourse, which this year converted to racing on Polytrack from turf.Two-year-olds sold at the sale will be eligible for the two Goffs Million races in 2007, one for colts and the other fillies, each worth one million euros to the winner.Eimear Mulhern, Chairman of Goffs Bloodstock Sales Ltd, said: "The proximity of Kempton Park to London is expected to attract new buyers from the capital. Its use of the acclaimed Polytrack surface, increasingly used in the United States and other major racing nations, will offer overseas buyers the opportunity to view horses breezing at Kempton Park on the same surface."This exclusive agreement between Goffs and Kempton Park is another exciting development in the Goffs Million project. We feel Kempton Park is a racecourse which mirrors our ideals and vision for the future and we look forward to holding our first-ever sale in the UK on March 9, 2007."The two main bloodstock auctioneers in Britain, Tattersalls and Doncaster, hold long-established and successful breeze-up sales for two- year-olds in April each year.
