Pinhookers reel in the profits

It was no surprise that foal-to-yearling traders benefitted enormously from the increased top-down demand at this year’s yearling sales. To the conclusion of Arqana’s October Sale, 47 per cent of all pinhooked yearlings returned a profit after a £10,000 upkeep fee is added to their foal price. That’s easily the best return for traders in the past six years and should boost demand at the upcoming foal sales. An average foal price of £36,952 was turned into a yearling average of £72,885 which represents a 103 per cent mark up, again by some way the best outcome recorded in the past six years and, although there are still some lesser yearling sales to come, they won’t change the fact that traders did particularly well from the increased investment at the top of the market.

It was a similar story lower down the scale, with pinhooked yearlings with a conception fee of £15,000 or under. In this sector an average foal price of £24,001was transformed into a yearling average of £49,601 – a whopping 107 per cent increase. Moreover, 52.5 per cent of all transactions proved profitable, even after the obligatory £10,000 upkeep fee is added, and no fewer than 15 per cent cleared a £50k-plus profit compared with 11.5 per cent last year. There were more jackpot transactions in this sector too with 8.8 per cent posting a net profit of £100,000 or more, up from 5.7 per cent 12 months ago.

The Havana Grey colt out of Minoria, bought by Carmel Stud for 90,000gns at the 2023 Tattersalls December Foal Sale and resold as a yearling for 480,000gns at the same venue last month

Yearling buyers typically focus on proven sires, and it was no surprise to see Havana Grey yearlings in demand. But given that this group of yearlings are from their sire’s fourth and weakest crop, some of the prices paid were astonishing. Among all sires with a conception fee of £15,000 or less, the Whitsbury Manor stallion provided four of the top six profit makers, including two Tattersalls October Book 1 colts that sold for 420,000gns and 400,000gns, having cost as little as 90,000gns and 85,000gns respectively as foals last year. Two more Book 1 colts realised 500,000gns and 450,000gns from bigger initial investments of 250,000gns and 210,000gns, the two most expensive foals by any sire standing at £15,000 or below in 2022.

Supporters of Havana Grey will have been pleased that he has continued to be a very competent sire with his third crop two-year-olds, which included Group 2 Duchess of Cambridge Stakes winner Arabian Dusk, while his older brigade have supplied ten Stakes winners and five Group winners so far this year. His career haul of 22 Stakes winners have come along at a rate of 8.8 per cent, an excellent score for a speed sire and nearly four times better that his mares achieved with other stallions. Moreover, the very few elite mares that have visited him are responsible for 20 per cent Stakes winners and 6.7 Group winners, which augurs well for the future as his next set of juveniles are from vastly improved mares, covered the year after his excellent first two-year-olds.

Big Mojo, from Mohaather’s first crop, wins the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes, before finishing placed in both the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes and Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint

Those breeders that risked a second-year nomination or pinhook on the young Showcasing stallion Mohaather were also handsomely rewarded at this year’s sales, as the Shadwell stallion posted a higher average price from a lower fee compared with his first crop. Not only is he ranked second on our table by net profit, he’s also the leader by percentage of profitable pinhooks. The impetus for this increase in demand was provided by the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes winner Big Mojo, who also finished second in the Group 2 Flying Childers and fourth in the recent Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, plus Listed Rose Bowl Stakes winner Yah Mo Be There. More recently, Mohaather has added a third first-crop Stakes winner in Germany and therefore leads the retiring class of 2021 by number of Stakes winners and, at the time of writing, is also very much in the hunt for leading European sire by number of winners with 18 already on the board. All things being equal, we can expect more from the first three-year-olds by the top-class miler, rated 129 by Timeform.

Just as the fourth crop of Havana Grey proved popular, so too did that of his fellow fourth-crop sire Sioux Nation. This son of Scat Daddy, who added a new two-year-old Group winner to his resume this year when Coto de Caza landed the Group 3 Cornwallis, saw 33 of his yearlings sourced from the foal sales and 24 of them made a profit for their owners which is 72 per cent a strike rate, inferior only to Mohaather among sires with ten or more pinhooked yearlings. His Tatts October Book 2 colts out of Inca Husky and Westfalica sold for 260,000gns and 280,000gns respectively, producing massive profits of £212,000 and £175,000.

The Sioux Nation colt ex Inca Husky, bought by Lynn Lodge Stud for €58,000 at last year’s Goffs November Foal Sale, notched up a massive profit when fetching 260,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 2

Kodi Bear was another popular sire for the pinhookers and his 21 benefitted enormously from the 2024 success of Leovanni in the Group 2 Queen Mary and that of Cowardofthecounty in the Group 3 Prix Francois Boutin. It is Kodi Bear’s most successful group of two-year-olds to date and the son of Kodiac was the only other sire to have over 70 per cent of his pinhooked yearlings to turn a profit after £10,000 is added for upkeep.

Among the stallions with their first yearlings at the sales, it was Tally-Ho’s Starman that did best in this price range by average profit, which was unsurprising given that he covered the third-best book of mares in 2022, behind only the higher-priced pair Palace Pier and St Mark’s Basilica. However, the best stallion in terms of the percentage of pinhooks in profit was Darley’s Dubawi sire Space Blues, who saw 63 per cent of his progeny make money.

Although this analysis is focussed on stallions with ten or more yearlings sold as both foals and yearlings, there are several that performed very well with a smaller representation. Four of five (80 per cent) of the seventh crop by Gleneagles turned a profit, including his son out of Carrie’s Vision who sold for 280,000gns at Tatts October Book 2, having cost only €28,000 at Goffs last year. And among the new sires, A’Ali’s six pinhooked yearlings featured five that made a profit, while all five of Twilight Son’s yearlings made money.

SUB-£15k SIRES WITH 5+ PINHOOKED YEARLINGS SOLD IN 2024 ARRANGED BY AVERAGE DIFFERENTIAL