If Not For You

If not for you,
Winter would have no spring,
Couldn't hear the robin sing,
I just wouldn't have a clue,
Anyway it wouldn't ring true,
If not for you.

Bob Dylan, ©1970 Big Sky Music

I'm pretty sure the folks at Keeneland, shaken as they may be by the bottom falling out of the yearling market the past two days, nonetheless harbor thoughts similar to those of Bob Dylan about Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his entourage. Of the 222 horses reported sold on the first two days of the annual Keeneland yearling sale, 50 of them were purchased by the Sheikh's bloodstock adviser, John Ferguson, or by entities associated with Dubai's royal family, including the Shadwell Estate Co., and Rabbah Bloodstock. That's an overwhelming 22.5% of the total number sold, and an even bigger percentage of the money paid over those two days. Gross receipts for the prestigious Book 1 horses sold at Keeneland this year were $58.8 million (a 48% drop from last year). And of that sharply reduced amount, the Dubai forces accounted for $18,305,000, or mre than 31% of the gross sales. If not for you, your Highness....

If we subtract the Dubai-associated purchases from the results, then here's what's left: 172 horses sold (of a total of 418 cataloged) for $40,451,000, an average of just over $235,000. Sure, we can assume that most of the horses purchased by the folks from Dubai would have sold even without their bids, but certainly at lower prices. In fact, it's not unreasonable to assume that the average for the sale would have been a lot closer to that $235,000 than to the actually reported average -- including Dubai -- of $265,000.

As compared to their equally visible activity at the boutique Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale last month, the Dubai forces at Keeneland put less emphasis on supporting their own sires -- Street Cry, Bernardini and Medaglia D'Oro, and more on acquiring superior racing and breeding prospects at what, for them, must have seemed like bargain prices. Only 16 of the 50 horses bought by Ferguson, Shadwell and Rabbah were sired by their own stallions, compared with more than half of their Saratoga purchases.

(Shadwell and Rabbah were still somewhat active early on Wednesday, buying three of the first 50 horses to go through the ring on the first day of Book 2 of the sale, though there was little prospect for any more million-dollar-plus purchases by any of the Dubai buyers.)

With this year's purchases, the Sheikh and his associates are aquiring a lot of stellar American bloodlines. They bought yearlings, for example, by A P Indy, Storm Cat, Distorted Humor, Tapit (a new sire whose yearlings look great and who, I think, will make a name for himself quickly), Dynaformer, Ghostzapper, Kingmambo, Elusive Quality, Forestry, Rahy and Unbridled's Song, in addition to those by their own sires. They've also taken advantage of the price collapse to buy into some of the premier American female familes. With another year or two of such purchases, the Sheikh may have all the bloodstock he needs to breed the very best race horses in the world. If and when that time comes, and he cuts back on the volume of his purchases, the yearling market will be in for an even more serious shock.

If not for you....