World premiere: Osarus prepare for unprecedented online breeze-up sale

This has been a spring like no other for pinhookers and breeze-up consignors with the arrival of a global pandemic laying waste to the usual calendar of sales.

Nor has there been much in the way of racing, which provides both those timely pedigree updates and the incentive for owners to invest.

Different sales companies have taken alternative approaches when it comes to trying to save the concept of ready-to-run, even as doubts have continued to surround where anyone will be able to run.

The sale staged by Osarus, whose majority shareholder is Tattersalls, traditionally falls fairly early in the European calendar and its April 8 and 9 dates never had much chance of surviving the onset of the Covid-19 shutdown.

But while delay was inevitable, Emmanuel Viaud and his team have used the extra time to implement an approach which has long been talked of but whose time may just have come.

With French consignors desperate to save the sale and ready to send their stock to a variety of different locations in order to breeze for the cameras, Osarus will on Wednesday stage its sale online, a first for a breeze-up catalogue and hot on the heels of digital auctions for yearlings and breeding stock hosted by Australian houses Inglis and Magic Millions.

"It's exciting and we know there will be a lot of people watching how it goes, so we know there is no margin for error," says Viaud, managing director of Osarus and chief auctioneer.

"The advantage is that we have 70 horses to sell, which is obviously easier than a sale of, say, 250 lots. That will enable us to refine the concept and should be extremely helpful when looking to stage more business online in the future.

"I think it's a perfect number and really the choice was to do it this way or to cancel the sale as has been done elsewhere, such as Baden-Baden."

Those tuning in to either the Osarus site or France Sire – who also filmed the breezes at a variety of locations around the country – will see Viaud conducting a sequential auction with each lot offered separately.

Osarus 'breezers' at La Teste de Buch in April 2015Credit: Racing Post/Scott Burton

He says: "We had already spent quite a lot of time working on the online concept over the winter and we have been thinking of digital sales for two or three years now, though of course nobody could have foreseen the arrival of the virus.

"That head start we gained over the winter has been an advantage, though we have tweaked a few things and I'm sure we will have two or three more ideas to take away after tomorrow.

"But it's exciting and, while we may not have 30 Siyounis on offer, I'm confident in the offer, while this is really the sole French Breeze-Up of the year because the Deauville catalogue has been moved to Ireland."

Joining the French-based horses in the catalogue are three offered by John Bourke's Hyde Park Stud in Westmeath.

While the circumstances of the coronavirus outbreak means many of the French vendors were more than willing to embrace the concept, Viaud has worked hard to convince those with money to spend on the other side of the equation.

"We have put as much information, video and veterinary details as possible on each page of he online catalogue because transparency is paramount," says Viaud.

"To begin with many buyers said to me they would not be comfortable bidding without having seen a horse in the flesh but many have been able to go to individual farms to do their inspections.

No breeze: the traditional morning canters have been replaced with filmed versions of the two-year-old lots on offer for Osarus' online version of its Breeze-Up saleCredit: Racing Post/Scott Burton

"Even as we speak, there are agents and trainers looking at horses in the sale. Just because the sale is online that doesn’t mean you can't see the horses for yourself."

The rate of business is traditionally a little more leisurely in a French ring than in other parts of the bloodstock world, a trend Viaud expects that to be exaggerated by the arrival of bids online from more than 70 buyers who have registered through the Osarus website.

"It will be a slower process than normal and I will be careful that the hammer is not dropped too quickly. We will need to be sure that the last bid has been struck online.

"We will take our time – there won’t be an egg-timer in front of me – but I don't want things to get too slow. I could imagine a rhythm where each lot might take a couple of minutes longer than usual but no more, otherwise it will become too long a process.

"We are very satisfied that by Monday evening we had 70 registered bidders – owners, trainers and agents from France, Britain and Ireland as well as Spain, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

"There is a wide buying bench, just as you would want and I think that gives us a chance of achieving the best possible results for the vendors."

Selling begins at 12.30pm BST or 1.30pm in France, and interested bidders must register with the Osarus accounts department by email compta@osarus.com.