"We were surprised to get the best-bred horse in the catalogue"

Thursday was a fairly low-key day for myself and Johnny [Hassett].

We've found it tricky to reconcile the market with the individual, but we did manage to buy two for Seven Hills Bloodstock, the first a Big Bad Bob colt for 30,000gns. We were also very surprised to get what we thought was the best-bred horse in the catalogue, a Cityscape colt for 20,000gns. The third dam bred a Derby winner, Erhaab, which is a very unusual attribute to find in Book 3.

I've seen 8,000 yearlings go through the ring this sales season. That means 7,980 of them have been frustrating. You've either wasted your time because you've been outbid or you've wasted your time because you didn't even try to buy them. However, there's no room for doing this business if that frustrates you.