Night Cap

It seems counterintuitive to acknowledge that in the main, European yearling sales advanced as a collective in 2025 while Tattersalls October Book 1, Europe’s premier yearling sale, failed to match last year’s giddy heights and Book 2 just scraped a win over last year’s numbers. The fact that Tattersalls Books 1 and 2 could not exceed last year’s levels was always on the cards, simply because of the unprecedented demand from the big buyers last year, bolstered by £27m of new investment by Amo Racing.

Using Europe’s six select sales, consisting of Arqana August, Baden Baden, Goffs UK Premier, Goffs Orby 1 and 2 and Tattersalls Books 1 and 2 as our market barometer, we can see an advance in the average yearling price from £124,225 in 2024 to £128,413 this year – a welcome 3.4% increase.

This modest increase will be comforting for all involved in the production and selling of commercial yearlings, more so given that the equivalent average in the Covid year of 2020 stood at £86k and at £102k the year before that. So, in the last five years the average price for this basket of select sales has risen by a whopping 49%.

Less comforting will be the fact that production costs – namely stallion fees – have skyrocketed in the same period. The average advertised fee for stallions represented in the six select sales in 2019 was £28,352, but that has risen to an all-time high of £43,032 this year, an increase of 52%. The average fee this year was also up 14% on 2024. We can conclude therefore that any year-on-year yearling price increases are typically swallowed up by increased fees, thus maintaining considerable pressure on profits for vendors.

Against this backdrop, who were the commercial winners and losers among the stallion ranks? A few headline figures first: 2,633 yearlings were sold at this year’s select sales and 1,627 (62%) made a profit, defined as advertised stud fee, plus £20,000. Last year 2,639 were sold and 1,500 (57%) made money for their vendors. So, it seems that despite the travails at Tattersalls in October, trading conditions were generally better at all select sales when considered together.

Among the stallions with their first yearlings this year, it was – predictably enough – Sea The Stars’ top-rated (Timeform 137) son Baaeed who posted the best average at £190k from his initial £80k fee, followed by Minzaal (£78k) and Blackbeard (£76k). The award for the highest in-profit percentage goes to another son of Sea The Stars, none other than his outstanding stayer Stradivarius (Timeform 130), who counted 75% of his yearlings as profitable after we add £20k to his £10k fee. Minzaal was the only other freshman with an in-profit percentage above 70. And both Minzaal and Stradivarius also delivered the best average/fee multiples of 5.8 and 5.6 respectively.

Stallions priced up to £9,999

Among the sub-£10k group of stallions, the clear leader by average price is Sands Of Mali, whose first-crop daughter Time For Sandals put up a season-defining performance at the highest level this year when defeating Europe’s top three-year-old sprinters in the Commonwealth Cup. He’s also responsible for G3 scorer Copacabana Sands and has already posted his first second-crop stakes winner in Ipanema Queen. He’s the only stallion with ten-plus sold and a £50k-plus yearling average that has average and median fee multiples higher than ten, albeit from a small group of 12 yearlings. Alongside Havana Grey (92.8%), Night Of Thunder (91.1%), Lope de Vega (84.7%), Too Darn Hot (84%), Blue Point (83.3%) and Starman (81.2%), Sands Of Mali is the only other sire with a percentage sold number higher than 80.

Stallions priced from £10,000 to £19,999

Havana Grey has finally graduated from the sub-£10k club to the £10-19K cohort with his first crop of yearlings produced after his sensational first year success. Conceived at £18,500, his current yearlings were in great demand and he’s the only sire in the group with a £100k-plus yearling average and median. Moreover, the Whitsbury Manor stallion also has the best in-profit percentage at nearly 93% – second only to Night Of Thunder among all stallions – and shares the highest average/fee multiple (6.9) with the latest freshman sensation, Starman.

This year can be counted as a transitional one for Havana Grey with more success anticipated next season with his best-bred crop to date. Starman, meanwhile, deserves a lot of credit for having posted five stakes winners, four of them at group level, among his first set of runners. The significance of this achievement is that, assessed against all first-season sires this century, the Tally-Ho stallion, ranked by group winners, lies second to only the great Frankel, who sired six group winners in his first year back in 2016. And he’s got real quality, too, with Karl Burke’s G1 Prix Morny heroine Venetian Sun topping his list of runners.

Stallions priced from £20,000 to £49,999

Just as they had done a year ago, the Darley pair Too Darn Hot and Blue Point, both with their fourth crop of yearlings at the sales, head this category. First-crop star Falling Angel reminded us of all that is best about Too Darn Hot with two further G1 triumphs in the Matron and Sun Chariot Stakes, while Tornado Alert landed the G1 Grosser Dallmayr Preis, and Princess Margaret Stakes winner Fitzella became the first group winner from his third crop. Blue Point sired 12 stakes winners in 2025, including his first third-crop group winner Samangan, who scored in the G3 Critérium de Maisons-Laffitte. The Shamardal stallion’s best offspring Rosallion also performed well with four G1 placings, beaten a nose, neck and short head in three of them.

Although both Too Darn Hot’s and Blue Point’s average prices were slightly down on last year, they were the only two in this cohort to record £100k-plus medians and the only two with profit percentages above 80 and average/fee multiples of over four. Blue Point remains at a fee of €100k next year, while Too Darn Hot has earned and increase from £90k to £100k.

Stallions priced from £50,000 upwards

Night Of Thunder was the highest climber this year, his average for all yearling sales to the end of Goffs Autumn increasing to £480k from £310k last year. This son of Dubawi has enjoyed a breathtaking year, his tallies of 30 stakes winners and 15 group winners are the best he’s ever had. The Timeform 130-rated Ombudsman was his star attraction alongside 1000 Guineas heroine Desert Flower and his two-year-olds featured G1 Dewhurst scorer Gewan, Timeform’s top-rated European juvenile, plus other group winners Bow Echo, Distant Storm and Hankelow.

Moreover, Night Of Thunder will be crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland this year and will stand for €200,000 next spring. Among our elite £50k-plus cohort, Night Of Thunder boasts not only the highest percentage of profitable years at 91.1% but also the best yearling average to fee multiple of 5.4. Frankel, Dubawi and the recently deceased Wootton Bassett also recorded in-profit percentages of 70% and better.

Meanwhile, Aga Khan Stud’s Zarak marked his entry into the £50k-plus club with 3.3 average/fee multiple, just ahead of Wootton Bassett’s 2.9.