STRONG trade in the upper echelons of the sale masked the slight disappointment of a drop in the median as the hammer fell at the end of the BBAG Yearling Sale on Friday last. The figures were more in line with the trade in Baden-Baden two years ago,

Seven yearlings sold for €200,000 or more this year compared to just three 12 months ago, while the top price of €500,000 was well up on last year’s best of €400,000. The clearance rate also improved.

The sole Sea The Stars offering was a half-sister to the Group 1 Preis von Europa winner Empoli, from the family of dual Premio Roma winner Elle Danzig. The filly was the most significant purchase made during the day by Markus Jooste of Mayfair Speculators, acting with Peter and Ross Doyle Bloodstock. Mayfair Speculators ended as the leading buyers at the sale by some distance, spending some €1,459,000.

Soldier Hollow was the most represented sire at the sale and three of his offspring sold for €240,000 or more. Leading that trio was Gestut Rottgen’s half-sister to two stakes-placed runners. Knocked down for €300,000 to Jamie Railton, she was purchased for Manfred Ostermann.

Rottgen also sold the best priced colt at the sale, a son of Soldier Hollow for €250,000 to Jeremy Brummitt. The colt will be heading to England. He is the first foal of the multiple group-placed Dalakhani mare Wilddrossel and her half-sister Wild Coco won the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes and was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille.

Ronald Rauscher prepared Gestut Schlenderhan’s colt out of the Monsun mare Astilbe and he caught the eye of the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Mark Richards, the most expensive of his three purchases at €240,000. Later in the sale Richards’ bid of €200,000 secured Gestut Fahrhof’s son of Iffraaj.

Two colts from the first crop of Maxios, by the sale’s leading consignor Gestut Brummerhof sold well. A half-brother to the stakes winner Wildpark, out of a group-placed half-sister to the Grade 1 Man O’War Stakes winner Wake Forest, sold to Ronald Rauscher for €220,000, acting for Australian Bloodstock.

Mayfair Speculators and the Doyles secured the second produce of the listed winning Oasis Dream mare Waldtraut for €240,000. The dam was also placed in both the German Oaks and 1000 Guineas.

As the sale ended BBAG assistant manager Klaus Eulenberger said; “Obviously, to have achieved a top price of €500,000, the highest for some while, is tremendous, but it is not only the top end, which has undoubtedly prospered, that is reassuring, but the strong middle market, which has taken in many home-based purchasers, that has really pleased me. We have had a very varied selection of buyers, some who have come here for many years, others, for example several new faces from Scandinavia, who are coming for the first time, as well as several from Eastern Europe who have had bigger budgets.”