GER Lyons is never usually shy about speaking his mind, and some interesting comments he made in The Irish Field earlier this year have stuck in my head throughout 2025.

In an engaging edition of The Big Interview with Mark Costello in May, the multiple Group 1-winning trainer was asked about where bloodstock value currently lies given how yearling and breeze-up prices have gone through the roof at many sales in recent times.

“There’s no value,” Lyons said. “Let me put it in perspective for you. All the breeze-up lads struggled to buy yearlings last year, which resulted in a large proportion of breeze-up horses this year being the equivalent of Book 3 horses.

“Now you’ve seen the nonsense that went on at the breeze-ups. I will bet that at the end of this season a lot of those top lots are going to seem very expensive.

“That’s not me being negative. The breeze-up guys are to be commended. They have made a market out of nothing. But just go back to where those horses were sourced. Some of them have no pedigrees. The biggest blacktype on the page was the lot number!

“Now I will tell you what’s really conflicting about this. If I have a two-year-old run well or even win a maiden somebody will ring up and they’ll say ‘We’ll offer you 250 for it’. When I say ‘no’ they’ll say, ‘Well, we’ll have to see it run again’. And I’ll go ‘You didn’t need to see the breezers run more than two furlongs and you’re giving half a million for them, you f***ing idiots.’

“Again, I’m not being negative. You’ll say those buyers are keeping the sport going and that’s 100%. But at the end of the day do your homework. Come back to me at the end of the year and tell me there was 12 horses rated 100-plus that came out of one of this year’s breeze-up sales and I’ll admit I was wrong.

“There will be exceptions to the rule but the problem is that the winner’s enclosure has taken a back seat to the sales ring. And until that is rectified the game is in trouble. The Holy Grail has to be the winner’s enclosure, not the sales ring.”

After reading those remarks back in May, I set a reminder in my calendar for this week to look into the results of this year’s breezers, assessing how they fared come the end of 2025.

Judging ability

Before getting into the nitty gritty of what the numbers highlighted, to be fair to all parties, it would be unfair to be black and white about whether a horse is a success or not based solely on what they have achieved at two. There is always the potential for horses to progress at three and beyond.

Still, Ger’s comments were about checking in on the record of the latest batch of breezers at the end of this season. That’s his theory for 2025.

The scope to go through every single breeze-up purchase in Ireland, Britain and France over the course of the year, picking through their individual profiles one by one to find which horses broke the 100-mark, was unfortunately beyond my limitations this week, but it seemed Ger’s issue was mainly with horses being “very expensive”.

With that in mind, I went through the sales results in 2025 for each horse sold for 100,000gns+ at the Tattersalls Craven or Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up Sales, €100,000+ at the Tattersalls Ireland or Arqana May Breeze-Up Sales, or £100,000+ at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale.

When excluding the lots who reached six-figures but were bought back by their vendors or went unsold, the total number of horses meeting this criteria was 209.

Of that pool, 72 had either most likely not run or else raced in a jurisdiction that is not accessible on the Racing Post, Horse Racing Ireland, British Horseracing Authority or France Galop databases - 34% of the total.

Triple-figure heights

What about the 137 who have run, though? How many of those have threatened to reach the 100 level mentioned by Lyons?

When taking the highest Racing Post Ratings posted by these horses in their careers, only three runners sold for six figures or more - 2.2% of the pool - managed to run to a triple-digit RPR in 2025:

The chosen trio are: Newmarket Group 3 winner Distant Storm (sold for €1.9 million from Copper Beech Stables to Godolphin at Arqana/RPR 113), Group 2 Rockfel Stakes heroine Zanthos (€1 million purchase from Kildaragh Stud to Stroud Coleman Bloodstock at Arqana/RPR 105) and Lowther Stakes second America Queen (€180,000 buy from Greenhills Farm to Rabbah Bloodstock at Tattersalls Ireland/RPR 103).

Of the 137 horses sold for six figures, three won blacktype races (a listed, Group 3 and Group 2 contest). Again, that equates to a 2.2% strike rate. Just 10 earned blacktype of any description on those recognised databases (7.5%).

Many breeze-up horses often come with the reputation of being at an advantage over other two-year-olds in terms or readiness early in the season, albeit these juveniles come in all shapes and sizes. For example, breeze-up sales at Tattersalls have yielded fast sprinters like Vandeek, as well as long-distance aces like Trueshan in recent seasons.

How many of this year’s most expensive breezers won first-time-out, though? That return came in at 17.5%, with a total of 24 debut winners (side note - four of the top nine lots at Arqana did click at the first attempt).

In total, 64 out of the 137 in this sample - less than half - won a race of any description in 2025 after going through a breeze-up sale for six figures or more and making it to the track. That percentage could look a lot worse, too, if you factor in those who have yet to run.

Finally, a note on the highest RPRs that these horses managed to run to so far in 2025. The average peak RPR for 2025’s most expensive breezers was 77 (median of 79). Is that really a satisfactory return?

There is no question that high-class horses can emerge from this breeze-up space - and they will absolutely continue to do so. There are too many excellently-skilled horsemen and women operating in the field for it not to be a successful avenue for producing smart stock.

On the flip side of these figures, there are bound to have been value breezers slip through the net. Take Dewhurst Stakes winner Gewan, for example, who changed hands for just €80,000 after the Arqana May Breeze-Up Sale. He would have cost many, many multiples of that when joining Zhang Yuesheng privately after winning the Acomb Stakes.

However, the figures at the top end of this year’s breeze-ups indicate there was certainly a hint of truth in what Ger Lyons felt was happening at these sales earlier this year. Whether some of those who spent big and didn’t get the results they wanted will return to the ring quite as strongly next season will be well worth watching.