MORE than 60 trainers train in and around Newmarket and most are there for Newmarket’s incomparable facilities, with extensive grass gallops and a huge variety of all-weather surfaces.
Tattersalls brings the bloodstock market place to the trainers which makes the town a real hub of European racing. When trainer’s strings expand or contract, they often need to move yards, and wish to keep the process out of the public eye until everything is signed and sealed.
The market is seasonal, governed by the sales cycle, and come September trainers want to be able to tell their prospective owners where their valuable purchase is to be trained.
This year there have been quite a few moves, particularly among the younger trainers. The rents being paid always vary, but few yards will be let for less than £1,000/box per year and some let for £1,500/box per year. Generally, trainers need to be thinking at least six months ahead when looking for a yard. Allow two months to look round, two months for the legal work and two months to organise the move. It can take less for a short-term arrangement of a few months, but often there is a rush at the end.
Values
In Newmarket there is a wide variation in values between the Bury Side – dominated by easy access to Warren Hill, and the racecourse side. A likely budget of £30,000 a box would be needed for the former and £20,000 a box for the latter; however, condition is vital – yards are expensive to refurbish.
The purchase of a yard can be a real stalk. Currently on the Bury Side one yard, Shalfleet is on the open market now that Charlie Fellowes’s St Gatien Cottage is under offer, following his own move to Bedford House.
A trainer will often fine down his or her search to a select few properties and then has to wait for one of them to come available, but on the other hand many of the sellers don’t want it to be known that they would want to sell. That is where Windsor Clive, the agency for training yards and stud farms throughout Western Europe, comes in.
The specialist agent can receive a call from the seller, and may have a long wait before the perfect buyer appears. Conversely the agent can tell buyers where to concentrate the search and where not to waste time and effort.
Newmarket stud farms are similarly reliant on their position, the quality of the ground and their condition. In the last year one stud farm sold for £38,000/acre and another, on paper very similar, sold for £20,000/acre. When there are moves to bring a major stud farm to the market it is usually some time before it will be publicly available, particularly if a discreet sale is preferred.
Again, if looking for a stud farm, contact a specialist agent who knows what is going on. In a world where confidentiality is important, sales can happen and catch the keen buyer unawares.
In the last year four good stud farms have changed hands, two of them in the Newmarket area, and this autumn there are some well-known stud farms quietly available for the right purchaser, or indeed tenant.
Contact details
Windsor Clive International Ltd
+ 44 (0) 1672 521155
www.windsorclive.co.uk
info@windsorclive.co.uk