What were the sales of 20 years ago like? Well Tattersalls staged 10 days of selling at their December Sale and for the third year in a row saw their turnover rise. This time it was by a phenomenal amount, growing by more than eight million guineas to 34,743,120gns and nearly doubling the aggregate of just three years previously.

The highest price for a broodmare at the sale was the 500,000gns paid by Charlie Gordon-Watson for Crystal Spray. He purchased her on behalf of Sir (later Lord) Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Watership Down Stud and she was in foal to Sadler’s Wells. Robert Sangster’s Swettenham Stud sold her as agent for Michael Poland who was, among many other things, the Master of the Isle of Wight Foxhounds.

While her first two living foals were already group winners and Group 1 placed at the time of her sale, she proved to be an inspired investment and the colt she was carrying sold two years later to Demi O’Byrne for 625,000gns, leaving profit immediately. He was named Tchaikovsky and finished third to Montjeu and Daliapour in the Irish Derby. Her subsequent offspring included the Group 1 winning two-year-old Crystal Music and the John Porter Stakes winner Dubai Success.

The second best price for a broodmare was 390,000gns paid by Barbara Facchino of Barouche Stud for Daftiyna, another mare in foal to Sadler’s Wells. The mare had been bought for IR60,000gns the previous year as a filly out of training from the Aga Khan and this time she was sold by John Troy as agent. Mrs Facchino did not get an immediate repayment with the foal she was carrying, but she visited Sadler’s Wells again the following year and that produce realised 850,000gns as a yearling. Daftiyna produced seven winners in all at stud but the best of these were minor stakes winners in Germany and Italy.

The Irish National Stud acted as agent for the sale of Dieter Hofemeier’s Morcote, carrying her first foal by Barathea, and she sold to Cameron Allard, a Canadian breeder, for 235,000gns. She was trained by John Oxx and won the Group 3 C L Weld Park Stakes in the hands of Dermot Hogan. She proved to be a disappointment at stud, though three of her six offspring won.

French trainer John Hammond sold the top-priced filly and horse in training and both realised 250,000gns. The former was the five-year-old El Gran Senor mare Kundalini and she was by then a real globetrotter. She was foaled in the USA but sold as a yearling in Australia. She was bought to race in South Africa and there she was the champion three-year-old, winning the Group 1 Bloodline Classic. Joss Collins of the BBA bought her and at stud she produced just two winners from 11 foals. She is grandam of Diamond Diva, a Grade 2 winner and second in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes, and of the graded South African winner Vengence.

The Stavros Niarchos-owned Silent Warrior was the best priced of the horses in training and the three-year-old son of Nashwan was a Group 3 winner in France. As a half-brother to the Dewhurst Stakes winner Scenic he had some appeal for stud purposes and BBA bought him. He did take up stud duties in South Korea.

Three foals at the sale made 200,000gns or more. Barronstown Stud topped the foal trade with a Sadler’s Wells colt out of Zummerudd and he cost Demi O’Byrne 250,000gns. He turned out to be King Of Kings, winner of the Group 1 Aga Khan Studs National Stakes at two and the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket the following year. He sired a couple of Group 1 winners but he moved about a lot and stood in Australia, America, Switzerland and lastly South Africa.

The second best price was for a filly and that was 240,000gns for a daughter of Last Tycoon out of Royal Sister II. She was a half-sister to two Group 1 winners, Distant Relative and Ezzoud, and was sold by the Monaghan’s The Cottage Stud to Ted Voute. Though she never ran, she featured prominently in 2015 when her son Trip To Paris won the Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup and was fourth in the Melbourne Cup.