WORKING at a bloodstock auction house there’s a line used regularly – that of a sales horse versus a racehorse. Many years ago I was reminded by a vendor that I should have taken his gelding. (He clearly had held on to it for some time.) His gelding, who I had not accepted for the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale, had subsequently won six races including being placed in a Grade 3 chase.

When I asked him how that horse had sold as a three-year-old at another sales venue he told me quietly that the gelding had made €4,000.