THE record-breaking 2021 edition of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 2 provided the bloodstock industry with a most welcome vote of confidence. Any perceived softness at the very top of the market a week earlier was not in evidence from Monday to Wednesday.

Records for turnover, the first time the 50 million guinea threshold was surpassed, average and median were all achieved against a backdrop of a worldwide pandemic, economic uncertainty and the absence of Shadwell. Last year Sheikh Hamdan’s Angus Gold bought 36 lots and spent more than 5.3 million guineas, 10% of this year’s sale aggregate.