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00:00We have witnessed plenty of bidding wars over the last few weeks at the various yearling
00:06sales that have been held in Europe, and while it is always an exciting time to be witness
00:10to these in the sales ring, it can be difficult to identify just who is bidding.
00:15One agent who has been in the fray is Oliver St Lawrence, and he explains to TDN the nuances
00:21of bidding.
00:22An awful lot of inspection, luckily I have someone who marks up the catalogue for me
00:28with all the ratings and distances, so that's a starting point.
00:32And then, yeah, just a lot of the old legwork, wandering, going round and looking at the
00:38horses and trying to see that athletic one that might stand training.
00:43As a generalisation, I don't like to bid too early, I can't see any point in getting in
00:47there too early.
00:49It depends whether I know the reserve or not, I don't often ask reserves, strangely.
00:55Yeah, but I'd probably get in there on the later part of a bid and work from there.
01:00I think if you're working to a strict budget, the vendors are sharp enough, very much sharp
01:07enough to work out what your budget is if you keep stopping it.
01:11Around the 50 mark they know you have a 50 grand order, nothing much more than waving
01:16the catalogue.
01:17I mean, I think a lot of the time the auctioneers and the better spotters, they have an idea
01:24of where you, I think the auctioneers always say that one tends to stand in roughly the
01:29same spots, or a number of spots, so they know you're looking, so to speak, threatening
01:34from that spot.
01:36And if you're actually paying attention, a lot of the time one's sitting there chatting
01:41away to someone rather than paying attention if you're not going to bid.
01:45The bigger lots, definitely a bit of nervousness, or the ones you really want, which may not
01:49necessarily be the bigger one, but the ones you really fancy, a bit of nervousness, are
01:54we going to get it?
01:55Have I valued it right?
01:56Yeah, so there can be a bit of nervousness.
02:00There's probably more nervousness when the horse is making nothing and you're thinking
02:05it's going to make 200 and it's stuck there at 80, and you're thinking, what have I missed?
02:10What's gone wrong?
02:11What's the vet missed?
02:12I'd like to think not so much by the agent, but by the clients, and definitely I've had
02:17clients on the end of the telephone not wanting to be beaten, and going far in excess of the
02:23valuation you put on the horse.
02:26Todd Watt, when Todd was on the roster at Tassels, and I used to buy a lot of horses
02:32for Hungary, and I had an order for Hungary to buy, I can't remember, 10 cheap, staying
02:39fillies, two-year-old fillies, but with staying pedigrees.
02:41It was a horse and training sale, pulling them out the bottom of the ring, and having
02:45a look at them, and then going in and bidding, and I thought, well, this filly's got to average
02:49something massive, like 3,000, and I thought, well, she's going to make far too much, so
02:54I won't follow her in the ring.
02:56I could hear Todd on the rostrum going, 700, 700, anyone give me 800, and I ran up from
03:02the bottom of the Tassels ring and ran into the ring, waving my catalogue furiously, and
03:10he kept on, Todd was my best man, he was obviously a good mate of mine, and he kept on going
03:18like this, and I looked up at the scoreboard at Tassels, and said, box walker, weaver,
03:23everything, cribbiter, I should have just cancelled the bid, and there was Shadwell's,
03:30but instead I said to Todd, around the ring, I ended up buying her, and sending her down
03:36to Asketsale as my property, because I couldn't send her out to Hungary.