Tattersalls Derby Sale vendors blocking scoping of NH stores.

The Telegraph 30th June 2013 by Charlie Brooks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/horseracing/10151770/Breeding-industrys-drive-for-profit-led-to-worrying-events-at-the-Tattersalls-Derby-sale-at-Fairyhouse.html

Breeding industry's drive for profit led to worrying events at the Tattersalls Derby sale at Fairyhouse
In the good old days, only the aristocracy and assorted members of the Royal family bred racehorses. They gambled, drank and generally frittered their lives away. But they were jolly good at breeding racehorses. Then the merchants and socially ambitious spivs got into the sport of kings, and it all started to go wrong.

The toffs may have produced plenty of inbred daughters themselves, but they knew better than to breed from fillies that were not suitable for racing. It did not matter if their brother had won the Derby; if a filly made a noise when it galloped, they shot it. Which, of course, was the responsible thing to do. (If the Russian royal family had done the same thing they would still be in charge now.)

But the social-climbing rich commoners, who had the audacity to join in the fun, were keen to recoup their investment. So, when they got a well-bred filly with problems, they got her in foal and sold her to some mug instead of dispatching her to the paddocks in the sky. Probably for the price of a top-class mistress.

So, if you wind the clock forward 300 years, you will understand why the racehorse population is not as robust as it used to be.

And, boy, did that come radically into focus last week.

The Tattersalls Derby sale at Fairyhouse has for a long time been considered the pre-eminent source of National Hunt talent in Europe. Indeed, last week £250,000 was paid for a magnificent Robin des Champs gelding from the family of Quantitativeeasing. But he was not bought for his stud potential. He was purchased to gallop up the Cheltenham hill in front of his rivals one March.


But a very dark development overshadowed the Derby sale this year. What can only be described as a lynch mob of vendors got together and effectively hijacked the sale and instructed fellow vendors via text message that purchasers would not be allowed to independently investigate the soundness of the horses’ wind mechanisms being offered for sale.

Eleven million euros was spent on roughly 350 horses offered for sale, and yet the vendors were unashamedly obstructing purchasers who wanted to do everything possible to narrow down the percentages of buying a horse that would not be fit for purpose, as far as its breathing was concerned.

The investigative process is very straightforward for purchasers who are prepared to go to the expense of having their own vet at a sale. The vet has a piece of equipment called an endoscope, which is passed, via a nostril, into the horse’s trachea. It is not painful and it can be done very quickly. This allows assessment of the whole upper respiratory tract comprising the nasal passages, pharynx and larynx. Abnormalities are associated with poor performance in racehorses due to reduced airflow.

One can only surmise from the vendors’ behaviour that they must think they might have something to hide. But whatever the rights and wrongs as to how much scrutiny these horses should be put under before they are sold, what was unforgivable last week was the Arthur Scargill-style union bullying strong arming of vendors who were relaxed about letting the purchasers have full access to their horses. Mental coercion was certainly used. It was made clear to the potential scabs that, if they broke ranks, there would be ‘displeasure’. What happens next will be interesting. Tattersalls has allowed itself to be boxed into a situation where ‘scoping’ is accepted as the norm at their sales in Newmarket, but not in Ireland. And yet they maintain their conditions of sale are the same throughout.

They know that their most important clients — the vendors who put up the horses for sale, rather than the people who write out the cheques for the horses — are divided on this. They are also aware that they are competing with the other major auction company in Ireland, Goffs, to attract the best bloodstock to sell. So, any decision about future conduct will be both commercial and moral.

The solution is obvious. It should be a free world. Every seller of racehorses should be allowed to grant whatever access to their horse they wish. Unfettered by the lynch mob.