BRITISH 2yo RACING First Season Sires for 2014 - Background Information

The table in the second section of this article covers the First Season Sires you should expect to see represented by 2yos in the 2014 season. This section provides details on the information in the table and the links from it.

1.1 Table Links

The table provides links to the 2014 Season Page for the Sire from the Sire's Name, along with a link to a Stud Picture of the subject Sire. The Sire Name of the subject sire's own sire in the second column links to the, most recent, B2yoR Season Page for that sire. The 'Stud Name' in the fourth column opens a new, separate, Browser Tab or Window with the Homepage for that Stud.

1.2 Table Information

Much of the information in the table is self explanatory but a few items need to be noted. The first column gives the horses name and it's height where available. For example the sire Alfred Nobel is 16.0 hands high as given in the table. See the glossary section on this site if you require an explanation of the use of 'hands' in denoting a horse's height. In some cases the height is given in metres where the horse is at stud outside of Britain & Ireland. For comparison 1.60 metres is equivalent to a hands heights of 15.3 (i.e. 160 centimetres is very close to the 63 inches that "15.3hh" represents).

The second column gives the subject sire's own sire.

The 'Location' column gives the Stud at which the sire stands when in Europe for the most part. Note that many of the Coolmore (Magnier, et al) and Darley (Maktoum family) sires will be 'Shuttle Sires' and will move to the Southern Hemisphere (usually Australia which ranks second only to the USA in the total number of foals produced each year) to cover mares outside of the European (i.e. Northern Hemisphere) breeding season. The thoroughbred horse has a gestation period of around 11 months which means that the covering season in the Northern Hemisphere encompasses the period from February through to June. This means the stallion can then be moved to the Southern Hemisphere to cover during their breeding season which is from August through to December. This six month relative 'shift' between the hemispheres means that a 3yo Australian bred sprinter born in, for example, October will be classed as a 4yo if it came to race in Britain because of our January 1st 'birthday' for all thoroughbreds. The Southern Hemisphere group birthday is on July 1st.

The 'Fee' column usually gives the cost of having a mare covered by the stallion in 2014 and not in 2011 when these sires first went to stud (in the Northern Hemisphere). Note that the widespread economic downturn since 2008 has affected thoroughbred breeding as well and most studs have downgraded all their sire covering fees to reflect the depressed economic market. Therefore a downgrade in covering fee during the 2010-3 period may not indicate a sire getting below average results, or getting elderly & unfashionable, as it normally would.

The 'Sales Average/Median' columns give information covering yearlings actually sold at major European sales in 2013. Yearlings which did not reach their reserve price (equals 'Not Sold' and the abbreviation 'ns' used on the B2yoR website) or were bought back by their owners (and therefore 'Retained' with 'rtnd' used as the B2yoR abbreviation) are not included.

For those who do not understand the term 'Median' a short description is useful. The Median figure is produced by ranking all the sire's yearling sales in a list from highest to lowest. The 'middle' figure down this ranking is then chosen as the Median figure. If there are an even number of figures in the list the middle two are chosen, added together and divided by two to get the Median. Why bother with a Median figure? The main reason is that averages can be misleading and distorted by a small number of notably high prices. If a sire has 5 yearlings sold, for example, and four sell for 10,000 gns and one sells for 60,000 gns the average figure is 20,000 gns but 80% of his yearlings made much less than that so it is not a representative figure. The median in the example would be a representative 10,000gns for the 'usual' offspring of the sire. The one that made 60,000gns would have almost certainly been a better physical specimen and better than the normal level from an early age. Comparing the Average and Median figures for the sire gives an indication of how 'consistent' the sales prices were (how small the overall range was).

Note that the averages are given in the archaic 'Guineas' denomination because the major European Auction House (Tattersalls) still sell using them and in Britain this has long been the traditional unit of sale. The 'Guinea' is 'one pound and one shilling' in pre-decimal British currency which equates to £1.05 now. Therefore, a sale at the level of "10,000 guineas" means a pounds sterling value of £10,500 prior to any sales taxes and other costs.

Note that the majority of European Sales now use the Euro (€) as the sales unit and reporting currency. The second biggest British based Auction House (Doncaster Bloodstock Sales) has recently linked up with the Irish based "Goffs" company and now sell in Pounds Sterling (£GBP) while Goffs use Euros for their Irish sales and British Pounds for their Kempton Breeze-up Sale..

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