A man holding a mallee root will begin a ritual next Tuesday morning that has been performed in a backstreet of Randwick for more than a century.
He will cajole a hopeful crowd with a couple of minutes of high-speed patter, wave his arms and point and shout and then smack the gnarled old root against the bench in front of him – and the first dream of the week will be sold.
Before the Australian Easter Yearling Sale concludes at the William Inglis and Son saleyards, the routine will be repeated some 500 times.
Inglis auctioneer Peter Heagney, who will knock down the first yearlings through the ring, describes the atmosphere of a big sale as “wonderful theatre”.
“It’s as exhilarating now as when I sold my his first horse 35 years ago,” Mr Heagney said.
“There is emotion, expectation, nerves – you’re dealing with people’s hopes and aspirations.”
The performance in the sale ring can be a drama, a comedy, a tragedy or, sometimes, a mystery.
It can be unclear who you are bidding against, if anyone, or who your opponent is bidding for, or why they are bidding.
What is clear is that when the old mallee root smacks against the bench, you pay your money and hope for the best.
At last year’s Easter sale the Inglis auctioneers sold 311 of the best-bred yearlings in Australia and New Zealand for $74.13 million.
For some of the buyers of those equine babies, their dreams will be fulfilled.
For others, who will pay more for a horse than they would for a house, it will be the beginning of a nightmare.
Of the 10,000-or-so yearlings to be sold by Australia’s two biggest auction houses throughout the year, fewer than half will produce any return on their owners’ investment.
The trouble is, no one knows which is the good half.
In the days before the sale the wise and practised horse people will try to work it out.
They’ll run their hands down the legs of the animals they fancy, examining the tendons and joints.
They’ll watch their selections walk and trot from behind, in front and both sides.
They’ll look into their eyes for a clue to their character, and examine X-rays of each horse’s legs that are now a compulsory requirement of Australian sales.
Australia’s greatest living trainer Bart Cummings has a better record than most at picking a young horse but he acknowledges it’s far from an exact science.
“Some people have an eye for it, some don’t,” Cummings said.
“You need to look at the pedigree of the mare and look at what her foals have done but maybe the most important thing is patience.
“It’s the cheapest and the most important thing in the whole venture, but sadly it’s the least used.”
This year’s Easter sale, however, has one youngster that is bound to attract a multi-million dollar gamble that has a better chance of coming off than most.
Lot 200 in the Inglis catalogue, a bay filly by Redoute’s Choice from Helsinge, is a member of one of the best and most dependable thoroughbred families ever seen in this country.
The filly’s big sister is the world champion sprinter Black Caviar, her eldest brother is a colt called Moshe who won three of his only five starts and her only other sibling to race is the outstanding two-year-old All Too Hard.
While the odds look good for Helsinge’s latest offering, this is a business in which good genes go missing mysteriously and regularly.
The most money ever paid for a thoroughbred yearling is the $US13.1 million paid in Kentucky in 1985 for a colt sired by the greatest progenitor of modern times, Northern Dancer.
He raced as Seattle Dancer and won two minor races, returning his owners around $US150,000.
He at least proved a better buy than the yearling for whom Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai paid $US10.2 million in 1984.
Christened Snaafi Dancer, he proved so embarrassingly slow he never ran in public.
Sadly, he couldn’t perform in private either, his stud career ending almost as it began.
In Australia the most paid for a thoroughbred yearling is $3 million, the figure having been set at the Inglis Easter sale of 2006, and repeated in 2007.
One was bought by the South African trainer Charles Laird, the other by Sydney’s Gai Waterhouse.
Both horses turned out comparative flops, winning one race each.
Inglis managing director Mark Webster isn’t expecting prices to soar to such heady heights in Sydney next week.
But he is confident that in an industry hit heavily by the global financial downturn, both the breeders of the horses to be offered and those who buy them will get the best value for money available.
“I believe we’re through the worst of the financial crisis,” Mr Webster said.
“But at the same time we are realistically expecting growth to be around five per cent.”
Like many industries, the bloodstock business has been affected negatively by the strength of the Australian dollar.
But Mr Webster says international buyers from Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa and Europe are already in Sydney looking at the yearlings.
“The exchange rate makes a difference but when it comes to value for money, we have a very good product, as good or better than anywhere in the world.”
Australia’s resources boom is also expected to invigorate the sale with Mr Webster predicting some additional mining money to join that of coal-mining magnate and prominent racehorse owner Nathan Tinkler.
They will be heartened to know that the prizemoney available in Australian racing has doubled in the past 20 years to $428 million.
Against that there are some 32,000 registered racehorses of which 20,000 will never win.
