2005 End of Year Statement

We have enjoyed a particularly lively trade on our last Doncaster Sales day of the year with fierce competition throughout the day from a large and diverse crowd, an excellent top price of 100,000 guineas and a rise in average of 26.5%.

I confess that we were disappointed with yesterday for two main reasons. Firstly, the sale was competing with Goffs Foal Sales in Ireland and Arqana in France and it is a real frustration that people are pulled in so many different directions. The Doncaster November Sales has occupied this week for as long as I can remember but little account seems to be taken of this history when others set their sales dates. We will be speaking to Tattersalls, Goffs and Arqana representatives to try and find a solution. We may have to clash with one sale but we are not going to clash with two. We used to enjoy a clear week as there were four weeks between Tattersalls Horses in Training and December Sales. The gap reduced to three weeks a couple of years ago (resulting in "December" Sales finishing on 1 December this year!) whilst Goffs have expanded. There must be a solution somewhere as we know people who wanted to come to us but could not and people who were with us and would like to have been elsewhere as well.

Our other frustration related to the horse MCKELVEY (Lot 105) yesterday whom we promoted vigorously as a potential sales topper when his entry was confirmed only for him to be withdrawn within half an hour of his sale as the owners "changed their mind". Whilst we respect any owners' decision regarding their horses, it makes us look rather foolish when we go out of our way to attract people to our sale for a particular horse, for the horse to turn up and be inspected only for a change of heart to give us no chance of achieving a proper price.

Notwithstanding these two minor irritations, it was most appropriate to finish on a high note today as 2006 has proved to be the best year in DBS' forty-four year history with a record turnover (at Doncaster) of 37,001,040 guineas which rose by 20% and a record average of 13,061 guineas which was up 11%. Of course, we still have the DBS NH Breeze-Up Sales at Cheltenham on 8 December to come.

Our three flagship sales all returned record figures. The Breeze-Up Sales average has risen by 165% since 2000 and enjoyed a very impressive 81% clearance rate. There may have been fireworks elsewhere this year but the Doncaster Breeze-Up is a consistently solid sale and more than proved it's worth becoming the first to sell a Classic winner when SPECIOSA won the 1000 Guineas. Top two year old WI DUD illustrates that there is continuing quality on offer at Europe's Leading Breeze-Up for winners which will enjoy totally fresh ground on which to breeze in 2007 as there will have been no racing at Doncaster for eighteen months.

The Spring Sales confirmed its' position as the World's Premier National Hunt Sales by selling the World's top National Hunt price of the year for the fifth consecutive year during a three lot purple patch that totalled 780,000 guineas. The strength of the Store sales was illustrated by a record median that rose 9% and another impressive clearance rate of 81%.

The St. Leger Yearling Sales is surely the success story of the Bloodstock World and rose again for the ninth consecutive year - the only major European Yearling Sales with this to it's credit. The 30% rise in average included fourteen six figure lots and the record median proved the second highest at a British Yearling Sale in 2006. We are excited by our plans for next year with the St. Leger Yearling Sales 1 on the corresponding days at the end of August and St. Leger Yearling Sales 2 on the traditional dates during the St. Leger Festival.

These are exciting times for DBS. We are regularly returning premium prices for a whole range of horses and our graduates are consistently winning at the highest level. I fully expect to finally be in a position to make an announcement that work has started on our new Sales Complex in the very near future and we firmly believe that this massive DBS investment will herald the start of a new dawn for the Company. We remain indebted to every Vendor and every Purchaser, however big or small, and I assure them that the personal service that has been the hallmark of DBS for so many years will only be enhanced from our new premises next year.

Annual Comparative Figures