No runners today

No runners in the next couple of days.

It's the year to buy, not sell!

The Hunter Valley is just coming through the other side of one its most successful breeding seasons. Two of the big studs of the world, Sheikh Mohammed's Darley and John Magnier's Coolmore, are having an international battle for racing and breeding dominance, and no more so than in Australia's breeding heartland around Scone.

When the last mare was served late last week, the two powerhouse studs, between them, had nearly 5500 mares covered by 36 stallions.

As the shuttle stallions were led into quarantine on Tuesday – most won't leave until mid-January – the Hunter Valley studs switched their attention from the breeding shed to the yearling barns.

But the joy of the big breeding season, which was coupled with a rain-soaked spring that has even the driest Hunter Valley farms as green as an Augusta fairway, soon diverted to a picture of doom and gloom. Expectations of a prosperous New Year are zero. The word bloodbath, usually associated with the rugby field, is now part of the common talk of the yearling sale vendors. After record years under the auctioneers' gavels, the breeders are expecting the global downturn to hit hard.

I spent the first three days of this week in the Hunter Valley, visiting most of the studs and the yearling sale vendors. They are bracing themselves for a Jonah Lomu-like hit at the Magic Millions, the first of big sales, which kicks off at the Gold Coast complex on January 7. One well-known vendor is expecting to get "only $45,000 to $50,000" for yearlings he would have got $100,000 for in the past two years.

"It will be very hard, especially for those vendors who have debt to service. They will have to take what they can get because they can't afford to take the yearlings home," he said."There are some vendors who have speculated in the weanling market during the year that will be struggling to get anywhere near what they paid for them when the horse goes through as a yearling."

Glen Burrows, from Willow Park, is less pessimistic. "If a vendor hasn't been making good money in the last five years, they have been doing something drastically wrong. We have to take the good with the bad, but I expect that the good yearlings will still sell well," he said.

The buyers are still around, if the number of trainers and agents in the Hunter Valley during the week is any indication. Anthony Freedman was there last week. Agent Steve Brem did the rounds earlier in the week, and other leading agents Vin Cox and Kieran Moore and trainer Peter Morgan crossed paths throughout the week as they went from farm to farm for parades.

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