Tailwind or headwind? Breeze-ups around the world
The 2023 Australasian breeze-up sales season kicked off yesterday in Sydney and By The Numbers takes a look at how two-year-old sales have evolved globally in recent years.
The combined spend across Australia’s two breeze-up sales, hosted by Inglis and Magic Millions, reached an all-time high of $23.5 million in 2022, as record investment elsewhere in the bloodstock market powered interest in two-year-old stock.
This year, judging on the results from yesterday’s Inglis Ready2Race Sale, the market is set to cool, but that needs to be seen in the context of how the breeze-up model has evolved in Australia over the past decade. Spending on the two sales doubled from 2012 to 2022, while the average price of a two-year-old went up 296 per cent.
It is, however, still a relatively small part of the Australian bloodstock market. In 2012, 8.2 per cent of the total numbers of weanlings, yearlings and two-year-olds combined sold at public auction in Australia were two-year-olds. Last year that proportion dropped to just 4.1 per cent.
Overall investment in the two-year-old sales in 2022 was 3.3 per cent of that overall market. In 2012, the figure was 3.9 per cent and reached a record high of 4.74 per cent in 2016.
Those numbers indicate that breeze-up catalogues have become more focussed on quality as more stock which would be classified middle or lower end has been sent through online markets rather than through public auction.
This ‘quality’ filter is the main reason why the total number of horses sold at the two Australian two-year-old breeze-up auctions fell from 464 in 2012 to 248 in 2022, despite investment doubling.
Australian breeze-up sale results by year
| Year | Total sold | Aggregate | Average |
| 2022 | 248 | $23,545,500 | $94,942 |
| 2021 | 201 | $18,201,071 | $90,553 |
| 2020 | 245 | $18,295,000 | $74,673 |
| 2019 | 328 | $21,076,550 | $64,258 |
| 2018 | 255 | $18,575,500 | $72,845 |
| 2017 | 332 | $17,657,300 | $53,185 |
| 2016 | 426 | $22,486,350 | $52,785 |
| 2015 | 332 | $15,850,000 | $47,741 |
| 2014 | 447 | $16,148,425 | $36,126 |
| 2013 | 386 | $14,484,700 | $37,525 |
| 2012 | 464 | $11,134,600 | $23,997 |
New Zealand’s two-year-old sales market is a much more significant part of its industry. In 2022, it made up 24.5 per cent of public auction investment (across yearlings/weanling/two-year-olds combined) and 19.7 per cent of horses sold.
Those figures are very similar to a decade ago, when 19.9 per cent of total yearlings/weanlings/two-year-olds sold at public auction in New Zealand went through New Zealand Bloodstock’s Ready To Run Sale. That sale represented 18.8 per cent of overall investment in those three categories. In 2017, that two-year-old proportion of investment peaked at 27.7 per cent.
What has been notable in the past two years in New Zealand is that the average price at the Ready To Run Sale was around 25 per cent higher than the overall average price of yearlings/weanlings/two-year-olds sold at public auction.
That has peaked considerably from the pre-pandemic era. In 2018, the breeze-up sale average was an eight per cent discount to the overall average.
In comparison, in the past decade, Australia, which sells about 4.8 times the stock through public auction, has never had a year where the two-year-old sales average has exceeded the overall average for yearlings/weanlings/two-year-olds sold at public auction. The high-water mark was in 2021 when the average two-year-old price was 81.5 per cent of the rest of that market.
It follows then that the average price of a New Zealand-purchased breeze-up two-year-old in the past decade is much higher than it has been in Australia. New Zealand’s average is NZ$94,725, while Australia is AU$53,890. Accounting for a currency conversion of 1.06, that is a 75.8 per cent premium.
Comparing that to all yearling, weanling and two-year-olds sold at auction in that time, the average in that instance is in Australia’s favour by 4.3 per cent.
New Zealand breeze-up sale results by year
| Year | Total sold | Aggregate ($NZ) | Average ($NZ) |
| 2022 | 198 | $25,293,000 | $127,742 |
| 2021 | 185 | $21,380,500 | $115,570 |
| 2020 | 194 | $18,169,500 | $93,657 |
| 2019 | 265 | $23,825,500 | $89,908 |
| 2018 | 258 | $24,647,000 | $95,531 |
| 2017 | 293 | $31,371,000 | $107,068 |
| 2016 | 294 | $28,433,000 | $96,711 |
| 2015 | 260 | $23,569,500 | $90,652 |
| 2014 | 239 | $19,181,500 | $80,257 |
| 2013 | 229 | $18,247,500 | $79,683 |
| 2012 | 245 | $17,852,000 | $72,865 |
The breeze-up sale concept has its genesis in the United States, which remains the most lucrative of any two-year-old market in the world. In 2022, US$229 million changed hands at American two-year-old sales. That was a record, and just the fourth time ever that the total spend had surpassed US$200 million.
A total of 2,476 two-year-olds sold at public auction in the United States last year, at a record average of US$92,613. A decade ago, in 2012, the average price at those sales was $57,232, meaning the average has jumped 61.8 per cent.
In 2022, the American two-year-old market represented 23.8 per cent of investment in the US market across weanlings, yearlings and two-year-olds, having 22.4 per cent of the sold horses.
This is largely consistent with the percentages we saw in 2012, 24.5 per cent of investment and 22.42 per cent of overall numbers sold.
There has been just one year since 2007 where the average price of an American two-year-old breeze-up horse has fallen below the overall average for yearlings, weanlings and two-year-olds. That was back in 2011, when it was 99.6 per cent.
Last year that figure stood at 106.16 per cent, while it peaked in 2017 when buyers paid a 22.75 per cent premium for two-year-olds at public auction compared to the overall average.
The continuing strength of the American two-year-old breeze-up market has proven the envy of Australia, but New Zealand’s market representation, in terms of percentages in that space, is very similar.
Europe (including Great Britain and Ireland) is the other major two-year-old market, with £42.9 million (standardised from euros) spent last year, up from £41.3 million the previous year and £28.4 during the pandemic-impacted 2020 season.
There were 747 two-year-olds sold at public auction in Europe last year compared to 2,476 in the United States, 248 in Australia and 198 in New Zealand.
Only 7.3 per cent of young horses sold in Europe went through the two-year-old sales, which made up for 8.1 per cent of total investment in the weanling, yearling and two-year-old markets.
The average price of a European-bought breeze-up horse in 2022 was £57,475 or 10.48 per cent higher than the overall average price across weanlings, yearlings and two-year-olds.
Japan does have a breeze-up market, making up around seven per cent of the total market for weanlings/foals/two-year-olds. The average price of those two-year-olds is about 32 per cent the combined average of weanlings/foals/two-year-olds.
It means that Japan and Australia are the only major markets where the average price of a breeze-up two-year-old is consistently less than that overall market for young horses.
While that is a tribute to the faith that Australian buyers put in the yearling market, it also speaks to the opportunities for growth in the local breeze-up market, despite the step back in terms of investment in 2023 we saw yesterday.
2022 two-year-old breeze-up sales by location
| Location | Number of horses sold | Total spend ($AU) | % of overall horses sold | % of overall spend |
| United States | 2,476 | $357,704,419 | 22.40% | 23.78% |
| Europe | 747 | $81,903,285 | 7.30% | 8.07% |
| Australia | 248 | $23,545,500 | 4.13% | 3.31% |
| New Zealand | 198 | $26,810,580 | 19.72% | 24.54% |
*overall horses/spend is compared to all weanling, yearlings and two-year-olds sold at public auction in that year
*Spend converted into AU$ for comparative purposes
