The Qataris are influencing every aspect of racing

Not having the odd £100,000 to spare, I had never before joined the world’s richest owners and their bloodstock agents at Tattersalls yearling sales. It was my loss. Sheikhs in tracksuits and princes in flat caps mingle with ruddy-faced, padded-jacket consignors. In the sales ring, auctioneers rattle through their machinegun patter: ‘What do you want to get her away?…Here’s a wonderful chance to buy into this family who rarely come up for auction, do I have 100,000?…280,000 will seal the deal…he goes right-handed now at 750,000, any more outside?…The hammer’s up, 280,000 will seal the deal.’ They work through 22 lots an hour (at an average price this year for the Book One sale of 207,501), and all figures are in guineas, not pounds. But with buyers from 50 different countries there is high-tech too: the prices reached are simultaneously flashed up in dollars, euros, Japanese yen and Hong Kong dollars.